Kevon Felmine

Give props to KI Per­sad for turn­ing a trag­ic sto­ry in­to $2 mil­lion.The lyrics to KI's hit song Run­away tell a sad tale: "Last year I went on tour but I did not want to stay, so I leave my band to play, and when I came back, my wife run away."But just as in the se­mi-fi­nal, KI flipped the trag­i­cal­ly ro­man­tic num­ber, fus­ing it with a so­ca beat that had fe­male fans climb­ing on­to the fences to get clos­er to the stage.

The dar­ing per­for­mance start­ed with his ar­rival on a plane filled with beau­ti­ful air host­esses, which sig­nalled that he had just came back from a world tour. The set fea­tured py­rotech­nic gloves and cli­maxed with the cham­pi­on crowd­surf­ing on a float.It was his sec­ond ti­tle in three years. Again, it was no doubt his en­er­getic and the­atri­cal stageshow that scored high on the judges' tal­ly and text vote sys­tems.

Emo­tions ran high for KI, whose eyes be­came teary as he re­turned to the stage hoist­ed on the shoul­ders of his ador­ing sup­port­ers af­ter he was an­nounced as 2014's first ma­jor monarch.So in­tense was the com­pe­ti­tion, KI said, that he was shak­ing while the re­sults were be­ing an­nounced.In ac­cept­ing his crown, he had a spe­cial mes­sage for his fans."Thank you for mak­ing it hap­pen for us and giv­ing us that ex­tra push by ac­tu­al­ly nam­ing us flag bear­ers of our cul­ture, to go out there and rep­re­sent you all."

He al­so paid trib­ute to his fa­ther, JMC 3veni leader Veren­dra Per­sad, say­ing the vic­to­ry was on­ly pos­si­ble through him.

No Run­away

KI's was no run­away vic­to­ry, how­ev­er. Twen­ty artistes per­formed their hearts out on a cold night at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, and Per­sad was list­ed 19th in the or­der of ap­pear­ance.He fought off stiff com­pe­ti­tion from two for­mer mon­archs to cop the ti­tle. At the end of the marathon ses­sion, his per­for­mance was good enough to leave six-time monarch Rik­ki Jai ( Sam­raj Jaimun­gal) and crowd favourite Ravi B (Ravi Bis­sem­b­har) shar­ing $800,000 in a tie for sec­ond place.

Com­ing in fin­ished fourth and fifth re­spec­tive­ly were the com­i­cal Ken­neth Su­per­sad, who sang, The Bull and KI's fel­low JMC 3veni vo­cal­ist Nishard Mehru with, Mamy Say. Ravi B gen­er­at­ed much ex­cite­ment dur­ing his per­for­mance of his pop­u­lar hit, Bread. Per­form­ing first on the night, Ravi B de­light­ed with mag­ic tricks, py­rotech­nics and a touch­ing trib­ute to his moth­er, Mar­garet Bis­sem­b­har, who ap­peared on stage with him.

His cre­ative and en­ter­tain­ing pre­sen­ta­tion fea­tured six dancers dress as bak­ers, moko jumbie bak­ers, walk­ing slices of bread that formed a loaf. Even fans in the au­di­ence waved loaves of bread and bags of buns while gy­rat­ing through­out his per­for­mance.

It seemed that those who had the best stage per­for­mances were favoured as Rik­ki Jai's per­for­mance cel­e­brat­ed lo­cal cul­ture. His por­tray­al in­clud­ed East In­di­an and Chi­nese Dancers to­geth­er with a choir. His song and pre­sen­ta­tion was a trib­ute to the chut­ney so­ca art form and its per­form­ers, even la­belling fel­low artiste Dru­patee Ram­goon­ai as the chut­ney queen and Sun­day Popo as the Fa­ther of Chut­ney.

In re­cent years, chut­ney so­ca artistes have faced crit­i­cism for the lyri­cal con­tents of songs as most chose to sing about rum. How­ev­er, this year's pre­sen­ta­tion showed dif­fer­ent as­pects of lo­cal cul­tures and was laced with pi­cong.

Ken­neth Su­per­sad's The Bull had the crowd laugh­ing more than win­ing with his con­no­ta­tive song, which ex­plained his quest to find his lost bulls be­fore re­turn­ing to his farm. First timer Olatun­ji Year­wood's dou­ble en­ten­dre, Fete Ram, was al­so filled of laugh­ter as he ex­plained his de­ci­sions not to at­tend a fete that his ma­com­ere's (Aunt) male com­pan­ion was throw­ing.

Singing, "Too many peo­ple in ma­com­ere man's thing," he had most of the au­di­ence in stitch­es when he sang Machel Mon­tano, Bun­ji Gar­lin, Ravi B, Snakey and KI were "in ma­com­ere man's thing."

Rick Ra­moutar, who in­clud­ed so­ca artiste Denise Bel­fon in his per­for­mance, sang an en­ter­tain­ing dance song, while Snakey (Heav­en Charles) and Sal­ly Sagram served up a raunchy per­for­mances to the de­light of the au­di­ence.

Few faults

Al­though many dubbed the show a suc­cess, sev­er­al con­tro­ver­sial mo­ments needs to be looked at by the show pro­mot­ers. At 2.45 am when the fi­nal per­former Kavi­ta Ma­haraj walked on to per­form, she in­clud­ed her tod­dler as part of her pre­sen­ta­tion in the al­ready cold sa­van­nah as a stage which in­clud­ed fire­works and haze ma­chines. Both Olatun­ji Year­wood and Ken­neth Su­per­sad were hu­mor­ous­ly en­ter­tain­ing but some of their com­ments dur­ing the show were bor­der­ing on of­fen­sive.

Su­per­sad, a co­me­di­an, called out a se­ri­ous of names, sug­gest­ing that came look­ing for bull. Year­wood, who walked out on stage smok­ing a cig­ar left some of the ho­mo­sex­u­al pa­trons per­turbed with his con­no­ta­tion of "ma­com­ere man." Resh­ma Ram­lal, who per­formed in sec­ond po­si­tion, al­so sang two min­utes of her song with the mi­cro­phone mut­ed. De­spite this, the show was safe and en­joy­able with no in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence and safe­ty con­cerns.