Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

This year may be the last year Gabrielle Mc­Don­ald per­forms at the Ju­nior So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion and she went out with a bang yes­ter­day, as the 17-year-old won the Sec­ondary School’s Cat­e­go­ry at the John Cu­pid Car­ni­val Vil­lage, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

“Tonight is the night, we come to shine bright...so­ca is the way it is here to stay, now we must chant our part, straight to the bill­board chart,” she sang.

But just like the lyrics of her 2024 so­ca Ver­sa­til­i­ty sug­gests, the Low­er Six St Joseph Con­vent (San Fer­nan­do) stu­dent plans to con­tin­ue pro­mot­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­ture.

“My song is sup­posed to show the cul­ture that we have in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the fact that we should dis­play it to the world,” she said.

Mc­Don­ald said she dreams of pur­su­ing mu­sic af­ter grad­u­at­ing from school and will con­tin­ue per­form­ing, as she be­lieves tal­ent from T&T can go far.

“I think that’s im­por­tant be­cause the amount of time and en­er­gy and ef­fort that is put in­to our cul­tur­al dis­play in Trinidad, it should be able to go across the world like every oth­er genre,” she said.

But she’s not the on­ly tal­ent­ed one in her fam­i­ly, as her young broth­er Mar­cus Mc­Don­ald, of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege (San Fer­nan­do) placed sec­ond.

“I could on­ly lose to blood, I love my sis­ter right here, but next year we com­ing back and I feel I go take it,” Mar­cus laughed.

Al­though they both scored the high­est among their sec­ondary school peers, the sib­lings did not see each oth­er’s per­for­mances be­fore yes­ter­day.

“I thought her per­for­mance was amaz­ing. I sat there, I watched it, I nev­er saw it be­fore, I was amazed I sat there and I was wow, I feel like I have some com­pe­ti­tion to­day,” Mar­cus said.

“I know that Mar­cus al­ways brings en­er­gy and life in­to her per­for­mances so it’s no sur­prise that he was re­al­ly good,” his sis­ter said.

Al­so pro­mot­ing T&T’s cul­ture and cop­ping the ti­tle in the Pri­ma­ry School Cat­e­go­ry was 10-year-old Zachary Ran­some.

De­spite some tech­ni­cal is­sues aris­ing af­ter the dee­jay played the wrong track, Ran­some was able to keep his com­po­sure.

“I just breathe, just breathe,” Ran­some told re­porters when asked about the is­sue.

The young ti­tle hold­er at­trib­uted most of his suc­cess to his moth­er Mor­isha Ran­some.

“I did a lot of work, my moth­er use­less re­hearsal for some rea­son, just to tight­en up on some lil end­ing which is use­ful now,” he said.

He said he wants to be the biggest so­ca artiste in the world.

Last year’s win­ners Ce­line Charles (Va­len­cia RC Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry) and Sekel Mc In­tosh (Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege) both placed in the top five of their cat­e­gories and were hap­py for their suc­ces­sors.

“Props to who­ev­er wins,” Mc In­tosh, who won two pri­ma­ry school and two sec­ondary school ti­tles, said.

“I will still be hap­py and con­grat­u­late the per­son who won,” Charles added.

In third place in the Sec­ondary Schools Cat­e­go­ry was Ja­lessa Larzarus, 13, of Athens School of Ed­u­ca­tion in Tu­na­puna. Like many of her peers, the teen used her song to spread a pos­i­tive mes­sage.

“I got to study to be some­body, so don’t hold me back, I just not ready so hold on stead, fo­cus, boys and books don’t match,” she sang.

An­dria Roberts, of Cou­va West Sec­ondary, used her chut­ney so­ca to voice her views on do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

“You ain’t tough­ing me, you ain’t lay­ing one hand on meh body,” she sang.

Aleem Fras­er, an­oth­er Cou­va West stu­dent, al­so dealt with bul­ly­ing in her piece.

Speak­ing at the event, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by Dol­ly said the voice of the youth is al­ways im­por­tant.

“Hence the val­ue of such op­por­tu­ni­ties to hear it, all school Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions are al­ways well sub­scribed,” she said.

How­ev­er, she said the min­istry is fo­cus­ing on en­cour­ag­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion from schools that may not tra­di­tion­al­ly com­pete. She said the ex­pan­sion of the Pri­ma­ry School Mu­sic Pro­gramme af­ter COVID-19 was a crit­i­cal step in achiev­ing this goal. “That pro­gramme for­mer­ly had 50 tu­tors, we have ex­pand­ed to 100,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said that pro­gramme is very im­por­tant in their thrust to­wards cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion as they work on in­creas­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion not on­ly in Car­ni­val events, but in cul­tur­al in­volve­ment across the board.