Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

At just 24, Ner­is­sa Bachan is steadi­ly carv­ing out a space for her­self in the ever-evolv­ing chut­ney mu­sic are­na, bal­anc­ing a grow­ing per­for­mance ca­reer with a sol­id aca­d­e­m­ic life.

Bet­ter known to some as Nur­iz­za, Bachan of­fi­cial­ly en­tered the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch (CSM) com­pe­ti­tion in 2024, test­ing her po­ten­tial on one of the genre’s biggest stages. Her de­but ef­fort, In Your Veins, which she wrote and record­ed with Pro­fes­sor Boun­ty Tar­getz, earned her a place in the se­mi-fi­nals and marked the be­gin­ning of what she de­scribes as a deeply ful­fill­ing mu­si­cal jour­ney.

Through­out 2024, Bachan im­mersed her­self in the in­dus­try, tak­ing on pro­mo­tion­al work and per­form­ing at var­i­ous venues across Trinidad. The ex­pe­ri­ence, she said, con­firmed what she had al­ways felt — that the stage was where she tru­ly be­longed. Al­though she did not ad­vance to the fi­nals, en­cour­age­ment from vet­er­an en­ter­tain­er George Singh proved piv­otal. His ad­vice to “nev­er give up” mo­ti­vat­ed her to con­tin­ue re­fin­ing her craft.

Fol­low­ing CSM 2024, Bachan joined RG the Band on a tem­po­rary ba­sis, de­scrib­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence as an in­valu­able learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, she re­leased a Parang track ti­tled Christ­mas is Famalay and a Bol­ly­wood cov­er, fur­ther ex­pand­ing her mu­si­cal ver­sa­til­i­ty.

In 2025, Bachan stepped back from com­pe­ti­tion.

This year, Bachan re­turned to the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion with a new orig­i­nal song, Ex Lo­va, writ­ten by Kelvin Kissoon and pro­duced by Big Rich at the Pun­galunks Fac­to­ry. The song ex­plores themes of fe­male in­de­pen­dence, emo­tion­al clar­i­ty and the courage to walk away from un­healthy re­la­tion­ships. She ex­plained that the im­agery of a “stranger” plac­ing a ring on one’s fin­ger re­flects the re­al­i­ty that peo­ple are not al­ways who they ap­pear to be. Once again, the song has car­ried her in­to the se­mi-fi­nals.

Bachan’s mu­si­cal roots run deep. She be­gan for­mal train­ing at the age of four, study­ing clas­si­cal singing un­der the late gu­ru Satro­han Ma­haraj. She lat­er at­tend­ed the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Co­op­er­a­tion, where she con­tin­ued vo­cal train­ing be­fore paus­ing her stud­ies at the age of 11 to fo­cus on aca­d­e­mics. As a stu­dent at Tu­na­puna Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School, she was heav­i­ly in­volved in chow­tal singing and re­calls her love for dress­ing up and per­form­ing on stage from an ear­ly age.

A self-de­scribed “St Au­gus­tine girl” from the East-West Cor­ri­dor, Bachan said mu­sic has al­ways been a com­pan­ion, even dur­ing her years of in­tense study. She holds a BSc with ho­n­ours in Bio­chem­istry and Bi­ol­o­gy and cur­rent­ly works as a lab­o­ra­to­ry demon­stra­tor in the Life Sci­ences De­part­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

‘Crossover ap­peal’

Nel Ram­dass is emerg­ing as one of the more con­sis­tent per­form­ers on the chut­ney cir­cuit. With a foun­da­tion in tra­di­tion­al chut­ney mu­sic and in­creas­ing crossover ap­peal, the Ch­agua­nas-based singer has built steady mo­men­tum through com­pe­ti­tion ap­pear­ances, col­lab­o­ra­tions and live per­for­mances on the na­tion­al stage.

Born Ro­hanie Ram­dass, her in­tro­duc­tion to mu­sic came ear­ly, shaped with­in the sa­cred en­vi­ron­ment of the tem­ple. It was there that she first learnt tra­di­tion­al chut­ney singing, ab­sorb­ing not on­ly the melodies, but the dis­ci­pline, de­vo­tion and cul­tur­al mean­ing that ac­com­pa­ny the genre. Those for­ma­tive years laid the foun­da­tion for a jour­ney that would lat­er move be­yond com­mu­ni­ty spaces to na­tion­al plat­forms.

Her ear­ly ex­po­sure ex­tend­ed be­yond the tem­ple. As a child, Nel was a reg­u­lar pres­ence at wed­dings and com­mu­ni­ty func­tions, where chut­ney mu­sic was cen­tral to the cel­e­bra­tions. Old­er women with­in the com­mu­ni­ty be­came her ear­li­est teach­ers, pass­ing on songs, styles and per­for­mance nu­ances through ex­am­ple rather than in­struc­tion.

“I learnt by lis­ten­ing and watch­ing,” Nel said. “Those aun­ties didn’t just sing the songs, they lived them. That stayed with me.”

While chut­ney formed her core, Nel al­so de­vel­oped a strong ap­pre­ci­a­tion for clas­sic Bol­ly­wood mu­sic, par­tic­u­lar­ly the time­less voic­es of Asha Bhosle and La­ta Mangeshkar. Those in­flu­ences helped re­fine her melod­ic phras­ing and emo­tion­al de­liv­ery, while open­ing her to a broad­er mu­si­cal vo­cab­u­lary. Over time, she grav­i­tat­ed to­wards crossover sounds, re­sist­ing the idea of be­ing con­fined to a sin­gle genre.

“I don’t box my­self in,” she said. “Mu­sic is mu­sic. Every genre has some­thing to teach you.”

Her tran­si­tion in­to the pro­fes­sion­al are­na came in 2012 when she joined the band Dil Se. That year, she record­ed her first stu­dio track, Chumkay, a tra­di­tion­al chut­ney song that marked her shift from com­mu­ni­ty per­for­mances to record­ed mu­sic and wider au­di­ences.

By 2019, Nel was ready to chart her own course. She re­leased Tow Ra­ja, her first so­lo tra­di­tion­al chut­ney song, sig­nalling her readi­ness to stand on her own while re­main­ing firm­ly con­nect­ed to the genre that shaped her.

In 2022, Nel made her de­but in the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion. With Choro Dey Ra­ja, she ad­vanced to both the se­mi-fi­nals and fi­nals, es­tab­lish­ing her­self as more than a new­com­er on the com­pet­i­tive stage.

“Com­pet­ing gave me con­fi­dence,” she said. “It showed me I be­longed on that stage.”

She main­tained that mo­men­tum in 2024, qual­i­fy­ing once again for the CSM se­mi-fi­nals with Kata­wo Laka­ree. In 2025, Nel ex­pand­ed her reach fur­ther by en­ter­ing both the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch and Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tions, while per­form­ing with the D Kaiso Dy­nasty Ca­lyp­so Tent. That year al­so saw the re­lease of Bub­ble Ah Pot, con­tin­u­ing her cre­ative part­ner­ship with Re­ece.

Now in 2026, Nel has re­leased Kaiso Chut­ney Love, her lat­est col­lab­o­ra­tion with Re­ece. The song has se­cured her a place in the CSM se­mi-fi­nals. She has al­so ad­vanced to the grand fi­nals of the Cou­va Ca­lyp­so Monarch and re­mains an ac­tive mem­ber of the D Kaiso Dy­nasty Ca­lyp­so Tent.