Reigning Chutney Soca Monarchs Nishard Mayhroo and Neval Chatelal are still undecided on whether they will be defending their 2018 title in this year’s competition.
Asked whether they were competing this year Mayhroo said: “I’ve been asked this question for the last few weeks and we are still actually deciding. Within the next week, you are going to get a definite answer from us.”
Speaking at the media launch of the Chutney Soca Monarch for 2019 at the Queen’s Park Oval, Mayhroo, who has been a contestant in the competition for the past five years, said he took issue with the direction in which the genre was heading.
“I am not 100 per cent happy with the direction the music itself is going,” he said.
However, he admitted that if they do, it would be to instil the change they wish to see.
“Initially, Neval and I had actually decided not to defend this year and at the last moment, I said to myself ‘You know what? If this is how I feel, then maybe the worst thing I could possibly do is stay out. Maybe I need to continue to be a part of the change.’”
One issue they raised was that many artistes are “remixing Bollywood music” which is why last year, the duo performed Masala which was not based on a Bollywood song nor did it contain typical messages found in other famous songs from the genre.
The Soca Chutney genre has its genesis in Bollywood film songs or “Indian music”, however, for many years it has come under criticism for “lacking creativity”. The criticisms come as many songs produced by local and regional artistes use the musical compositions of well-established Bollywood film songs but put their own lyrical twist to it, often times speaking about alcoholism and “horn”.
For the past 24 years, the Chutney Soca Monarch competition has been providing the biggest platform for young and emerging artistes to catapult themselves onto the scene and even help some known artistes to establish themselves in the industry. The competition has seen competitors such as Rikki Jai, Ravi B and KI Persad performing songs, which have been ingrained into the memories of the public. This year’s theme is ‘Fire and Ice’ and the semi-finals will be held on January 26, at the Rig, Gulf View starting at 8 pm.
Guardian Media is a sponsor of the event with the official station for the competition being Sangeet 106.1 FM. Joel Morris, head of content, programming and promotions at Guardian Media said, “We are here to support the culture and we are here to support the Chutney Soca Monarch. We’ve been supporting for a very long time as a company. We’re very much involved in culture, we’re very much involved in information and Carnival and so on and we continue to do that as Guardian Media Limited.”
Semifinalists
1. Kavita Ramkissoon
2. Russel Mohammed
3. Kenneth Salick
4. Kerron Tyron Williams
5. Kenneth Supersad
6. Surendra Ramoutar
7. Keiron Lal
8. Anil Pitie & Trevor Gore
9. Veejai Ramkissoon & Jerome Precilla
10. Vedesh Sookoo
11. Nisha Ramsook
12. Anil Rock
13. Neeshan Prabhoo
14. Ravi Babooram
15. Krishna Ramdass
16. Nigel Gobin
17. Imran Beharry
18. Ranjeev Ramdeen
19. Amit Sagram
20. Kess Ramroop
21. Nesar Hosein
22. Andy Singh
23. Jesh Ramnanan & Nisha Baksh Lutchmedial
24. Avinash Sookraj
25. Hemlatha Dindial
26. Rizaan Ali
27. Shiva Lakhan
28. Trishma Maharaj
29. Jason Peru
30. Amit Sooknanan & Amit Dookram
31. Nirmal Adesh Samaroo
32. Lalchan “Hunter” Babwah
33. Ki Persad
34. Veekash Sahadeo
35. Samraj “Rikki Jai” Jaimungal
36. Omadath Maharaj
37. Ricardo Melville