KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The 30 artistes who are one step clos­er to win­ning $500,000 in Southex Events Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny’s Chut­ney So­ca Monarch (CSM) com­pe­ti­tion were an­nounced yes­ter­day.
Judges com­plet­ed as­sess­ments of songs sub­mit­ted by close to 80 artistes on Sat­ur­day and re­leased the names of those head­ing to the next round of the com­pe­ti­tion at the Scream­ers Restau­rant and Lounge in South Haven, Debe, on Jan­u­ary 27. Among them are fa­mil­iar artistes like Ker­ron Ty­ron “Wack­er­man” Williams, Rick Ra­moutar, Ken­neth Su­per­sad and the cur­rent Queen of Chut­ney So­ca Ram­ra­jie Prab­hoo. 
The semi­fi­nal­ists must thrill the judges and au­di­ence to make the top ten for the grand fi­nal at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, on Feb­ru­ary 4.

The sec­ond and third-place prizes are $100,000 and $75,000, re­spec­tive­ly, while the oth­er fi­nal­ists will re­ceive $35,000 for their par­tic­i­pa­tion.
The fi­nals will fea­ture guest per­for­mances by top Caribbean en­ter­tain­ers in a spe­cial fea­ture ti­tled Leg­ends and Icons. In this seg­ment, the CSM will ho­n­our for­mer win­ners Sam­raj “Rik­ki Jai” Jaimun­gal, Rooplal “Rooplal G” Gird­harie, Heer­alal Ram­par­tap and Dru­patee Ram­goon­ai. Guyana’s Ter­ry “Ter­ry G” Gajraj and Suri­name’s Kries Rhamkhelawan will al­so be among the ho­n­ourees and there will be per­for­mances by In­do-Caribbean mu­sic icons.

CSM will al­so crown its 2023 Queen of Chut­ney So­ca at the fi­nals. 

The semi­fi­nal­ists are:
Ri­car­do Melville
Dad­dy Chi­nee
Narindra Raghu­bir
Riza­an Ali & Dar­rion Nar­ine – Riz And The­atrics
Kendal Jag­ger­nauth
Stephon Ram­ber­an
Ker­ron Ty­ron Williams – Wack­er­man
Kei­th Bish­op – Keipa­lo
Shi­va Lakhan
Rick Ra­moutar
Joanne Gib­son – Queen Voice
Camille Alana Ran­jit­man – Ran­ji Ba­by
Nee­shan Sul­tan
Katelin Sul­tan
Mario Jit­man
Ken­neth Su­per­sad
De­vanand Gat­too
Ram­ra­jie Prab­hoo
Ed­ward Ram­dass
Vish­nu Ram­ber­an – Vee Ram
Ricky Khan­doo
O’Neil Bha­j­man
Ken­neth Sal­ick
Prince Navin Prab­hoo
Nigel Gob­in
Jairam Din­di­al
Shazeena Ram­sumair - Shazz­ie
Neval Chate­lal
Ni­hchal Seep­er­sad & Dar­rion Nar­ine
Avinash Sookraj