Aba A Luke

Rod­ney Le Blanc, bet­ter known among the mass­es as Ben­jai, has al­ready made his mark for Car­ni­val 2010, with Last Jam, My God, Woman and I, Fun, and All Woman. His lyrics are al­ways strong and his style un­mis­tak­able. SeeMeYa, his sig­na­ture chant, is a con­trac­tion for, "See me when, see me then, see me now, see me here." In 2010, he keeps SeeMeYa in the mix, as­sur­ing the world that he isn't go­ing any­where. "My fo­cus this year is to up­lift women, to give them the due re­spect they de­serve." He said women sus­tain life and play a key role in the lives of men. For this rea­son, Ben­jai said, he has noth­ing but re­spect for the fe­male gen­der.

Ben­jai's tracks this year al­so give women the mu­sic they need to take the fetes by storm. The 33-year-old said so­ca mu­sic, though in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed, is not giv­en enough time and air­play amid oth­er gen­res played on the air­waves, lo­cal­ly. Like many oth­er so­ca artistes, Ben­jai's sen­ti­ment is strong when it comes to this sub­ject. For years, so­ca artistes have com­plained that not enough lo­cal mu­sic is played by lo­cal ra­dio sta­tions year-round. Their voic­es, though, have seemed to echo in a dark abyss, ig­nored by those who hold the pow­er of the air­waves in their hands.

With one col­lab­o­ra­tion planned for the sea­son, along­side a ris­ing star known as CC, Ben­jai is call­ing on the youths of T&T to un­der­stand that while there is hard work in­volved in every­thing that must be done, per­sis­tence is key. He said: "Per­sis­tence is the tool, the as­set that youths should use to get ahead in life. Nev­er give up, nev­er lose faith." He's sched­uled to per­form with his "al­ma mater" band, Asy­lum, at some events for Car­ni­val 2010; how­ev­er, Ben­jai al­so con­firmed that he would be on stage with oth­er bands through­out the sea­son. Not one to be smug or boast­ful, the Ari­ma na­tive, who placed third in the Groovy So­ca Monarch last year, with his song Car­ni­val Come Again, said he's hop­ing that by the grace of God, he'll once again be a con­tes­tant in the fi­nal of the com­pe­ti­tion. For now, though, he re­mains fo­cused on the days that lie ahead, this as he says, "I'm liv­ing my dream."