[Originally published on February 22nd, 2011]
Carnival time again! As multitudes of ex-pat Trinis and foreign calypso,
pan and soca lovers board flights for Port of Spain, the fetes and song
competitions are in full swing. The famed parades of masqueraders will
be held this year on March 7-8, when the Road March champion will be
crowned. However, since 1993, on the Friday before the full costumed
bacchanalia, soca fans gather at the Queen’s Oval Park cricket stadium
to watch an onstage competition in which the singers of a faster soca
tune and a slower soca are selected as the Power and Groovy soca winners
respectively. (Note: The Chutney Soca Monarch competition, which
occurred on Saturday, March 19th was won by Rikki Jai for “White Oak & Water.”
A disgruntled Ravi B, who came second, urged fans to “pelt something”
and hundreds of bottles fell upon the stage.) As the excitement builds,
LargeUp reached to top soca selectors and soundsystems from Trinidad,
NY, Miami, Montreal, Germany and Japan to take the international
temperature and get their favorites for road march, power and groovy
soca monarch. This is actually a Top 10 (roughly) but since many of our
soca pundits had comments and overlapping picks we have dispensed with
the usual countdown format and broken it down by selector. To the road!
http://largeup.okayplayer.com/2011/02/22/toppa-top-10-soca-monarch-contenders-for-carnival-2011/
Bonneville’s Under-The-Radar Joints: These are a few great soca records that may not have enough momentum to be contenders for 2011, but should not be overlooked.
Cassie “Town Ting”
3Suns & Benjai “Foreigner”
Denise Belfon “Dance & Dingolay”
No comments:
Post a Comment