Shas­tri Boodan

Chut­ney lovers are in for some good news.

The Na­tion­al Chut­ney Foun­da­tion of T&T (NCFTT) will be stag­ing its first-ever se­nior cat­e­go­ry of the In­tel­lec­tu­al Chut­ney Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion this year.

Pres­i­dent of the NCFTT Dr Vi­jay Ram­lal Rai said the show comes off on Feb­ru­ary 23, 2022.

Rai said, “The NCC (Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion) and TU­CO (Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­son­ian Or­gan­i­sa­tion) agreed for this event to be in the main­stream car­ni­val events at the Queens Park Sa­van­nah. The NCFTT is pleased and hap­py to be part of the main ac­tiv­i­ties in Car­ni­val. The Chut­ney art­form has fi­nal­ly been ac­cept­ed as part of the na­tion­al car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions. We now have a blend of Mas, Pan, Ca­lyp­so and Chut­ney, which would all go bet­ter to fuse and in­te­grate all our cul­ture.”

Rai said the NCFTT had lit­tle time to or­gan­ise the event but due to the foun­da­tion’s years of ex­pe­ri­ence in pro­duc­ing the Ju­nior In­tel­lec­tu­al Chut­ney Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion it was easy for the NCFTT to se­lect the best artists from the Chut­ney are­na.

Rai said sev­er­al Chut­ney artists were con­tact­ed and 22 sub­mit­ted pre­sen­ta­tions of their work.

He said based on the con­tent of the sub­mis­sions 10 fi­nal­ists were se­lect­ed.

“We are in the process of ap­proach­ing the Min­istry of Cul­ture and the pri­vate sec­tor for prizes. This is our first se­nior com­pe­ti­tion and we are all very ex­cit­ed. These songs would be na­tion-build­ing songs and steer Chut­ney in a pos­i­tive di­rec­tion. The judges will be co­or­di­nat­ed and ad­min­is­tered by the Car­ni­val/Cul­tur­al Judges As­so­ci­a­tion (CJATT)and the mu­sic for the artiste would come from the Mil­le­ni­um Starz Or­ches­tra,” Rai said.

He added that the show will take place in a safe zone and will al­so be broad­cast­ed.

The ten fi­nal­ists for the com­pe­ti­tion are:

Adesh Sama­roo

Am­ri­ka Mootroo

An­tho­ny Bat­son

Brit­ney Light­bourn

Dad­dy Chi­nee

Des­tiny Rat­tan

Ed­ward Ram­dass

Fal­co Ma­haraj

Keron Williams

-Wacka­man

Paris Coutain