NARIS­SA FRAS­ER 

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Fan­tas­tic Fri­day is back!

The In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch (ISM) com­pe­ti­tion will re­turn to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cap­i­tal for Car­ni­val 2027 and will ho­n­our the late, leg­endary ca­lyp­son­ian Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co. 

The sur­prise an­nounce­ment was made yes­ter­day by Scorch Events, leav­ing many so­ca fans and in­dus­try mem­bers buzzing. 

The last ISM was held vir­tu­al­ly in 2021 and was won by Farmer Nap­py with his song Back­yard Jam. But the last in-per­son stag­ing was in 2020, where Kes and Iw­er George won the Pow­er cat­e­go­ry and Col­lege Boy Jesse took the Groovy cat­e­go­ry.

An at­tempt was made last year to re­vive a so­ca com­pe­ti­tion with the Ul­ti­mate So­ca Cham­pi­on com­pe­ti­tion, but it was un­able to re­turn in this due to lack of fund­ing. 

The ISM’s re­turn, set for Feb­ru­ary 5, 2027, will crown three mon­archs–Pow­er, Groovy and a new cat­e­go­ry, Steam. 

Scorch as­sured that the judg­ing pan­el will in­clude ex­perts from the mu­sic in­dus­try, cul­tur­al com­men­ta­tors and so­ca vet­er­ans, while al­so al­low­ing the pub­lic to vote for peo­ple’s choice.

“Cred­i­bil­i­ty first. No back­room, no bac­cha­nal,” Scorch wrote in a re­lease. 

It said all fi­nal­ists must pay trib­ute to the Mighty Spar­row, whether it be a lyric, melody or cos­tume, which will con­tribute to their over­all score. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter the an­nounce­ment, Scorch CEO Kwe­si Hop­kin­son said the ab­sence of the com­pe­ti­tion has been felt over the years, and he be­lieves some took it for grant­ed in the past. How­ev­er, he added that he is ex­cit­ed to be able to bring it back af­ter reach­ing an agree­ment with the IP hold­ers of the ISM brand.

“I just feel like it’s my du­ty in the po­si­tion I’m in now to do what I can do to give back or con­tribute to the health and wealth of the in­dus­try and the art­form,” he said. 

On the ad­di­tion of the Steam cat­e­go­ry, he said it’s im­por­tant to know where you came from and where you are go­ing, adding he be­lieves the genre has earned its right­ful place for artistes to com­pete for a crown.

“We can­not be blind or ig­no­rant to how the world has been chang­ing and how the mu­sic has been chang­ing. And mu­sic has al­ways been in­flu­enced by the youth,” he said.

“You have the Yung Bred­das, the La­dy Lavas pop­ping up and cre­at­ing a lot of big num­bers in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. So we are about to em­brace the fu­ture.”

He is al­so look­ing for­ward to hav­ing homage paid to Mighty Spar­row, who died in New York on Sun­day at the age of 91.

“So­ca Monarch, as far as I see it, is the Cham­pi­on’s League of Car­ni­vals and so­ca. This is where all the big guns have to prove them­selves. And again, it is the plat­form that cre­ates new stars… so it’s a com­pet­i­tive space and it’s a beau­ti­ful space be­cause it brings out the best in us,” he said.

“So for me, now, see­ing that re­al­i­ty come to life again is ex­cit­ing, it’s al­most ful­fill­ing, too.”

Scorch is cur­rent­ly cov­er­ing all costs but Hop­kin­son said the team is open to part­ner­ing with the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

The qual­i­fiers be­gin in De­cem­ber, with the se­mi-fi­nals set for Jan­u­ary.

The val­ue of the cash prizes and the of­fi­cial venue have not yet been an­nounced.