Shas­tri Boodan

GML Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

For chut­ney artiste Rawytee Ram­roop, the jour­ney from a 12-year-old girl win­ning the Mas­tana Ba­har com­pe­ti­tion to per­form­ing be­fore thou­sands of mu­sic lovers in South Africa is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of per­se­ver­ance, pas­sion and fam­i­ly in­spi­ra­tion.

Fresh from a tri­umphant per­for­mance in Dur­ban, South Africa, Ram­roop is prepar­ing to take her mu­sic to Auck­land, New Zealand, in Oc­to­ber.

On Au­gust 9, she shared the stage with Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised crossover band Dil-E-Nadan at the Chut­ney Fu­sion Fes­ti­val, held at Hol­ly­wood­bets Kingsmead Sta­di­um in Dur­ban.

More than 8,000 peo­ple turned out for the con­cert, where Ram­roop de­liv­ered a high-en­er­gy per­for­mance that in­tro­duced her mu­sic to an en­thu­si­as­tic South African au­di­ence.

A mu­si­cal jour­ney be­gins

For Ram­roop, how­ev­er, per­form­ing on an in­ter­na­tion­al stage is an­oth­er chap­ter in a mu­si­cal jour­ney that be­gan dur­ing her child­hood.

She cred­its her fa­ther with in­spir­ing her to sing and said she start­ed per­form­ing de­vo­tion­al songs at a ten­der age.

“Since then it was no turn­ing back for me,” Ram­roop said.

She re­called her break­through at age 12, when she en­tered the Mas­tana Ba­har com­pe­ti­tion and emerged the win­ner.

“That mu­si­cal path opened many doors to me,” she said, ex­plain­ing that she sub­se­quent­ly per­formed with dif­fer­ent bands and at nu­mer­ous events through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Over the years, those ear­ly op­por­tu­ni­ties have de­vel­oped in­to an in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer.

Ram­roop has per­formed in Guyana, Hol­land, Spain, Suri­name, New York City, Cana­da and, most re­cent­ly, South Africa.

She al­so rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go as a cul­tur­al am­bas­sador at Car­ifes­ta in Bar­ba­dos in 2025.

Her achieve­ments in­clude win­ning the ti­tle of Queen of Chut­ney So­ca at the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion in 2024, fur­ther es­tab­lish­ing her as one of the promi­nent fe­male voic­es in the genre.

Look­ing to­wards the fu­ture

De­spite the mile­stones, Ram­roop said she re­mains fo­cused on the fu­ture and the many goals she still wants to ac­com­plish.

“I’m so blessed to know that I can think back and look back and see how much I have achieved and where I am to­day, and so much more that I wish to do in the fu­ture al­so,” she said.

Be­hind the artiste is a moth­er who says her son, Arvin, re­mains one of her great­est sources of in­spi­ra­tion. Ram­roop said her son mo­ti­vates her to work hard­er and strive to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of her­self.

That de­ter­mi­na­tion was ev­i­dent in Dur­ban, where she was giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to per­form along­side some of the biggest names in chut­ney and so­ca.

Win­ning over South Africa

Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine, front­man of Dil-E-Nadan and known as the Mu­sic Boss, told Guardian Me­dia that Ram­roop’s per­for­mance ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions. Ram­nar­ine, who was in Hol­land on tour, said this was his third con­sec­u­tive year per­form­ing in South Africa with Dil-E-Nadan.

“The fans here sim­ply adore Dil-E-Nadan,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­nar­ine, the band has made his­to­ry by sell­ing out sta­di­ums and oth­er ma­jor venues in South Africa for three con­sec­u­tive years, with thou­sands turn­ing out to ex­pe­ri­ence its mu­sic.

This year, he said, the band rec­om­mend­ed Ram­roop for the fes­ti­val, and she seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“This year we rec­om­mend­ed this amaz­ing fe­male singer, Rawytee Ram­roop, and boy did she de­liv­er,” Ram­nar­ine said.

He praised her per­for­mance of her hit Pari Karo, as well as her abil­i­ty to main­tain the en­er­gy of the con­cert with her chut­ney reper­toire. Ram­roop per­formed as part of a pow­er­ful cast that in­clud­ed Shiv­am Ra­jaram, Dil-E-Nadan and Ram­nar­ine him­self, along­side sev­er­al lead­ing lo­cal per­form­ers.

A grow­ing mu­si­cal fam­i­ly

For Ram­nar­ine, the South African ex­pe­ri­ence was about more than mu­sic.

“We built a fam­i­ly bond on this trip and she has be­come part of us,” he said.

He de­scribed Ram­roop as “a gem of an artiste” and pre­dict­ed that au­di­ences could ex­pect greater things from her in the fu­ture.

The Chut­ney Fu­sion Fes­ti­val at Hol­ly­wood­bets Kingsmead Sta­di­um has al­so strength­ened Dil-E-Nadan’s re­la­tion­ship with its South African fol­low­ing. Ram­nar­ine said the 2026 con­cert was one the Dur­ban au­di­ence would not soon for­get.

With fans al­ready call­ing for the band to re­turn in 2027, and Ram­roop prepar­ing for her next in­ter­na­tion­al en­gage­ment in New Zealand, the Trinida­di­an artiste’s mu­si­cal jour­ney ap­pears to be en­ter­ing an­oth­er ex­cit­ing phase.