Sto­ry and pic­tures by Nigel Teles­ford

Three-time In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch, Aaron “Voice” St Louis, sup­plied a sur­prise wave of en­er­gy af­ter sun­set and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly put the prover­bial “ic­ing on the cake” that was the UWI Gar­den Par­ty held on the grounds of the prin­ci­pal’s of­fice last Sun­day.

The singer, song­writer, and al­ways im­pec­ca­bly dressed trend­set­ter wast­ed no time whip­ping fun-lov­ing pa­trons on the dance floor in­to a fren­zy as he per­formed hit af­ter hit songs with con­fi­dence and ex­u­ber­ant en­er­gy. The fi­nal in­gre­di­ent in the care­ful­ly craft­ed slice of so­phis­ti­cat­ed jazz-friend­ly gar­den par­ty cake, Voice re-ig­nit­ed the au­di­ence’s thirst for fun and frol­ic as quite a few pa­trons scur­ried off to Winer­boy’s un­of­fi­cial af­ter-par­ty at Nube Nueve in near­by Val­park Shop­ping Plaza once the au­thor­i­ties dis­con­tin­ued the rid­dim sec­tion send­off.

The at­mos­phere was op­pres­sive­ly hot and hu­mid all af­ter­noon, but the or­gan­is­ers had been more wary of fore­cast­ed rain ru­in­ing the grounds, decor and vibe of the event. With the dress code of “hats, flats and flows,” the ladies came out in their num­bers im­mac­u­late­ly dressed for pho­tos and self­ies, and the UWI De­vel­op­ment & En­dow­ment Fund and Pep­per Ad­ver­tis­ing teams made sure to craft var­i­ous back­drops, pic­nic scenes and oth­er pho­to­graph­i­cal­ly-pleas­ing aes­thet­ics to in­spire and en­able even the most mod­er­ate so­cial me­dia maven to cre­ate while in the space.

Dansteel Ltd. CEO Terry Bhagwansingh chats with Canadian visitors, Tage and Vivian Singh

NIGEL TELESFORD

Fash­ion, food, fam­i­ly and fun could be con­sid­ered the watch­words of this event, as the ma­ture as­sem­bly of alum­ni and sup­port­ers checked off each of those box­es in turn, while the stel­lar cast of en­ter­tain­ers pro­vid­ed the req­ui­site and most ap­plic­a­ble sound­track through­out the evening.

The evening’s en­ter­tain­ment ranged from Vaugh­nette Big­ford’s smooth and sul­try jazzed-up cov­ers, ver­sions, and orig­i­nal pieces to Nishard M’s chut­ney-tinged ren­di­tions, the awe­some stage pres­ence of Farmer Nap­py and the clas­sic, un­de­ni­ably mov­ing son­ic scope of D All Starz band with Col­lege Boy Jesse lead­ing the charge and spe­cial guest from To­ba­go, KV Charles, along­side a mi­ni-ap­pear­ance from Viking Ding Dong, and Daryl “Farmer Nap­py” Hen­ry. Some pa­trons were al­ready head­ing for the ex­its when MC Ja­son Williams an­nounced the ar­rival of the Vibes With Voicey cap­tain. Still, pan­de­mo­ni­um broke out as Voice rushed the stage in a white suit and pro­ceed­ed to turn the place up­side down in quick time.

The “Pent­house” singer’s pres­ence con­tin­ues to grow tremen­dous­ly, ce­ment­ing his po­si­tion as one of the lead­ing en­ter­tain­ers. Mak­ing his sur­prise ap­pear­ance just in time to close the event and fol­low­ing af­ter the rich live band sound of D All Starz, Voice still man­aged to turn up the ma­ture UWI crowd while per­form­ing to pre-record­ed tracks—no easy feat and one rem­i­nis­cent of the leg­endary stage com­man­der Machel Mon­tano to whom com­par­isons draw him ever clos­er and more fre­quent.

UWI Division of Student Services director Dr Deirdre Charles with Minister of Social Development and Family Services Donna Cox.

NIGEL TELESFORD

Pa­trons were well nour­ished with an all-in­clu­sive Ital­ian-themed fare com­plete with var­i­ous pas­ta sta­tions with de­lec­table op­tions like spaghet­ti in gold­en co­conut cream, spicy three-cheese tortelli­ni, an­tipas­to graz­ing boards, as well as Ital­ian hand­held de­lights like polpette, al su­go and aranci­ni. Ital­ian desserts such as mi­ni can­no­li cups and tiramisu in shot glass­es com­plet­ed the menu and helped to evolve the icon­ic UWI Fete in­to The UWI Gar­den Par­ty.

De­signed to as­sist the De­vel­op­ment and En­dow­ment Fund, which pro­vides schol­ar­ships and bur­saries for de­serv­ing stu­dents, the Ital­ian-themed cui­sine and desserts avail­able were en­joyed by pa­trons, but the heat prompt­ed an in­ter­est­ing sug­ges­tion: “I know this is a fund-rais­er for the school,” sug­gest­ed one ma­ture fe­male pa­tron who wished to re­main anony­mous, “so imag­ine if they had a nice cool zone and you could pay $20 for five min­utes and they gave every one of those alarm­ing dig­i­tal timers and kept the num­bers down so it would stay cool and peo­ple could just pay for a 5-minute cooldown and then go back to the par­ty. I think that would be, for want of a bet­ter word, very cool!”

D All Starz lead vocalist, College Boy Jesse raises his fist in solidarity with the audience.

NIGEL TELESFORD

The event end­ed prompt­ly at 8 pm. Spe­cial at­ten­dees in­clud­ed Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox, busi­ness mag­nate Sie­u­nar­ine Coos­al, and mem­bers of the Bhag­wans­ingh, Mo­hammed, Ram­per­sad, Bachew and Ra­mad­har fam­i­lies, among oth­ers.

Vaughnette Bigford and her band opened up the live performances promptly at 4 pm with a jazzy set full of funk and pizazz.

NIGEL TELESFORD

Enticing meal at the UWI fete.

NIGEL TELESFORD