I Candy wins Chaguanas J’Ouvert band of the year

SHAS­TRI BOODAN

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Cen­tral’s largest J’Ou­vert band, I Can­dy J’Ou­vert, cap­tured top ho­n­ours at the Ch­agua­nas Car­ni­val Cel­e­bra­tions 2026, win­ning the J’Ou­vert Band of the Year ti­tle with its pre­sen­ta­tion, “Spir­it of Jab”.

Judges award­ed the band the top po­si­tion in a com­pet­i­tive field, prais­ing its en­er­getic and vi­su­al­ly strik­ing por­tray­al.

J’Ou­vert Junkies placed sec­ond with “Ra­ma­jay: Time to Break­away”, while Red Army se­cured third place with “J’Ou­vert’s Shock and Awe”.

J’Ou­vert Junkies al­so won the Queen of the Band ti­tle for “Ma­ma We is Peo­ple”, por­trayed by Mon­i­ca Ram­di­al. I Can­dy J’Ou­vert claimed the King of the Band ti­tle with its “King of Jab J’Ou­vert” por­tray­al.

In the In­di­vid­ual Male cat­e­go­ry, J’Ou­vert Junkies’ leader Ganesh Kalliecha­ran took the ti­tle for his por­tray­al of “Cap­tain Arthur”.

We Dut­ty J’Ou­vert won the Small Band of the Year award with “Out­ra­geous: A Dut­ty Mas Sto­ry”.

Chair­man of the Ch­agua­nas Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee, Melis­sa Jadoo­nanan, said the date for the of­fi­cial prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny will be an­nounced short­ly.

The re­sults brought the cur­tain down on Car­ni­val in Ch­agua­nas, with J’Ou­vert rev­ellers de­liv­er­ing an­oth­er vi­brant dis­play of colour, cul­ture and cre­ativ­i­ty.