Pardy and Car­ry It seem to be the favourite 2025 Road March con­tenders for mas­quer­aders on Car­ni­val Mon­day in down­town Port-of-Spain.

The pop­u­lar songs by Machel Mon­tano and Bun­ji Gar­lin (Ian Al­varez) were played back to back as mas­quer­aders in large bands Tribe, Pa­parazzi and The Lost Tribe danced, chipped, swayed and sang in the ex­cite­ment of Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions while cross­ing South Quay, yes­ter­day.

The rev­el­ry be­gan with The Lost Tribe first cross­ing the judg­ing point at 10.10 am with their pre­sen­ta­tion Lost in Time to an al­most emp­ty stand and a high pres­ence of po­lice of­fi­cers.

Bask­ing in the blis­ter­ing sun, mas­quer­aders in their bead­ed, feath­ered and se­quinned cos­tumes went in­to a fren­zy when the mu­sic truck be­gan play­ing Mon­tano’s Pardy.

“We de­serve a pardy … and let’s get it start­ed,” they sang in uni­son, as the truck raised the vol­ume for the mas­quer­aders to sing along and en­joy them­selves.

Play­ing in sec­tion Fly, Janet Benoit said she loved every as­pect of Monat­no’s Pardy.

“It’s my ab­solute favourite song this Car­ni­val sea­son,” she gushed, rais­ing her hands in the air while singing the song to the top of her voice.

“That’s the Road March, right there. It’s hard to beat,” Benoit said.

Cup in hand, David George said this year had a good line­up of kaisoes.

“But if I had to choose one sol­id song for Road March, Pardy is my choice. It’s to­tal­ly elec­tri­fy­ing and in­fec­tious. You can’t stop singing it.”

Even though Janelle Gon­za­les from the sec­tion Found was mov­ing her body to Pardy’s lyrics she said pre­ferred Car­ry It.

“The crown should go to Bun­ji this time around.”

Gon­za­les said she was hooked on Car­ry It, stat­ing that the lyrics were full of en­er­gy and vibes.

Shar­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments was mas­quer­ad­er Gre­go­ry Bernard.

“It’s Bun­ji all the way for me. This is how we car­ry Car­ni­val … with joy, pas­sion and ex­cite­ment. No­body can take that from us.” 

As Tribe inched their way be­fore the judges with their colour­ful pre­sen­ta­tion Agra at around 11.10 am there were mixed views from mas­quer­aders as to who should win this year’s Road March.

Denise Bel­grove from the sec­tion Am­i­na is a fan of Bun­ji, stat­ing that he de­serves the Road March ti­tle this time around.

“I car­ry­ing that song with me for this en­tire Car­ni­val.”

Ava Melville said she too wants Bun­ji to win.

“Gosh, I hope every­thing goes in his favour this year. I re­alise that Bun­ji and Machel songs are go­ing neck to neck. But Bun­ji is my pick.”

Derek For­tuner said he was torn be­tween Bun­ji and Machel’s songs.

“It’s go­ing to be a hard fight for Road March for both singers. Judg­ing from what I am see­ing to­day may the best man win. On Ash Wednes­day a win­ner will be de­clared. Let’s see who will tri­umph.”

Camille Glas­gow in sec­tion She­ba, how­ev­er, said she was root­ing for Pardy all the way.

“Hear nah, when Pardy starts to play that mu­sic does just grip meh.”

In the sec­tion Azhar, David Warn­er couldn’t agree more.

“Pardy does get me re­al weak.”

As Pa­parazzi’s pre­sen­ta­tion Rhythm and Arts crossed the judg­ing point, Glen­da Forbes showed her sup­port for Pardy.

“It’s ev­i­dent that the Road March is Machel’s.”

Forbes’ friend Dan­ny Forte be­lieved Bun­ji could beat Machel and car­ry the ti­tle home.

Nic­ki gives Bun­ji a boost

Mean­while, Nic­ki Mi­naj (Oni­ka Maraj-Pet­ty) has added her voice to a remix of Bun­ji Gar­lin’s hit Car­ry It. The remix was post­ed to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day morn­ing. Un­der the post on his In­sta­gram page, Gar­lin said, “Some­times a big­ger pic­ture paints it­self.”

On the track, Mi­naj sang on the in­tro be­fore com­ing in lat­er to do a rap verse where she high­light­ed as­pects of Trinidad and To­ba­go cul­ture, in­clud­ing Car­ni­val and sev­er­al pop­u­lar lo­cal foods.

While the remix fea­tur­ing Mi­naj caught many off guard, there were mixed views. Some said it was not need­ed, how­ev­er, many oth­ers praised the col­lab­o­ra­tion.

On­ly re­cent­ly, the hip-hop star was em­broiled in a con­tro­ver­sy in­volv­ing ten-time Road March win­ner Machel Mon­tano, who ac­cused Mi­naj and Trinidad Kil­la of fight­ing him down.

In re­sponse, the US-based rap­per ques­tioned what she had done and threat­ened to “cuss you very, very, very (ex­ple­tive) stink.”

Hours lat­er, how­ev­er, Mon­tano apol­o­gised for what he de­scribed as “a mis­take, mis­un­der­stand­ing on his part.”