Amala's View

Sunday, April 29, 2012

The People's Champion vs The Bacchanalist

By the time the first artiste hit the stage, the crowd was throughly prepped and ready to continue partying. Platinum Sounds and Jason Benn had managed to get all patrons onto the dancefloor and essentially in front of the stage. Brooklyn-based artiste Kuttit led the charge with his branded tshirt, he refers to himself as Mr Soca, Sex & Alcohol, just like the tshirt said! He did two tunes and exited to make way for Benjai. There was frenzied anticipation and from the time his name was announced, there were shouts of “see me yah” his familiar refrain. Simply clad, in black tshirt and jeans he begun to entertain the crowd. On the second song, he enlisted the help of Scarface much to the delight of the audience who sang ‘By D Bar’ word for word. Scarface stayed on a little longer and they continued to spar. By track number 5, Benjai reminded us that it was “The People’s Champion vs The Bacchanalist” what is soca without competition? Mr Bacchanalist Kerwin Dubois, fresh off his fantastic year at Trinidad’s carnival took to the stage and was very engaging. He sang the popular duets that he wrote for himself and Destra, and himself and Patrice, the crowd easily filling in for Destra and Patrice much to his delight. Still extremely confident from his recent successes, Kerwin belted out hit after hit then called Benjai back. Benjai launched into his 2012 big tracks, then Kerwin was back, because he is a bacchanalist! What a lovely time in soca music, Tropical Paradise was packed to capacity and by all accounts, when The People’s Champion meets The Bacchanalist, if you think that de soca done, is more soca to come cause we fed up ah de same ting, over and over!