From his 1988 sin­gle Sum­intra to his 2019 of­fer­ing Rem­e­dy, chut­ney so­ca su­per­star Sam­raj “Rik­ki Jai” Jaimun­gal showed why he has been able to stay rel­e­vant for the past 30 years as he dished out hits old and new at The Rig Restau­rant and Lounge in San Fer­nan­do on Sat­ur­day.

In what turned out to be one of the hottest mu­si­cal pelaus of so­ca, chut­ney and chut­ney so­ca for the 2019 Car­ni­val sea­son, the Guardian Me­dia-spon­sored Jaikon­ic fete in ho­n­our of Jai’s three decades in the busi­ness saw the leg­end eras­ing the gen­er­a­tional lines. The old, young and in be­tween were singing cho­rus­es to his songs as he rolled back to the years of his dec­o­rat­ed ca­reer. And if you think he is slow­ing down, the nine-time Chut­ney So­ca Monarch sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to cop his tenth ti­tle by deny­ing the likes of Ravi B and KI Per­sad, who are con­tenders in the race for next Sat­ur­day’s show­down. Even a few of next week’s fi­nal­ists en­dorsed him as the next monarch.

Start­ing with Leh We Fete, a song that has been known to evoke hap­pi­ness and clean fun among the par­ty-lov­ing so­ci­ety, he then belt­ed out his 2011 White Oak and Wa­ter hit, which won him the first $2 mil­lion Chut­ney So­ca Monarch prize to ever be of­fered. On this night ded­i­cat­ed to him, the mu­sic brought en­er­gy to the legs of pa­trons who sat at ta­bles for most of the night and had them bend­ing low in front of the stage.

Mak­ing sure the au­di­ence was warmed and ready for Rik­ki Jai was Na­dia Bat­son, who need­ed on­ly two songs to stir. Bat­son was ready for a sweat as she took off her heels and got up close and per­son­al with the fet­ters who sang along with her catchy 2019 So Long hit and her 2018 sin­gle Catch­ing Feel­ings. Oth­er artistes such as Third Bass and Swap­pi al­so got in­ti­mate with the au­di­ence, while Rus­sell Mo­hammed and Dad­dy Chi­nee kept the dance swing­ing. En­sur­ing that it nev­er got bor­ing dur­ing the change of bands, Ken­neth Seep­er­sad evoked scan­dalous laugh­ter, re­mind­ing all that his tal­ents were just not mu­sic but al­so com­e­dy.