Jumo Recaptures Soca Crown and proves that Judges like the “Same thing” Gordon Moseley’s Carib Soca Monarch Report.
In the World of Soca, experience and performance matters and local soca star Jumo Primo pulled those two into his corner early Sunday morning in the National Park to pull off a spectacular performance of his song Fireworks as he recaptured the Carib Soca Monarch Crown.
All night, various artistes used fireworks as part of their show on the stage but it wasn’t until Jumo took the stage as the 18th Competitor, that the fireworks truly came reigning down.
With dancers behind him, a fireworks filled sky and a glowing crowd cheering him on, it came as no surprise when the Judges announced that the former Byron Lee and the Dragonnaires front man was able to fight off the rest of the Soca Monarch hungry posse and keep his crown.
Local comedian and actor Kwasi Ace Edmondson complained about the “Same Thing” in the competition and that was good enough on the Judge’s score sheet to land him in the 2nd spot and in the process giving him the best newcomer prize.
Kwesi Ace’s song and performance mirrored the on stage style of Trinidadian Bunjie Garlin but that didn’t matter to the Judges nor the crowd as he sent the National Park into a frenzy when he took shots at the other competitors in the competition firing off lyrics about how they were all coming with the same thing. He performed his piece well and deserved being place high in the final results.
3 Time Soca Monarch Adrian Dutchin may have the most popular song of the Mashramani season but that and 41 jooks were not enough to land him the title for a 4th time. Dutchin instead was left in the 3rd place. Adrian pulled off a safe and high energy performance as he took the stage as the Chief of Staff of jooking for the Guyana Defence Force.
Dressed in an all white military outfit, Adrian took control of an all female boot camp to teach them how to jook his way. In the process he brought out SpongeBob and Dora and a Psy look a like to show him how to Jook. There was a whole lot more Adrian could have done on stage to get the song over to the audience. He was in charge of a “boot camp” but never paid attention to the women soldiers in his care. He sang and played it safe and playing it safe left him jooking in the 3rd position.
The 4th spot was grabbed by young Roger Bowen who came “looking fuh bumpa” and found a whole lot of new fans in the process. Bowen pulled off a near flawless performance of his groovy soca song and did everything right and sounded the part as he belted out his song before the judges. He should have been given a better space. His performance was on target, precise and entertaining and he will be the artiste to watch in the future of the competition.
As is the usual, the other positions were not announced but there were some clear crowd pleasers who would have rounded out the Top 10. Linden’s Chiney who shot to fame last year when he grabbed the 2nd spot with his Whine Attack could not pull off a big enough Pose to keep the judges entertained. His opening video was the most interesting as he travelled “far and away” to find his master who taught him how to whine. At the end of that Karate Kid style training in the video, Chiney bowed to the master only to receive a hit on the head when the master told him “Bad Man no Bow”. His song was a hard sell all throughout the mash season and that showed as the crowd hardly moved to the beats.
Ernesta Nelson twirled her way from the crown as her kid’s beat performance was just that. Her label mates Jamal Gittens and Magga Man were also unimpressive with their on stage performances.
Vanilla and Lil Man came to tear the roof down but might need new construction gears as their song was not enough to build them better luck in the competition. Their performance turned the stage into a construction site and out of the blue the Incredible Hulk appeared. We are still waiting to get the relevance of that.
Lil Red will not become Big Red any time soon even if he will “neva stop” taking part in the competition. The young singer who had a well written song just did not pull it all together to impress the judges.
Newcomer Venom will have to take his poisonous ways back to the mining town with nothing in hand since the crown is now “goneeee”. Venom went into the competition with one of the well written songs but failed to impress anyone with his jumbled performance which began off key with him cutting in on the band at the wrong point.
Former Monarch, Bonesman set himself a light on the stage and set fire to part of his outfit on the stage and while that captured attention, his overall performance certainly did not as his lyrics could hardly be made out when he hurried himself through his song.
Shondell and Boss Stephens both brought lacklustre performances to the stage and were both justly rewarded by not placing in the top positions. Mysterious must have secured himself a place at the bottom of the pack with his tired and uninspiring performance of a song that brought back an old hit that was not repackaged well. The judges may not like informers nor a bad performance.
An Invasion came from an artiste dressed in red all the way from Berbice. He sang his song and that was about it. Barbadian based singer King Shepherd appeared like an underpaid servant in the Soca Kingdom as he was a no show at the event. No reason was given for his decision to pull out of the competition and the organisers appeared baffled after calling on him to perform only to realise then that the King was no where in the Building. Must have lost his sheep.
NCN Cameraman and Soca Monarch die hard Avalanche will be back at work early Monday morning as he too did not do enough to move into the top positions even with his song about the Independent Women who needed to “work it”
There was no shortage of Fat Women on the stage in the National Park as a number of the competitors brought oversize women after oversize women to get the crowd’s attention. It became boring after a while.
The Heat Wave Band did a good job with all of the artistes but Heatwave needs to pay some homage to local acts too in its opening performances. Before the competition began, Heatwave opened the show with a one hour performance of soca hits and not a single local song was used.
Instead, patrons were treated to a diet of Trinidadian and Bajan soca songs as the singers battled to see who best could sound like the original. Surely, they could have dived in to the previous 8 years of Carib Soca Monarch and pull out some of the over 100 songs that would have been written and performed by local artistes over those years. Heatwave must do better and the organisers ought to do better too with a start time. The show must go on from the time the crowd begins to roll in.
Next year will mark the 10th year of the competition, it will be good to see how Carib celebrates that milestone.