Ravi B, Omardath, joint Chutney Soca Kings

They both took the title from the defending champion KI Persad who had to settle for third place. The joint winners will each take home $325,000, this year’s first prize having been slashed to $500,000.

As a result of the tied position for first, the third place went to ‘KI’ who won $75,000 and Nishard Mayroo got $25,000 for placing fourth. The other six finalists will receive $25,000 each.

There was a drastic drop in prize money for this year’s winner unlike in 2016 when KI took copped $1 million for topping the competition.

In 2015, Ravi B teamed up with nine times winner Rikki Jai, to win $2.5 million. These two won two categories (Chutney Soca and Traditional Chutney) in 2015.

This year the Chutney Soca Monarch promoter George Singh, introduced the World’s Ultimate Chutney Challenge which gave opportunities to singers who had hit songs of the past, to compete against each other. In the end, Chris Garcia who sang ‘Chutney Bacchanal’, won the first place with the prize of $100,000. Rikki Jai placed second in this competition winning $20,000. People cheered veteran artiste Drupatie Ramgoonai who sang ‘Mr Bissessar’ for which she was applauded for her efforts but she could only make it to fourth position. The winners, Ravi B and Omardath, both performed after 1 o’ clock yesterday morning.

Omardath had the crowd cheering when he sang ‘Ramsingh Sharma - The village Ram from San Juan’.

He told the cheering audience, “In Skinners Park the people chanting they fed up ah the same fellas winning. I go beat them left right and centre, cause the new chant is ‘Ramsingh Sharma.’” Omardath also participated in the Chutney Challenge with his past hit song ‘Ring Bang’.

Ravi B who brought the house down with his selection of ‘Budget’ also paid tribute to chutney singer, Anand Yankarran, who passed away last month at the age of 51.

Ravi also took the opportunity to address the crime situation in TT, saying that there is a lot of disrespect for the women in the country.

Rikki Jai met with hiccups when he sang his Soca Chutney ‘Single’ when certain parts of the DJ system malfunctioned and he spent 20 minutes trying to fix them.