Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Since its re­lease ap­prox­i­mate­ly one month ago, Akhen­aton Lewis’ (Yung Bred­da) The Great­est Bend Over has sky­rock­et­ed to the num­ber-one spot on Ap­ple Mu­sic’s top songs from T&T. It al­so gained over five mil­lion views on YouTube.

But even with this suc­cess, Yung Bred­da’s man­ag­er Jesse John say’s he’s not sure his client will en­ter the up­com­ing Ul­ti­mate So­ca Cham­pi­on com­pe­ti­tion.

The new com­pe­ti­tion was an­nounced last Fri­day and will see a first prize of $1 mil­lion. The pro­duc­tion, which will fol­low the re­al­i­ty show for­mat, has a bud­get of around $8 mil­lion, of which $4 mil­lion will come from the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, John said they will de­cide on the com­pe­ti­tion be­fore the ap­pli­ca­tion dead­line.

“We not run­ning down the so­ca com­pe­ti­tion, if lat­er down in the sea­son, al­right,” he said.

John and his team al­ready have their fo­cus on an­oth­er genre, ca­lyp­so.

“We look­ing to go Skin­ner Park and we look­ing to en­ter in the tents be­cause the whole mis­sion is to re­vive a dy­ing genre,” he shared.

Mean­while, 2016 In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch (ISM) break­out artiste Jar­dine Le Gere, known as Jadel, said she won’t be en­ter­ing.

“I know for new artistes, it’s some­times very hard to get in­to ma­jor shows for the sea­son ... I be­lieve this is good for up-and-com­ing tal­ent to have a large plat­form to be able to show­case their tal­ent,” she said.

How­ev­er, so­ca artistes like Kevon Heath, bet­ter known as Yankey Boy, have their sights set on the $1 mil­lion top prize. Heath, who en­gaged in a 14-day hunger strike to protest dance­hall su­per­star Vy­bz Kar­tel’s up­com­ing per­for­mance in T&T on Car­ni­val Fri­day, is pleased with the op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“In my opin­ion any­thing for cul­ture, any­thing for the youths and the up­com­ing, I will sup­port,” he said.

His hunger strike end­ed on De­cem­ber 12, 2024. The Ru­mours singer said cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for so­ca artistes was what he fast­ed for.

“It was for some­thing, not just noth­ing, any­thing for the youths and the next gen­er­a­tion and give them a plat­form,” he said.

Pub­li­cist of Oh Nine PR Sherisse Ar­joon said her six clients are all ex­cit­ed to be part of the Ul­ti­mate So­ca Cham­pi­on com­pe­ti­tion to show­case their tal­ent.

“It’s not just like a fete where you are go­ing to per­form, you go­ing to per­form yes but you re­al­ly go­ing to give it your best, you go­ing to give it your all be­cause it’s com­pe­ti­tion,” Ar­joon said.

Artistes Mr Ren­zo, Chris­to, Chenko, Dna868 Muzik, Chaos and Ju­ba Jah are all signed with Oh Nine PR.

Ar­joon said she was elat­ed when she learnt about the com­pe­ti­tion be­cause she be­lieves it was miss­ing from the “great­est show on Earth.”

But some award-win­ning so­ca artistes will not be vy­ing to be the Ul­ti­mate So­ca Cham­pi­on.

When con­tact­ed, 2020 Groovy So­ca Monarch win­ner Col­lege Boy Jesse said he will not be par­tic­i­pat­ing but wished all the par­tic­i­pants the best.

“I think it’s a good ini­tia­tive,” he stat­ed.

So­ca star Patrice Roberts, through her pub­li­cist Adan­na As­son, al­so said she will al­so be stay­ing away from the con­test.