The Rounds: Getting ready for the final soca showdown

Good Evening Spex and Good Evening Soca Lovers,

I'm Nurse Karen and these are Dr. Jay's rounds. I'm sure you've figured it out by now. Dr. Jay is off in Trinidad for his annual pilgrimage to the soca mecca. Last week the Caribbean Prestige Foundation released the finalists for this Friday's soca monarch competition.

As predicted it will be a truly international competition with entries from six different Caribbean nations among just 20 contested spots. Unfortunately, Zoelah did not make it. But Problem Child will be there to represent SVG. St. Lucia's Ricky T is having a great season in Trinidad. The lehgo me riddim can be heard pumping from every sound system…given some extra stamina by Machel's "Jamishness". So it's no surprise that Ricky will be doing it big for Saint Lucie come fantastic Friday.

For Antigua, Tizzy will be in the groovy category showing them why she's hot. Grenada's reigning soca monarchs Luni Sparks and Electrify are in power along with Carricou's sexy Nnika Francis.

Barbados posse…Biggie Irie will be defending his groovy monarch crown against the Soka Junkie hesself, Mr. Dale.

As for Trinidad's contigent. Toronto's own Kerwin Dubois, scored at the very top of the groovy category. Kerwin is a Trini Artist, but he living here now…so we claiming him now. Especially since he's got two smash hits in Gyal Farm and Hear me now. Always, a solid artist and producer, it warms my frigid canuck heart to see him gettin his shine.

Some of you might not remember that this is the traditional carnival season all over the world. In the Caribbean, it's party time in Aruba, Martinique, and Dominica as well. Dominica held it's soca monarch competition just last night!

This weekend, the Carnival prizes were finally handed out from St. Kitts Christmas Carnival. As a smaller carnival in a smaller island the money isn't quite as impressive as what Trinidad's winner's can expect. But I'm sure King Konris was happy to get his meagre four grand for winning soca monarch anyway.

A word to the wise, when you singing soca, whether big or small…earnings are earnings. And this is the time of year when our favourite artists need to be careful about putting away some cash to pay their taxes. If you think about it, when Machel Montano HD commands one hundred twenty five THOUSAND TT dollars per gig. And he's performing nearly every night. You better believe the tax man is paying attention. I had to laugh when I read an article in a Trinidad newspaper warning self-employed persons of their responsibility to report their income. Self-Employed is really just a code word for "Allyuh big balling, stinkin rich, superstars making me cough up 100 US Dollars for an all-inclusive fete." Not too often that I empathize with tax collectors…but after buying all my fete tickets. I tend to agree.

I'm Nurse Karen and those were Dr. Jay's rounds. Please text me your comments to 9-3-5-9-3-5 or leave them online at (Nurse) Karen (Etc) at triple w dot mustardseeds dot net