18 songs in the running for 2026 Road March race

A to­tal of 18 songs have been en­tered for this year’s Road March race. The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) yes­ter­day con­firmed the reg­is­tered sub­mis­sions for the Na­tion­al Road March Com­pe­ti­tion 2026. Reg­is­tra­tion closed on Fri­day.

On Fri­day, so­ca star Bun­ji Gar­lin re­vealed that he en­tered the 2026 Road March com­pe­ti­tion, re­vers­ing his pre­vi­ous de­ci­sion to step away fol­low­ing last year’s con­tro­ver­sy.

Gar­lin had an­nounced in 2025 that he would no longer par­tic­i­pate in fu­ture Road March com­pe­ti­tions, af­ter nar­row­ly los­ing the ti­tle to Machel Mon­tano by 14 plays. Mon­tano’s Pardy was played 267 times to Gar­lin’s Car­ry It at 253, ac­cord­ing to fig­ures re­leased by Tu­co last year, ty­ing Mon­tano with the late Ald­wyn “Lord Kitch­en­er” Roberts for 11 Road March ti­tles.

The re­sult sparked de­bate af­ter a Tu­co tab­u­la­tor pre­ma­ture­ly re­vealed stand­ings dur­ing Car­ni­val Tues­day cel­e­bra­tions, prompt­ing ques­tions about the in­tegri­ty of the com­pe­ti­tion.

In the af­ter­math, Gar­lin pub­licly ques­tioned the trust fac­tor of the con­test and sup­port­ed his wife’s de­ci­sion to with­draw from fu­ture races.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, so­ca star Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez, Gar­lin’s wife, said this year’s de­ci­sion to re-en­ter the com­pe­ti­tion came di­rect­ly from the fans. She added that the move rep­re­sents a col­lec­tive de­ci­sion root­ed in fan de­mand.

So­ca artiste and Road March con­tender Machel Mon­tano said that de­spite the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sur­pass the late Lord Kitch­en­er for the most Road March ti­tles this year, he re­mains pri­mar­i­ly fo­cused on en­ter­tain­ing his fans. If he wins this year, Mon­tano will hold the record for the most Road March wins with 12 ti­tles.

How­ev­er, Mon­tano said that what he has al­ready at­tained in join­ing Kitch­en­er is it­self a his­toric ac­com­plish­ment.

“What has hap­pened is al­ready as big. To be on par with Lord Kitch­en­er is the pin­na­cle. It has al­ready been reached, I don’t think there’s any ma­jor ben­e­fit of beat­ing him be­cause he’s not go­ing to come back out of the wood­works, and I think it would take the young­sters quite a while to amass a next 12 road march­es,” Mon­tano said dur­ing a re­cent vis­it to Guardian Me­dia.

TU­CO re­mind­ed the pub­lic that the Road March win­ner is de­ter­mined by the song played the most num­ber of times at des­ig­nat­ed judg­ing points dur­ing the Pa­rade of the Bands on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Car­ni­val Tues­day.

1. Aaron St Louis – Cyah Be­have

2. Ian Al­varez (Bun­ji Gar­lin) – Road Man

3. Jenelle Ali­cia De Leon (J An­gel) – Leg­go

4. Ken­son Nep­tune (Nin­ja) – Pen­sion­er’s An­them

5. Ko­ry Hart & Kevon Hart – Re­spect­ful­ly Yours

6. Kwe­sie Paul (Shot­talinkz) – Beat­ing Road

7. Kwe­sie Paul (Shot­talinkz) – Drinker

8. Leonce Tay­lor – Ready Up

9. Leslie Ann St. Cler­mont (Sofi Saint) – Pow­er Mode

10. Lin­coln Dou­glas (D’Anger D) – Stage Is Mine

11. Machel Mon­tano – En­core

12. Machel Mon­tano & Paris Coutain – Move Out D Way

13. Mar­cus Brave­boy (Brave­boy) – Love On D Road

14. Mi­cal Te­ja & Patrice Roberts – Cap­i­tal

15. Nes­ta Box­ill (Sekon Sta) – Eu­pho­ria

16. Paul Lal­la (Rack3Six) – Lu­natic

17. San­dra Paisy Em­manuel (Queen Steam) – 2 Ah Dem

18. Steve Gob­ert (Chov­el) – Big­ger Bad­der