Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Sea­soned per­former Tri­cia Hamil­ton en­ters the 2026 Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion with her lat­est of­fer­ing, D Bam­boo—a track she de­scribes as play­ful, cul­tur­al­ly rich and de­signed to ig­nite any stage.

“It’s my newest re­lease, and it has that clas­sic chut­ney flavour with a fresh groove,” Hamil­ton said. “The song is play­ful, full of dou­ble en­ten­dre, and built to mash up any stage. I want­ed some­thing that rep­re­sents cul­ture but is still catchy enough for every­body to re­late to.”

Writ­ten by Rishi Gayadeen, D Bam­boo us­es the sim­plic­i­ty of bam­boo as a metaphor for rhythm, con­nec­tion and vibe, trans­form­ing an every­day im­age in­to a cel­e­bra­tion of cul­ture, love and pure chut­ney so­ca en­er­gy.

“The bam­boo rep­re­sents strength, sweet­ness and that nat­ur­al chem­istry be­tween two peo­ple,” Hamil­ton ex­plained.

“It’s play­ful, it’s catchy, and it’s meant to make you move. When I record­ed it, the goal was to bring that old-school back­yard jam feel­ing on­to the big stage—some­thing every­body could sing along to, laugh about and en­joy to­geth­er. Once the rhythm hits, you in­stant­ly feel the cul­tur­al pride and fun en­er­gy be­hind it.”

Mu­si­cal­ly, D Bam­boo fus­es tra­di­tion­al chut­ney rhythms with a mod­ern so­ca bounce, cre­at­ing a sound that re­mains firm­ly root­ed in her­itage while ap­peal­ing to con­tem­po­rary au­di­ences. Its light-heart­ed sto­ry­telling and in­fec­tious en­er­gy are de­signed to res­onate across gen­er­a­tions.

Con­fi­dent head­ing in­to the com­pe­ti­tion, Hamil­ton be­lieves ex­pe­ri­ence will be her ad­van­tage. “I feel con­fi­dent and I be­lieve I have a good chance at the ti­tle. I’m bring­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, vo­cal abil­i­ty and a dy­nam­ic per­for­mance on the night,” she said.

Born Tri­cia Khandy An­drea Hamil­ton, the San Fer­nan­do na­tive be­gan her mu­si­cal jour­ney in the church, where she earned the name Sis­ter Tri­cia for her com­mand­ing per­for­mances in her gospel choir. While gospel laid the foun­da­tion for her vo­cal strength, so­ca played a key role in shap­ing her per­for­mance style.

She launched her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer as a mem­ber of the four-piece R&B vo­cal group San­dos­i­ty, lat­er per­form­ing at the Dal­las State Fair in Texas in 2002. Af­ter re­turn­ing home, Hamil­ton joined the chut­ney band SSL Mel­lobugs, where she was in­tro­duced to au­di­ences as Sexy Tri­cia.

Her ver­sa­til­i­ty and com­mand­ing stage pres­ence soon led to col­lab­o­ra­tions with sev­er­al promi­nent bands, in­clud­ing At­lantik, Kar­ma, T&TEC Gay­a­tones, Roy Cape, Pure En­er­gy and Triple X.

In 2007, Hamil­ton placed sec­ond in the Chut­ney cat­e­go­ry of the Ca­lyp­so Tents Com­pe­ti­tion and lat­er se­cured eighth place in the An­nu­al Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion with Walay and Callaloo. She has al­so been a ma­jor crowd favourite at The Mas­sive Go­sine Rov­ing Chut­ney, Ca­lyp­so and Com­e­dy Tent.

Hamil­ton’s in­ter­na­tion­al ré­sumé in­cludes per­for­mances in Guyana, Cana­da, In­dia, Chi­na, South Ko­rea and the Unit­ed King­dom, shar­ing stages with fel­low Caribbean artistes.

In 2017, she re­brand­ed her­self, drop­ping the so­bri­quet Sexy Tri­cia and re­turn­ing to her giv­en name, Tri­cia Hamil­ton—a move that marked a re­newed chap­ter in her mu­si­cal jour­ney. Now, with D Bam­boo, she sets her sights firm­ly on the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch crown.