Pe­ter Ray Blood

Bun­ji Gar­lin won the Best In­ter­na­tion­al Per­for­mance cat­e­go­ry award with his hit sin­gle Dif­fer­ent­l­o­gy in the 2013 Soul Train Awards in Las Ve­gas.Tele­vised on Sun­day night on BET, the cer­e­mo­ny was pre-taped on No­vem­ber 9 and was host­ed by An­tho­ny An­der­son. Gar­lin was in­formed of his win three weeks ago.Con­tact­ed at his home yes­ter­day, Gar­lin (Ian Al­varez) said of his achieve­ment: "I am feel­ing a joy, an over­all joy. This is a God-giv­en op­por­tu­ni­ty for the song, see­ing where it has reached.

"It is al­so a joy be­cause God has blessed my at­mos­phere with some in­cred­i­ble fans who sup­port­ed the song and they have ba­si­cal­ly tak­en Dif­fer­en­tol­ogy to the ends of the earth."Shar­ing in Gar­lin's joy is his wife, for­mer Road March win­ner and In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er So­ca Monarch Fay-Ann Lyons. Of her he said: "Fay-Ann is elat­ed and is re­al­ly hap­py. Last night she told me, 'Mr Al­varez, I am very proud of you.'"

Com­par­ing his Soul Train win to his suc­cess in So­ca Monarch, Gar­lin said: "The main dif­fer­ence is that win­ning this award is not on­ly recog­nised all over the world but is seen all over the world as well."The win is sig­nif­i­cant to be a part of the lega­cy that Soul Train has been around for so long. To win some­thing as big as that is be­ing amongst the best in the world and the his­to­ry of world mu­sic.

"In So­ca Monarch, as much as it is trav­elled world­wide, it gets main­ly to the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty. The Soul Train view­er­ship is way be­yond the Caribbean. Peo­ple from else­where are hear­ing the song and re­al­is­ing that this is some­thing from here and they pay more at­ten­tion."Look­ing be­yond 2013, Gar­lin said: "My mu­sic has plen­ty plen­ty more to go. I have on­ly just be­gan dis­cov­er­ing some in­ter­est­ing things mu­si­cal­ly. My mu­si­cal jour­ney has on­ly just start­ed.

"Peo­ple can look for a lot of unique­ness for Car­ni­val 2014, like noth­ing heard be­fore."In re­sponse to ques­tions from his fans of a per­ceived ma­tu­ri­ty by Gar­lin in re­cent years, he said: "Times, wis­dom, knowl­edge, un­der­stand­ing, ma­tu­ri­ty, fam­i­ly, and be­ing firm­ly root­ed spir­i­tu­al­ly is re­spon­si­bile for that per­cep­tion. I am re­al­is­ing more spir­i­tu­al­ly so I am con­tin­u­ing to grow."

In the Best In­ter­na­tion­al Per­for­mance cat­e­go­ry, Dif­fer­en­tol­ogy and Gar­lin's ri­vals were The Fog (Machel Mon­tano); Next to Me (Emeli Sande); Per­son­al­ly (P Square) and Ur Waist (Iyanya).

So­ca artists say con­grats

Join­ing thou­sands glob­al­ly ex­tend­ing con­grat­u­la­tions to Gar­lin were for­mer So­ca Monarch win­ners Machel Mon­tano and Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller.Mon­tano sent con­grat­u­la­tions to Gar­lin via In­sta­gram, say­ing: "Mas­sive con­grat­u­la­tions to @Bun­ji­Gar­lin on cop­ping the Soul Train award tonight! Well de­served!!! Big Re­spect to @Sher­iff­mum­bles!!! Take so­ca to the world."

Di­ef­fen­thaller post­ed: "The dawn of a new era! Let's con­tin­ue to in­spire a gen­er­a­tion to dream be­yond the so-called lim­its and be GREAT. Con­grats again to @Bun­ji­Gar­lin and to the @Machel­MontanoHD camp for the nom­i­na­tion. One mis­sion–One T&T."

Bun­ji's back­ground

�2 Gar­lin's de­but on the big stage was in 1999, the first year he en­tered the So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

�2 He placed 23rd out of 25 fi­nal­ists but per­se­vered to be­come one of the bright­est lights in mu­sic and en­ter­tain­ment. That year, Gar­lin's song was ti­tled Send that Rhythm Crazy and the ti­tle was won by Kurt Allen singing Bees.

�2 Sub­se­quent to his dis­ap­point­ing de­but in the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion, Gar­lin went on to win on four oc­ca­sions, do­ing so in 2002 (In de Ghet­to); 2004 (War­rior Cry); 2005 (Blaze de Fire); and, then 2008 (Fire).

�2 With his ca­reer on a dif­fer­ent path, Gar­lin last year said he had re­tired from the com­pe­ti­tion.