KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The com­pe­ti­tion was in­tense among the Schools’ In­tel­lec­tu­al Chut­ney So­ca Monarch con­tes­tants this year.

From Mor­vant to Mara­bel­la, stu­dents across the coun­try from as young as five years old took to the stage at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, to per­form their best chut­ney songs.

Out of the five pri­ma­ry school con­tenders, it was Katelin Sul­tan, of War­renville TIA Pri­ma­ry School, who shone the bright­est with her song en­ti­tled Uni­ty. She copped the Pri­ma­ry School cat­e­go­ry.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the com­pe­ti­tion, Sul­tan said she was over­come with joy this time around af­ter plac­ing sec­ond last year.

Sul­tan said, “I am speech­less but I am al­so very hap­py to be first place in this pri­ma­ry cat­e­go­ry ... I will con­tin­ue singing to make my peo­ple hap­py.”

While this was Sul­tan’s sec­ond year en­ter­ing the com­pe­ti­tion, she is not new to the art form.

Sul­tan was the 2023 Queen of Chut­ney So­ca and has done sev­er­al col­lab­o­ra­tions with artistes such as Ravi B and Aaron Dun­can. She al­so placed fourth at last year’s Chut­ney So­ca Monarch.

Jah’Majesty Charles, last year’s win­ner in the pri­ma­ry schools’ cat­e­go­ry, placed sec­ond this time around.

Mean­while, it was straight As for the wealth of tal­ent dis­played at the sec­ondary school lev­el.

Many stu­dents used the com­pe­ti­tion as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress sev­er­al is­sues, in­clud­ing school vi­o­lence, and most songs called for uni­ty.

While the judges had a dif­fi­cult time choos­ing a win­ner, it was two new­com­ers, Zkinga Moses, from Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege (QRC), and Mar­cus Mc­Don­ald, of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, re­spec­tive­ly, who took over the show with their ster­ling per­for­mances.

While Moses did an ex­cel­lent job of wow­ing the au­di­ence and judges, earn­ing him sec­ond place, it was Mc­Don­ald who was crowned the monarch.

Last year, Mc­Don­ald walked away the 2023 Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch but was lat­er dis­qual­i­fied by TU­CO for al­leged­ly breach­ing the rules.

While cel­e­brat­ing his win, he said he was grate­ful for this vic­to­ry.

“I am just re­al­ly grate­ful and thank­ful that I am able to come up here and show every­body that I have the abil­i­ty to en­ter a chut­ney and win,” he said.

Mc­Don­ald said he has en­tered ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions be­fore but want­ed to try some­thing new this year.