Joel Julien

The first thing Mr Kil­la (Hol­lice Mapp) planned on do­ing to cel­e­brate his 2019 Pow­er So­ca Monarch win was to take a shot of rum. That shot of rum would be a mix­ture of Grena­da's Clarke's Court rum and Pun­cheon rum from T&T. The mix­ture of the rum is sym­bol­ic of how Mapp views him­self.

It was al­so a fit­ting cel­e­bra­tion, as rum per­son­i­fied Mapp's prize-win­ning song Run Wid It in which a man was in­struct­ing him to pick up some­thing, any­thing and run with it.

Around 3.30 am, Mapp ran away with the In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er So­ca Monarch ti­tle.

He picked up a mil­lion-dol­lar cheque and a tro­phy as part of his win­nings.

Neil "Iw­er" George placed sec­ond with his well-known Bless­in­gs wa­ter song. George per­formed in an Aqua­man cos­tume.

George re­spond­ed dur­ing his per­for­mance, telling the au­di­ence that it would be wrong for a Grena­di­an to walk away with $1 mil­li­on, ahead of a Trini­da­di­an.

Plac­ing third was an­oth­er Grena­di­an Mr Legz with his song Win­ing Chal­lenge.

In the Groovy cat­e­go­ry, which took place be­fore Pow­er, the judges gave the nod to Swap­pi with his per­for­mance of Par­ty Start. The sec­ond place went to Ted­dyson John who per­formed Vent, while third place went to V'ghn per­form­ing Trou­ble In The Morn­ing.

Mapp is the first per­son who is not from T&T to cap­ture the In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er So­ca Monarch ti­tle.

How­ev­er, Mapp said he was not a "for­eign­er".

"I am not a for­eign­er, a for­eign­er is some­body that was born in Amer­i­ca or some oth­er place that is far away. My great grand­fa­ther came here on the ba­nana boat and shared re­al ba­nana and had a lot of kids and we are like one fam­i­ly. Grena­da is like 30 min­utes away," Mapp said.

"I am sure some­times if you in­hale prop­er­ly on a cool day you will smell spice and that is Grena­di­an breeze right next door.

"I feel like Trinidad is lit­er­al­ly home for me, I have been com­ing here since I was a young boy. I did my first So­ca Monarch here in 2005 and I've been com­ing back ever since, this is home for me and I will rep­re­sent both Grena­da and Trinidad and To­ba­go in the So­ca are­na world­wide."

In 2005 he came fifth in the 2005 com­pe­ti­tion with Gyal Wine If You Win­ing.

Af­ter his per­for­mance, there was no chance that he would again place fifth this year.

Mapp gave a pow­er­ful per­for­mance in this year's In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

The crowd loved him.

He end­ed his per­for­mance by board­ing a makeshift boat that was lift­ed through the crowd and re­turned to the stage.

It was sup­posed to sig­ni­fy him win­ning the So­ca Monarch ti­tle and head­ing back to Grena­da with it.

Mapp cried when he was an­nounced as the com­pe­ti­tion's win­ner.

He in­tends to hug his moth­er, Ann Plen­ty, and thank her for be­liev­ing in him.

"I want to hug my moth­er and tell her thank you, ma­ma, for hav­ing this boy and then kneel and pray to the fa­ther and tell him thanks and then go cel­e­brate with my fans," Mapp said.

He said his vic­to­ry should act as mo­ti­va­tion for young peo­ple.

Mr Kil­la: I came from noth­ing to some­thing

"I came from noth­ing to some­thing, I came from a poor fam­i­ly born and bred in Gouyave town and I nev­er gave up, so I say to all the youths out there, nev­er give up. Hold strong, re­mem­ber your dreams are pos­si­ble be­cause my dream be­came pos­si­ble," Mapp said.

Mapp said win­ning the So­ca Monarch was a dream come true.

"It feels like In­de­pen­dence, Eman­ci­pa­tion, every­body's birth­day, a hol­i­day in Grena­da. It's an over­whelm­ing feel­ing, there are no words to re­al­ly ex­press my feel­ing right now more than my tears.

"This is joy be­yond joy, there is noth­ing I can re­al­ly say to ex­press this feel­ing, this is lit­er­al­ly my dream, I dreamt of this as a child and here I am to­day af­ter the low­est time in my life to now be­ing the So­ca Monarch cham­pi­on of the world," Mapp said.

Mapp said he hopes to be able to one day "buss a wine on the Gram­my stage".

"So­ca mu­sic is not yet a genre that is on big plat­forms and we want to get so­ca mu­sic to that place where it is a genre and the world can re­al­ly feel the pow­er of so­ca. That is the mis­sion we have," he said.

He said he was try­ing to help mar­ket so­ca so "we can just show the world this genre, this mu­sic, this vibe, this feel­ing, this ex­pres­sion".

Mapp said the re­sponse to Run Wid It has been "mon­strous".

He be­lieves the on­ly oth­er song in re­cent times that has matched the vi­ral na­ture of it was the song In My Feel­ings by Cana­di­an rap­per Drake (Aubrey Gra­ham).

At first, Mapp said he did not think this year's song was as big as his pre­vi­ous hit Rol­ly Pol­ly.

The song Rol­ly Pol­ly earned Mapp a sec­ond-place tie at the In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion in 2014 with George and De­stra Gar­cia.

The list of the top three in each cat­e­go­ry:

Pow­er Cat­e­go­ry

1. Mr Kil­la—Run Wid It—Grena­da

2. Iw­er—Bless­in­gs—T&T

3. Mr Legz—Win­ing Chal­lenge—Grena­da

Groovy Cat­e­go­ry

1. Swap­pi—Par­ty Start—T&T

2. Ted­dyson John—Vent—St Lu­cia

3. V’ghn—Trou­ble in the Morn­ing—Grena­da