Chester Sam­bra­no

Ros­ton Si­mon, al­so known as Cul­ture B, can be de­scribed as a vet­er­an in the so­ca busi­ness and he showed noth­ing less when he per­formed in the Stars of So­ca com­pe­ti­tion win­ning the in­au­gur­al event.

Dressed in a sim­ple shirt and a pair of jeans, Cul­ture B’s per­for­mance was a far cry away from his dress code.

On some oc­ca­sions he dis­played his win­ing abil­i­ty, his lengthy ras­ta hair­style not hold­ing him back.

Si­mon’s props did jus­tice to com­pli­ment his song Strong Rum. An over­sized bot­tle of Pun­cheon Rum to the front of the stage and danc­ing rum drinkers to the rear, moved his per­for­mance and even­tu­al­ly the judges.

A hall­mark mo­ment of his pre­sen­ta­tion was when he paid trib­ute to the To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val and the pop­u­lar Ole Time Wed­dings by bring­ing a well-dressed bride and groom to the stage.

In sec­ond place was Michael Skeete, aka Mike Tow­er and Too Re­al, with their song, Firestorm.

They cer­tain­ly fired up the crowd with their en­er­gy and even more so when they threw a lyri­cal jab at so­ca artiste Neil “Iw­er” George.

“I want you to un­der­stand some­thing about our fire. This fire is an eter­nal fire. No wa­ter could out this, if you bring Iw­er George the wa­ter lord in here it will turn him to steam,” they said.

With heat be­ing in fo­cus, third placed Ger­ard Bal­four, GMB, ad­dressed a hot so­cial is­sue with his ren­di­tion of Ba­can­nal.

Dressed as a con­struc­tion work­er the song por­trayed a man try­ing to get his pay from a su­per­vi­sor who in­di­cat­ed that there was no mon­ey to do so.

Bal­four spoke about mount­ing bills and in­creas­ing cost of liv­ing, a re­al­i­ty for many in the coun­try post COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

In the end, the mon­ey did come via a fe­male char­ac­ter cov­ered in large print­ed $100 bills.

Com­ing in fourth was Guardian Me­dia’s own Cas­ton Cu­pid with his song ti­tled Dut­ty Vibes. It ap­peared to be a trib­ute to the mud fes­ti­val which forms a part of To­ba­go’s his­to­ry.

A bare-chest­ed Cu­pid, as well as his dancers, was cov­ered in mud as he danced all across the stage. But the stage seemed to be hold­ing him back so he ven­tured in­to the crowd where he in­vit­ed pa­trons to sing the hook to his song.

Event or­gan­is­er, along with Pe­ter C Lewis, George Lea­cock was very im­pressed with the lev­el of the per­for­mances.

He said it ex­ceed­ed his ex­pec­ta­tions.

How­ev­er, the on­ly down­side was the very small at­ten­dance to the $50 event.

But Lea­cock was not fazed and ex­plained that this was so due to it be­ing the first such event in an in­au­gur­al Car­ni­val.

He was con­vinced that if the same event was put on three weeks from now then the turnout would be in­creased.