Cherisse Moe

So­ca artiste Ter­ri Lyons says de­spite the su­per-star­dom of her sis­ter–three-time Road March cham­pi­on, Fay Ann Lyons-Al­varez–she has her own recipe for suc­cess–hard work, ded­i­ca­tion and rig­or­ous voice train­ing. Ter­ri, the younger of the two sib­lings is even con­sid­er­ing com­pet­ing in this year's Groovy So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion. Fay Ann cap­tured both the Groovy So­ca Monarch and the Pow­er So­ca Monarch crowns last year. Ter­ri spoke in an in­ter­view af­ter her per­for­mance at the launch of TGI Fri­day's Mon­day Night Live at the restau­rant's Port-of-Spain branch on Mon­day evening.

The tal­ent­ed songstress de­liv­ered a 30-minute high en­er­gy per­for­mance, singing her 2010 of­fer­ings–"Smile" "Step Out" "Car­ni­val Again" and "Gone"–much to the ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the crowd. Not­ing that she worked very hard at per­fect­ing her craft, she said, this year, she would con­tin­ue to prove her­self as an en­ter­tain­er. The 27-year-old, bet­ter known for her suc­cess in the Ca­lyp­so are­na, hav­ing cap­tured sec­ond place in the Young Queen's Com­pe­ti­tion on two oc­ca­sions, said she should not be com­pared with Fay Ann, as the two had "dif­fer­ent styles."

"Com­par­ing me with my sis­ter is some­thing that I can't get away from. Even Fay Ann used to be com­pared to my fa­ther," she said. "He set the bar, so peo­ple will al­ways com­pare us even though we have very dif­fer­ent styles. I'm more of a singer." She added: "It's im­por­tant for me to be my own per­son. I'm look­ing for­ward to be­ing heard, to show­case my tal­ent and my ver­sa­til­i­ty. I just want to know that I left my mark and that I have con­tributed as an en­ter­tain­er." Ter­ri, who al­so hoped to en­ter Di­manche Gras, Young Queens and the Stars of To­mor­row com­pe­ti­tions, said fans could look for­ward to see­ing her at some of the sea­son's pre­mier fetes, in­clud­ing Fire, WASA and Brass.

About Mon­day Night Live

Re­gion­al brand man­ag­er of TGIF's Michelle Borel said the new­ly in­stalled Mon­day Night Live was aimed to show­case and pro­mote lo­cal and re­gion­al tal­ent. "It's in keep­ing with the con­cept that I have that it's not about the new, it's about the next," Borel said. She said the event would ex­tend be­yond the Car­ni­val sea­son and would be fea­tured at all branch­es of the restau­rant through­out T&T. Some of the artistes card­ed to per­form at TGIF's Mon­day Night Live in­clude Or­lan­do Oc­tave, Makamil­lion and Ja­maica's Ms Thing.