Fay­ola KJ Fras­er

Vanes­sa Ra­moutar is a mul­ti-tal­ent­ed busi­ness­woman with a thriv­ing chut­ney so­ca ca­reer, along­side her roles as a busi­ness own­er, cos­me­tol­o­gist, and en­tre­pre­neur.

She has made a sig­nif­i­cant mark in the chut­ney mu­sic scene with hits like Suno Suno Bala­ma and Moth­er in Law. Her col­lab­o­ra­tions with fel­low artistes, such as her work with La­dy La­va and her hus­band, Rick Ram, in Suno Suno Bala­ma, show­case her tal­ent for blend­ing tra­di­tion­al sounds with con­tem­po­rary flair and in­te­grat­ing var­i­ous quin­tes­sen­tial­ly Trinida­di­an sounds.

Dur­ing her per­for­mances, she cap­tures au­di­ences with her dy­nam­ic stage pres­ence, ce­ment­ing her rep­u­ta­tion as a force to be reck­oned with in the chut­ney mu­sic scene.

Born and raised in Cou­va, Ra­moutar went to Wa­ter­loo High School, and sub­se­quent­ly pur­sued cos­me­tol­ogy.. For the past 20 years, she has owned and op­er­at­ed a full sa­lon and spa where she of­fers var­i­ous hair­dress­ing and beau­ty treat­ments to women. Ra­moutar is al­so the proud own­er of Fash­ion Dis­trict by Vanes­sa, her cloth­ing store that of­fers the lat­est in women’s cut­ting edge fash­ions.

“Ever since I was a child, I loved nice things, I loved to dress up and I al­so loved busi­ness.” It is the com­bi­na­tion of these pas­sions that brought her to be­ing an en­tre­pre­neur in the beau­ty in­dus­try, and at the age of 16, she be­gan of­fer­ing her hair­dress­ing and nails ser­vices from her aunt’s store.

“I put a chair and ta­ble in my aunt’s busi­ness place, and on the first day I made $2,500,” she says, im­me­di­ate­ly know­ing that women’s beau­ty would be a prof­itable busi­ness ven­ture for her.

Twen­ty years in the busi­ness, she has her own sa­lon, staffed with eight em­ploy­ees and fre­quent­ed by faith­ful clients who have been com­ing to her for their beau­ty treat­ments for over 18 years.

Up­on meet­ing her now hus­band, reign­ing Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Rick Ra­moutar, she ini­tial­ly used her back­ground in danc­ing to be a part of his per­for­mances.

Al­though she had no back­ground in singing, she even­tu­al­ly be­gan singing with her hus­band, and they opened their band called Fu­sion. “Com­ing from a non-mu­si­cal back­ground,” she says, has al­ways been a ma­jor chal­lenge.

“At first, the pub­lic and col­leagues in the mu­sic in­dus­try saw me as a non-singer, but this didn’t dis­cour­age me, it helped me push bound­aries and prove my­self.”

And prove her­self she did, en­ter­ing the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion in 2024 as a so­lo artist, and com­ing in sec­ond place in the Queen cat­e­go­ry with her song Suno Suno Bala­ma.

Teams up with Olatun­ji for Iz Ah In­di­an Wed­ding

Seam­less­ly adapt­ing to life on stage, Ra­moutar not on­ly en­joys be­ing one half of a pow­er cou­ple in the chut­ney so­ca in­dus­try, and “bring­ing out the best of each oth­er on stage,” but rel­ish­es in her in­de­pen­dent ca­reer as an en­ter­tain­er.

Al­though the com­pe­ti­tion is of­ten dom­i­nat­ed by men, she is able to as­sert her­self by “match­ing en­er­gies” with top male per­form­ers, such as her hus­band, and carve her own niche, hop­ing to one day be the first woman to win the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch ti­tle.

With an aim of in­no­vat­ing in the mu­sic in­dus­try and bring­ing the gen­res of chut­ney so­ca and so­ca clos­er to­geth­er, she re­leased Iz Ah In­di­an Wed­ding with so­ca artiste Olatun­ji Year­wood in 2025 which cap­tured one mil­lion views up­on re­lease.

In ad­di­tion to her chut­ney so­ca ca­reer, she con­tin­ues to op­er­ate her busi­ness­es, and man­age a house­hold as a de­vot­ed wife and moth­er to two chil­dren.

“Be­ing a busi­ness own­er makes me feel in­de­pen­dent, and I love to work hard and con­tribute to the house­hold, along with pro­vid­ing for my em­ploy­ees.”

She has cre­at­ed a fa­mil­ial at­mos­phere with­in the realms of her work­place, so that she can of­fer sup­port to the women she em­ploys where need­ed, and “we all can win to­geth­er.”

She al­so rel­ish­es in be­ing a men­tor to younger aes­theti­cians, and work­ing with oth­er col­leagues in the in­dus­try, as they can share ad­vice, con­tacts and cre­ate com­mu­ni­ty.

Now mem­bers of the Gram­my Record­ing Acad­e­my, Ra­moutar and her hus­band are con­tin­u­ing to take chut­ney so­ca mu­sic to the world.

“Let’s push the bound­aries of our mu­sic and cul­ture,” she added.

Aside from be­ing fo­cused on her own ca­reer, she works tire­less­ly be­hind the scenes in the busi­ness of mu­sic to help her hus­band score record­ing deals with stu­dios in Los An­ge­les, and seek­ing out ways to bring the mu­sic to in­ter­na­tion­al ears.

A tes­ta­ment to “it’s nev­er too late to start,” she en­cour­ages oth­er women to pur­sue their pas­sions re­gard­less of the sea­son of their lives. She in­sists that al­though it may not be an easy jour­ney, “you can al­ways de­pend on the things you love to bring you hap­pi­ness.”

With­out a back­ground in singing, she has man­aged to ce­ment her­self as a promi­nent fig­ure in the chut­ney mu­sic scene, with her in­fec­tious en­er­gy and pas­sion in­spir­ing au­di­ences lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Ra­moutar and Olatun­ji are in the se­mi-fi­nals of the 2025 Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion on Feb­ru­ary 8 at La Trop­i­cal Club, San Fer­nan­do.