Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Ron­nie and Caro’s Mas Band has once again won the Down­town Car­ni­val Band of the Year ti­tle with their 2025 pre­sen­ta­tion of Shall We Dance.

This is the sixth ti­tle for the band, which is owned by Ron­nie and Car­o­line McIn­tosh. They were al­so vic­to­ri­ous from 2014 to 2018 and in 2023.

The re­sults were an­nounced by May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne and Al­der­man Bri­an Lewis dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. The Lost Tribe and Pa­parazzi copped the sec­ond and third places con­sec­u­tive­ly in the com­pe­ti­tion.

In a post to his so­cial me­dia page, Mac­In­tosh thanked the mas­quer­aders for bring­ing the most en­er­gy to the streets of Port-of-Spain and promised a big­ger pre­sen­ta­tion next year.

“RC­MAS­quer­aders you beau­ty!!!!! The re­sults are in and we are num­ber ONE,” Mac­In­tosh wrote.

Ger­ard Weekes and Pe­ter Samuel’s Ki­net­ic Mas won the medi­um Down­town Band of the Year ti­tle with Cel­e­bra­tion, K2K’s Holy Tres­pass­es placed sec­ond, and Im­age Na­tion’s Kan­bule third.

Trib­al Con­nec­tion Cul­tur­al Pro­mo­tions won the small band cat­e­go­ry while Moko Somokow took home the ti­tle for the mi­ni band.

Pardy, the of­fer­ing from so­ca artist Machel Mon­tano, was the Down­town Road March win­ner, with 70 plays while sec­ond-placed Car­ry It from Ian “Bun­ji Gar­lin” Al­varez played 60 times.

Akhen­aton “Yung Bred­da” Lewis who per­formed on the Down­town stage on Car­ni­val Tues­day placed third in the Down­town Road March com­pe­ti­tion with his song The Great­est Bend Over, which got five plays.

The May­or said po­lice were in­ves­ti­gat­ing the killing of a man and the wound­ing of three oth­ers in St James on Car­ni­val Tues­day.

He al­so said on Sat­ur­day a mu­sic truck pulled down an elec­tri­cal line on Broad­way, but City Po­lice the Fire Ser­vice and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion rec­ti­fied the sit­u­a­tion in time for rev­ellers to use that route.

Al­leyne, who be­came may­or in Au­gust 2023, said some changes were made to the ex­pe­ri­ence this year, in­clud­ing putting the judges and spec­ta­tors in the same stands.

“So that we can im­prove the prod­uct so that the per­sons that com­ing to view the mas will be able to have as good a van­tage point as the judges,” he said.

He said this was re­ceived well, es­pe­cial­ly by the el­der­ly who came out to spec­tate.

He said to con­tin­ue to en­cour­age the steel bands to come Down­town, the new Pana­ma­nia com­pe­ti­tion would con­tin­ue in 2026.

Ex­o­dus Steel Or­ches­tra placed first, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille placed sec­ond and Trinidad All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra came third in the new com­pe­ti­tion.

“We al­so made some in­vest­ments, some ad­vances on car­ni­val Tues­day, en­cour­ag­ing some of our so­ca artists to come on the down­town stand and pro­vide some en­ter­tain­ment,” Alleyene said.

The may­or la­belled the 2025 Down­town Car­ni­val a suc­cess and said it took a holis­tic ap­proach from every­one at­tached to the city cor­po­ra­tion to ac­com­plish this.