Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Chut­ney mu­sic star Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine is set to head­line this year’s I Am the Mu­sic Boss con­cert, shar­ing top billing with Vaib­hav Gup­ta.

The event is sched­uled for Sat­ur­day at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence and con­tin­ues a long-stand­ing tra­di­tion of show­cas­ing high-qual­i­ty chut­ney, Bol­ly­wood and In­di­an clas­si­cal mu­sic.

Ram­nar­ine, front­man of Dil-e-Nadan, re­mains the dri­ving force be­hind the an­nu­al pro­duc­tion, which has grown steadi­ly over more than three decades. Known for his dis­tinc­tive vo­cals and com­mand­ing stage pres­ence, he has con­sis­tent­ly drawn large au­di­ences, help­ing to sus­tain the show’s rep­u­ta­tion as one of the pre­mier events on the lo­cal en­ter­tain­ment cal­en­dar.

This year, he will be joined by Gup­ta, the young In­di­an singer who rose to in­ter­na­tion­al promi­nence af­ter win­ning In­di­an Idol Sea­son 14. Since his vic­to­ry, Gup­ta has built a grow­ing fan base, with his Bol­ly­wood play­back track Des­tiny—Mann Atkeya gain­ing trac­tion on­line.

The Mu­sic Boss show has un­der­gone no­table evo­lu­tion over the years. It be­gan as the An­nu­al Valen­tine’s Spec­tac­u­lar, lat­er re­brand­ed as Every­body Loves Ray­mond, be­fore adopt­ing its cur­rent iden­ti­ty. Through­out its var­i­ous it­er­a­tions, Ram­nar­ine has shared the stage with sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al Bol­ly­wood artistes, in­clud­ing Zubeen Garg, Ju­bin Nau­tiyal, Mon­ali Thakur and Amit Mishra.

With a blend of es­tab­lished ap­peal and fresh in­ter­na­tion­al tal­ent, this year’s stag­ing is ex­pect­ed to re­in­force the con­cert’s en­dur­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty among fans of chut­ney and Bol­ly­wood mu­sic in T&T.