KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy con­tin­u­ing to hin­der the fight against COVID-19, some of T&T’s top chut­ney so­ca artistes are putting their ad­vo­ca­cy in­to song with the re­lease of a mu­sic video that en­cour­ages vac­ci­na­tion.

“The coro­n­avirus spread­ing across the na­tion, so it is im­por­tant to get the vac­ci­na­tion,” for­mer Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Ravi B sang as he opened the song ti­tled Let’s Get Vac­ci­nat­ed.

Writ­ten by singer/co­me­di­an Ken­neth Su­per­sad and pro­duced by Kishore “Wiz­zy” Ram­dath, the song al­so fea­tures Mas­ter Saleem, Savi­ta Singh, Rawytee Ram­roop, Adesh Sama­roo, Nisha Ram­sook and Vee­jai Ramkissoon. The video, pro­duced by Play­back Pro­duc­tion and Verne Tikas­ingh fea­tures Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who brought the idea to Southex Pro­mo­tions.

In the cho­rus, the artistes sing: “Take the vac­cine, take the vac­cine and let us be wise, Put your mask on, so­cial dis­tance and san­i­tize, Do not sit down and wait, do not hes­i­tate, Take it now, be­fore it is too late.”

At yes­ter­day’s launch in San Fer­nan­do, Southex Pro­mo­tions CEO George Singh Jr said Mooni­lal ap­proached him two weeks ago with a gen­uine con­cern about vac­cine-hes­i­tant peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly as he lost some friends to the dis­ease. Singh said Mooni­lal as­sist­ed and ini­ti­at­ed the project with fi­nan­cial sup­port from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

“It is won­der­ful that chut­ney so­ca artistes came to­geth­er to do this project. It con­tains a song, a mu­sic video, and we are hop­ing this will mo­ti­vate peo­ple to go out and get vac­ci­nat­ed,” Singh said.

As COVID-19 con­tin­ues to af­fect the world, Singh said peo­ple are dy­ing dai­ly, and more than 1,200 fam­i­lies were mourn­ing the loss of loved ones. He said the au­thor­i­ties did well by get­ting vac­cines and mak­ing them avail­able to the pub­lic.

How­ev­er, mis­in­for­ma­tion on so­cial me­dia is caus­ing some peo­ple to refuse the vac­cine for var­i­ous rea­sons. He said there is re­spect for their de­ci­sions but wants them to get all the avail­able in­for­ma­tion. 

Singh said vac­cine-hes­i­tant peo­ple should con­sult their doc­tors and re­think their stance as vac­ci­na­tion is the on­ly way out of a pan­dem­ic that has trau­ma­tised the world for al­most two years.

Southex Pro­mo­tions re­leased the mu­sic video on its YouTube chan­nel, Southex ‘Live’ Events on a spe­cial episode of NAH!, which is a show that us­es com­e­dy to show­case artistes.

In the spe­cial episode, Mooni­lal asked peo­ple to get vac­ci­nat­ed, un­less they have med­ical rea­sons. He al­so asked that they en­cour­age their fam­i­ly and rel­a­tives who are be­tween the ages of 12-18 to get vac­ci­nat­ed as their lives and those around them may de­pend on it.

Mooni­lal made the plea af­ter los­ing close friends and con­stituents to COVID-19, adding that vac­ci­na­tion was the on­ly way back to nor­mal life.