Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

With the semi­fi­nals of the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch on Jan­u­ary 30, inch­ing clos­er, some chut­ney artistes are speak­ing out not on­ly about their con­tri­bu­tions but al­so about their jour­ney in the in­dus­try.

Chut­ney artiste Ker­ron Ty­ron Williams, bet­ter known by his stage name Wack­er­man, is head­ing in­to the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion with his lat­est of­fer­ing, Bring Your Moth­er Come—a song he says car­ries a deep­er so­cial mes­sage.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Williams, who cur­rent­ly re­sides in Ch­agua­nas but grew up in Ma­yaro, re­flect­ed on his ear­ly love for mu­sic and the un­like­ly path that led him in­to the spot­light.

“I al­ways loved singing from a young age,” he said. “I grew up in an African com­mu­ni­ty, and as some­one of mixed de­scent, I would sing lit­tle chut­ney songs just nat­u­ral­ly. Peo­ple liked it, but at the time I didn’t see mu­sic as some­thing I could pur­sue se­ri­ous­ly.”

Life took a dif­fer­ent turn when Williams dropped out of school. His fa­ther, con­cerned about his fu­ture, bought him a wack­er—a grass-cut­ting ma­chine—so he could earn a liv­ing. It was dur­ing those long hours cut­ting grass that Williams found in­spi­ra­tion.

“I al­ways liked putting my feel­ings in­to mu­sic,” he said. “In 2007, while cut­ting grass and pour­ing my heart and soul in­to the work, I wrote a song about it.”

That song, apt­ly ti­tled Wack­er­man, was writ­ten while Williams was work­ing along Uquire Road in Freeport. It was there that he met fel­low chut­ney singer Hunter, who lat­er in­tro­duced him to pro­duc­er Big Rich. The track be­came a break­out hit in 2007 and pro­pelled Williams in­to the se­mi-fi­nals of the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

Fol­low­ing the re­lease of two ad­di­tion­al songs, Cas­sa­va and Blame It on Me, Williams said his life took a dif­fi­cult turn. He went through a di­vorce and strug­gled per­son­al­ly.

“I went through some re­al­ly hard times and end­ed up in a bad place,” he ad­mit­ted. “But I found God. I took about three to five years re­build­ing my­self—open­ing my own small tem­ple, fo­cus­ing on prayer, and deal­ing with re­al-life tests like di­vorce and bro­ken re­la­tion­ships. I came through all of that and found my way back.”

Now com­mit­ted to char­i­ty work and help­ing oth­ers fac­ing sim­i­lar strug­gles, Williams made his mu­si­cal come­back with the track Drunk Dri­ving. En­cour­aged by Chut­ney So­ca Monarch founder George Singh, he re-en­tered the com­pe­ti­tion with Gan­ga Chan­na, a song that reignit­ed his ca­reer.

“Af­ter 17 years, Gan­ga Chan­na gave me one of the biggest break­throughs of my life,” he said.

His lat­est en­try, Bring Your Moth­er Come, tack­les the is­sue of bul­ly­ing—a cause close to his heart. Williams said the song is part of his broad­er mis­sion to up­lift and en­cour­age those who feel mar­gin­alised or de­feat­ed.

“I want to thank the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch or­gan­i­sa­tion and Mr George Singh for giv­ing me this plat­form,” he said. “A lot of peo­ple are reach­ing out—peo­ple deal­ing with drugs, de­pres­sion, even thoughts of giv­ing up on life. I pray for them and try to en­cour­age them.”

Williams added that his par­tic­i­pa­tion in both the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch se­mi-fi­nals and the Ca­lyp­so Re­view marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in his ca­reer.

“For a chut­ney artiste to reach in­to those spaces is a big op­por­tu­ni­ty,” he said. “I’m grate­ful to be here, and I’m mov­ing for­ward.”

Mean­while, chut­ney artiste Nigel Gob­in has teamed up with fel­low per­former Avinash Sookraj, bet­ter known by his stage name Cli­maxxx, in a bid to cap­ture the 2026 Chut­ney So­ca Monarch (CSM) ti­tle.

Gob­in, 34, a res­i­dent of Cunu­pia, said the col­lab­o­ra­tion re­sult­ed in their lat­est re­lease, Dilip, which has been steadi­ly gain­ing trac­tion since its re­lease ear­li­er this year.

Gob­in’s jour­ney in­to the chut­ney mu­sic are­na be­gan at age 18, when he was en­cour­aged by his un­cle to au­di­tion for the Mod­ern Im­age Or­ches­tra. Gob­in lat­er record­ed his first song, Drunk and Falling Down, with Dil-e-Nadan in 2011. Af­ter tak­ing a two-year hia­tus, he re­turned to the scene and be­gan work­ing with pro­duc­er Big Rich and The Pun­galunks Fac­to­ry.

“I record­ed a song called My Wife and reached the se­mi-fi­nals of the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, but I did not make the fi­nals,” Gob­in re­called. Since then, he has made it to four CSM fi­nals, most re­cent­ly in 2024.

“I made the fi­nals with a song en­ti­tled Drunk Again, which is one of my biggest hits,” he added.

Gob­in said the idea for Dilip came about af­ter he ap­proached Cli­maxxx with the con­cept. “I told him, ‘I have a song here that I think you’re go­ing to like.’ I re­struc­tured the song and changed the lyrics to make it more of a duet,” he ex­plained.

Since its re­lease, Dilip has been per­form­ing strong­ly on so­cial me­dia plat­forms such as Tik­Tok and YouTube and has re­ceived sig­nif­i­cant air­play on ra­dio sta­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those cater­ing to the East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty.

Guardian Me­dia and Southex Pro­mo­tions (pro­duc­ers of CSM) signed an agree­ment mak­ing GML the of­fi­cial me­dia part­ner for this year’s com­pe­ti­tion.