The best play­ing steel, chut­ney and so­ca bands in T&T will be ho­n­oured among a host of reg­gae and world mu­sic awardees at the 30th edi­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Reg­gae and World Mu­sic Awards (IRAW­MAs). This, even as an­tic­i­pa­tion con­tin­ues to grow for this pres­ti­gious event, which is be­ing held in Trinidad for the first time, lat­er this month. The event is pro­duced by Mar­tin's In­ter­na­tion­al and As­so­ciates and has been staged in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent coun­tries as well as states through­out the USA.

Sched­uled to take place on May 28 at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), the IRAW­MAs will see a host of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al su­per­stars as­sem­bled in Port-of-Spain for two nights of mu­si­cal cel­e­bra­tions. Event founder, Ephraim Mar­tin said that "as the event evolved, new cat­e­gories were added" and re­vealed that "a few spe­cial cat­e­gories" (in­clud­ing those men­tioned above) have been added to this year's pro­gramme" in or­der to make the event even more spe­cial to T&T."

"We took so long to bring the IRAW­MAs to Trinidad," he ex­plained, "and be­cause we're cel­e­brat­ing our 30th edi­tion as well, we want­ed to make it ex­tra spe­cial this year. With Trinidad be­ing our home this year, we want­ed to add some­thing that would ex­cite the cit­i­zens of T&T a lot and so, to­geth­er with BLINK/bmo­bile, we came up with these new cat­e­gories." BLINK/bmo­bile's mar­ket­ing an­a­lyst, Michael Christo­pher, re­ferred to the event as "a nat­ur­al fit" for the State-owned telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions gi­ant.

For more in­for­ma­tion, log on to the Bmo­bile Face­book Fan­page.

Vot­ers have un­til May 25 to text the codes for their favourite acts to So­ca (7622) or 78247 (US and Cana­da) in the fol­low­ing cat­e­gories:

1: Best Male Ca­lyp­so/So­ca En­ter­tain­er with nom­i­nees, Machel Mon­tano-MM, JW and Blaze-JWB, Kes Dif­f­en­thaler-KES, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter-SWIN, Skin­ny Fab­u­lous (St Vin­cent)-SFAB and Blaxx-BLX.

2: Best Fe­male Ca­lyp­so/So­ca En­ter­tain­er with nom­i­nees, Al­li­son Hinds-AH, Ca­lyp­so Rose-CR, Patrice Roberts-PR, Faye-Ann Lyons-Al­varez-FAY, De­stra-DG and Denise Bel­fon-DB.

3: Best Caribbean En­ter­tain­er with nom­i­nees, Sly and Rob­bie (Ja­maica)-SLYR, Machel Mon­tano (T&T)-MMHD, Third World (Ja­maica)-TW, Damien Mar­ley-DM and Shag­gy-SHA.

4: Best Chut­ney En­ter­tain­er with nom­i­nees, Rik­ki Jai-JAI, So­ca Elvis-ELV, Moses Charles-MOS, Ravi B and Kar­ma-RAVI, Hunter-HTR and Heer­alal Ram­par­tap-HRA.

5: Best Pan Side with nom­i­nees, LH Pan Groove (Sin­gle pan band)-LH, Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars-ALL, PCS Sil­ver Stars-PCS, Ari­ma Gold­en Sym­pho­ny-AGS and Catzen­jam­mers (To­ba­go)-CATZ.

6: Best Chut­ney Band with nom­i­nees, Dil-E-Nadan-DEN, JMC 3veni-JMC, Kar­ma-KAR, Mel­lobugz-MEL, T&TEC Gay­a­tones-TTEC and BM­RZ-BM­RZ.

7: Best So­ca Band with nom­i­nees, Roy Cape & Kaiso All Stars-ROY, Bun­ji & Asy­lum Band-ASY, KES The Band-KEB, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter & YOU – SHUR, Im­ij & Com­pa­ny-IM­IJ, HD Fam­i­ly-HDF