Samp­son Nan­ton

Ian "Bun­ji Gar­lin" Al­varez's "Hard Fete" was out front yes­ter­day as the lead­ing song for this year's Road March, but faced stiff com­pe­ti­tion from Nailah Black­man and Gamal "Skin­ny Fab­u­lous" Doyle's "Come Home" at judg­ing points in Port-of-Spain.

With sev­er­al of the big bands stay­ing away from the Sa­van­nah and Down­town judg­ing points, judges will have more on their hands to­day to de­ter­mine which of the two has tru­ly cap­tured the hearts of mas­quer­aders the most.

At the Sa­van­nah judg­ing point, Bun­ji Gar­lin was played the most by bands cross­ing the stage up un­til late af­ter­noon. Among the big bands that went with his song were Ron­nie and Caro and Lega­cy.

Hard Fete was al­so played by Pa­parazzi both at the Sa­van­nah and at the Down­town judg­ing point on South Quay, as mas­quer­aders were first held back at the ropes dur­ing the open­ing chant, be­fore be­ing re­leased to burst on­to the stage with the in­fec­tious lyrics, "I ain't come here for no stand-up, I come to par­ty with meh hand up."

The Lost Tribe, how­ev­er, gave the nod to 'Come Home' as their mas­quer­aders chose to cross the sa­van­nah stage to the sweet blend of "jump like you nev­er jump, wave like you nev­er wave, wine like you nev­er wine."

Among the small­er bands, both tunes were be­ing played at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals.

As has be­come part of the tra­di­tion, most of the band DJs played one of the two songs in the lead-up to the judg­ing point, be­fore switch­ing to their pre­ferred song for the ac­tu­al cross­ing of the stage.

Both Bun­ji Gar­lin and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous won the Road March once be­fore in 2019, in a col­lab­o­ra­tion they both did with Machel Mon­tano called "Famalay".

Black­man is yet to win the cov­et­ed prize.

The Road March ti­tle is among the most pres­ti­gious in Trinidad Car­ni­val as it rep­re­sents the peo­ple's choice of the best so­ca song of the year.

The late Lord Kitch­en­er con­tin­ues to hold the ti­tle of most wins with 11, ahead of Austin "Su­perblue" Lyons with ten wins, Mon­tano al­so with ten, and The Mighty Spar­row with eight.

Out­side the Road March com­pe­ti­tion, Mon­tano and De­stra's "Shake the Place" (which has been remixed with an in­put from Tri­ni-born rap­per Nic­ki Mi­naj), and Olatun­ji Year­wood's "En­gine Room" were al­so among the pop­u­lar songs played reg­u­lar­ly on the road yes­ter­day.

Mi­naj is in T&T for Car­ni­val. She was here in 2020 when the last of­fi­cial Car­ni­val took place.