Pe­ter Ray Blood

One lo­cal artiste who can be le­git­i­mate­ly de­fined as an "all-rounder" is Sam­raj Jaimun­gal. Pro­fes­sion­al­ly known as Rik­ki Jai, this ul­tra-tal­ent­ed, bilin­gual artiste is a vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian, chut­ney singer, So­ca Monarch con­tender and ca­lyp­so tent per­former.

I can clear­ly still re­mem­ber Jai per­form­ing at the Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la ca­lyp­so tent, then housed on Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain, in the late 80s, rub­bing shoul­ders with ca­lyp­so icons like the late Mighty Duke, Chalk­dust, Blue Boy, Ex­plain­er and Lord Nel­son. Night­ly, backed by Roy Cape All Stars, he won en­cores for his sig­na­ture hit sin­gle Sum­intra, com­posed by Gre­go­ry "GB" Bal­lan­tyne.

Though com­ing from a tra­di­tion­al Hin­du fam­i­ly and be­ing raised in Friend­ship Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, Jai, the fifth of six chil­dren, had a pas­sion for ca­lyp­so. But, this didn't de­tract from his love of In­di­an mu­sic, es­pe­cial­ly Hin­du bha­jans, in­spired by his moth­er who spoke flu­ent Hin­di and Bho­jpuri, and even as­sist­ed him in com­pos­ing some of his songs.

Hav­ing at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of the ca­lyp­so world and be­ing wel­comed and em­braced as a bona fide ca­lyp­son­ian, Jai went one step fur­ther and ven­tured in­to the realm of so­ca be­fore pro­gress­ing in­to the chut­ney so­ca genre hav­ing sang hit sin­gles like Wine on a Bum­see and Bo­lo. As an emerg­ing chut­ney so­ca artiste he re­leased his Chut­ney Vi­bra­tions com­pi­la­tion.

Now strad­dling three gen­res of in­dige­nous mu­sic, Jai showed that he con­tin­ued to be a faith­ful son of ca­lyp­so and so­ca and, in 2001, was tied for first place with Bun­ji Gar­lin as the Young King Monarch. He has al­so been a mul­ti­ple win­ner in the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion win­ning the biggest purse in the his­to­ry of this com­pe­ti­tion; two mil­lion dol­lars for the 2011 ti­tle.

Jai is a con­su­mate artiste who peren­ni­al­ly strives to push the en­ve­lope of his ca­reer and the cul­ture ta­pes­try of T&T. Ca­lyp­son­ian, band singer, so­ca artiste, chut­ney so­ca ex­po­nent, Jai al­so as­sert­ed him­self in me­dia, hold­ing down a reg­u­lar slot as a broad­cast­er on the TBC net­work, on Sangeet 106.1FM.

Jai's most com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful re­lease is Mor Tor, a sin­gle that fea­tured so­ca su­per­star and In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Machel Mon­tano. In 2007, he re­leased songs such as Aj Bhi Jeen and Bodeki­dal, fol­lowed by Bar­man, and has won the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch ti­tle a record break­ing six times.

Again push­ing the en­ve­lope last year, Jai did some­thing that many con­sid­ered un­think­able and un­prece­dent­ed by join­ing forces with his for­mer ri­val and an­oth­er past Chut­ney So­ca Monarch, Ravi B, to win the 2015 ti­tle, per­form­ing as a duet brand­ed as Team Ra­ja.

This year Jai turns 54 and is still as vi­brant and rel­e­vant as when he be­gan his ca­reer three decades ago. Us­ing his wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence of per­form­ing in one of the biggest ca­lyp­so tents in the land (Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la), on some of the biggest stages, and with two big bands–Triveni and Naya An­daz–Jai now has his own band–Jaimas­tarz. He said that Jaimas­tarz is a show band which spe­cialis­es in all gen­res of mu­sic, "from tra­di­tion­al chut­ney, to chut­ney so­ca, so­ca, ca­lyp­so and every­thing in be­tween."

Jaimas­tarz con­sists of an eclec­tic blend of new and up­com­ing mu­si­cians as well as es­tab­lished per­form­ers. Over the years Jai has been able to build a re­mark­ably strong net­work of tal­ent­ed mu­si­cians and his many years in the mu­sic in­dus­try act­ed as the trig­ger for the for­ma­tion of the band.

In a bio of the band, Jai states: "The team is ex­cit­ed about the prospects of tak­ing T&T's mu­sic to the world. An op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with per­form­ers of such high es­teem in one band is the un­re­alised dream of many artistes and one that these band mem­bers will not take for grant­ed.

"To­geth­er, they pos­sess many years of ex­pe­ri­ence. Each mem­ber of the band is mo­ti­vat­ed by the col­lec­tive de­sire to suc­ceed. Ded­i­ca­tion, de­ter­mi­na­tion, dri­ve and dis­ci­pline, are the tenets which have aid­ed in the in­di­vid­ual ac­com­plish­ments of each mem­ber of the band. Re­gard­less of any set­backs that they may have each faced, they were each able to over­come them all and main­tain their love for their re­spec­tive in­stru­ments.

"They, to­geth­er with the strength of the Rik­ki Jai brand in the lo­cal mu­sic in­dus­try, cre­ates the base from which the band can pro­pel in­to the realm of great­ness."

The mem­bers of Jaimas­tarz are the right mix of youth and ex­pe­ri­ence, con­ven­tion­al and un­con­ven­tion­al styles but mu­sic res­onates from deep with­in their souls. This ver­sa­tile ag­gre­ga­tion has been a dream of Jai's for a very long time. Jaimas­tarz will be en­joyed by per­sons of all ages, races, class­es and mu­si­cal pref­er­ences. It is a band for all peo­ple and through the pow­er of mu­sic will bring peo­ple to­geth­er.

Now con­sid­ered an el­der in ca­lyp­so, so­ca and chut­ney so­ca, Jai, with Jaimas­tarz as a con­duit, has em­barked on do­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions with artistes, young and not so young. Jaimas­tarz's de­but re­lease Kings of the Night has been fol­lowed by Leh We Fete, com­posed by Shaft; and col­lab­o­ra­tions with Bar­ba­dos' Al­li­son Hinds (Suragee); Hunter (Cool­ers); Guyanese Ju­mo Pri­mo, for­mer­ly of By­ron Lee & The Drag­o­naires (Off the Rocks); and, Ter­ry Gadraj (Take Way Yuh Gyul).

Jaimas­tarz has al­so se­cured a num­ber of book­ings for the 2016 Car­ni­val.