Pe­ter Ray Blood

His­to­ry will be cre­at­ed come car­ni­val 2K12 when Southex stages the first ever Ju­nior Na­tion­al Chut­ney So­ca Com­pe­ti­tion. Open to young peo­ple un­der the age of 18, the fi­nal of this in­no­v­a­tive is sched­uled for Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 3, in Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do. Dis­clo­sure of this new ad­di­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val was giv­en by Southex CEO George Singh who said it is be­ing held "with the bless­ings of the min­istries of Ed­u­ca­tion, Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism." Singh fur­ther dis­closed that this in­au­gur­al con­test will car­ry a first prize of $30,000. From an ini­tial screen­ing of hope­fuls, 15 fi­nal­ists will be se­lect­ed and the win­ner will be cho­sen sole­ly through tex­ting. With ad­mis­sion free to the fi­nal to chil­dren wear­ing school uni­forms, Singh added: "This con­test is staged to in­still cre­ative and com­pet­i­tive spir­it from a young age, and to of­fer op­por­tu­ni­ties to young artistes to ex­cel." In oth­er chut­ney so­ca news, the 2012 Na­tion­al Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion will be of­fi­cial­ly launched on Jan­u­ary 4, at the Jade, Ru­by & Sap­phire Rooms, of the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad, on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, at 7 pm.

For this con­test as well, the monarch will be de­cid­ed com­plete­ly by texts. Singh ex­plained there will be lo­cal tex­ting; tex­ting from Guyana and the USA; and, fixed line vot­ing, the lat­ter be­ing some­thing new to lo­cal com­pe­ti­tions. Singh added that the Na­tion­al Chut­ney So­ca Monarch fi­nal is the on­ly com­pe­ti­tion to judged en­tire­ly by text vot­ing. He al­so said that the 2012 com­pe­ti­tion is com­ing with new rules, in­clud­ing all se­lec­tions must be 100 per cent orig­i­nal and no film mu­sic must be used as melodies. Singh al­so hint­ed that con­tes­tants will be re­quest­ed from per­form­ing "rum songs," a genre which has been promi­nent in re­cent con­tests. For the first time, the Na­tion­al Chut­ney So­ca Monarch fi­nal is be­ing held in North Trinidad, in­stead of Skin­ner Park, its tra­di­tion­al home base. Next year's fi­nal takes place on Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 11, at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain. "We are com­ing to Port-of-Spain to make a state­ment," said Singh. "It def­i­nite­ly will not the same pro­duc­tion as been seen through the years in the south."

For the open­ing of the pro­duc­tion, the theme of the show –ONE, One Caribbean, One Mu­sic, One Peo­ple – will be em­pha­sised. It will in­clude promi­nent artistes from Suri­name, Guyana, Ja­maica, and Bar­ba­dos. Al­so fea­tur­ing celebri­ty in­ter­na­tion­al artistes from the Unit­ed States, one of the top draw­er artistes to be billed is cur­rent Ja­maican star Laza Mor­gan, whose sin­gle, "One by One" is a chart-rid­er. Singh al­so said that plans are afoot to stage a Guyana Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion lat­er this year and, as a pre­cur­sor to this, three Guyanese artistes will be among the 11 na­tion­als cho­sen for the lo­cal fi­nal, plus one "wild card" se­mi-fi­nal­ist, to be de­cid­ed by text vot­ing. Ne­go­ti­a­tions are cur­rent­ly in progress be­tween Southex and of­fi­cial me­dia spon­sor Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed to have the Jan­u­ary 21 se­mi-fi­nal beamed live from Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va, on CNC3 tele­vi­sion.