The first annual International Bashment Soca competition was held last Friday on the grounds of the historic Kensington Oval in Barbados. The competition which seeks to showcase the top tier Bashment Soca artists in the region had an excellent marketing campaign during the last couple of months leading up to the big night.
The stage was set, the competitors were ready, so how did they fair? In my opinion, they were just average. Why do I say this? Well, for starters, ignoring the fact that the event itself started very late, a good handful of the performers did not seem to put up much of a fight during the proceedings. Most of them seemed quite comfortable in attacking their counterparts in the competition pekong style. For those who are not familiar with the term, it’s Trinidadian slang where someone is allowed to insult another for fun. There was plenty of it during the night, much to the often dismay of the audience.
There were, however, some bright sparks that we could make note of: Jus D’s performance of his silent hit “Manager” got a great response from the crowd. It was full of energy and passion that was nice to see from the young performer.
The vincy songbird Sita had a perfect showcase of her song “Hammer,” she commanded the stage well, have great chemistry with the crowd, and to no one’s surprise, had biting lyrics that fit well with her arrangement.
Unfortunately, there can only be one winner, and that was the Hypa Dawg himself, Lil Rick, taking home USD$40,000 with his piece “Bend it.”
It was no surprise that he won, the veteran is used to the big stage and he wasted no time in getting the crowd hyped up behind his message.