– After second Chutney Soca Monarch win

By Shamar Meusa
AFTER snatching her second Chutney Soca Monarch crown at the recently-concluded competition, Vanita Willie, also known as “Poowah”, is retiring her microphone and sequins as she has no plans to return to the competition next year.

Just days after her big win at the National Stadium last weekend, Willie had a brief chat with The Buzz where she confirmed her intention to call it quits.

On competition night, the gyrating monarch took the stage dressed in gold with dancers who appeared to be representing Guyana’s six peoples, a fitting visual for her performance of “Live in Harmony”.

In the song, Willie spoke of Guyana as a space for mixing cultures while living in peace, love and harmony.

The song immediately connected with the audience as familiar patrons danced and sang along.

When asked about the inspiration behind the song, the chutney soca monarch said she wrote the song while on her lunch break. It just came to her.

“That song just drop on me! I usually write my songs during my lunch break and it just dawned on me,” she said.

Adding some depth, she said her new year’s resolution was to stay positive and keep thinking positive. She felt that the song was perfectly in line with this.

Taking an unusual route from writing traditional songs, she revealed that she got a good feeling and decided to write a song about togetherness for this year’s competition.

“It’s Mash!” she exclaimed, “every year, I write traditional songs but this year is a happy year… so I wrote a togetherness song for the Mashramani song competition in the chutney category”.

Vanita is still excited about her second win. She said her pride comes from the amount of hard work from her team that was committed to bringing the song to life.

The win for Vanita comes off the heels of having the very popular Chutney Soca track, ‘Poowah’.

She said there were doubts about her entry into the Chutney Soca Monarch this year, but she won’t be returning next year to defend the crown.

“Next year I’m not going to defend my crown, I will give others a chance,” she said.

After a night filled with exciting and creative performances, the five judges of the competition announced that Willie won the competition with 184 points.

Meanwhile, her rival performers, Bunty Singh and Vicadi Singh tied with second place at 170 points.

Vicadi Singh, who was also decked out in golden garb, wowed the crowd with his performance which began with a dramatic piece of acting that was on theme with his song “Tek another.”

In this piece, Singh details that the girl his mother found for him has now left with his house, land, and even his brother.

The lyrics of the song had patrons in an uproar as they laughed at the dramatisation that took place on stage while Singh belted the song.

Three-time Chutney Soca Monarch, Bunty Singh returned a fourth time for the crown and performed his song “Rising On” which also had a positive message of rising against all odds.

Singh sang about having persons laughing at him for pursuing his dreams of becoming a music star to now having persons singing along to his chutney songs.

Bunty, who was a crowd favorite of the evening, was the second performer for the night and had the audience going before he even came on stage.

However, though both Bunty and Vicadi captured the hearts in the crowd, it was Vanita that had the judges. There was no third-place contender.