Fans’ calls prompt Bunji to jump back into Road March

Chestr­er Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian,.co.tt

So­ca artiste Bun­ji Gar­lin has en­tered the 2026 Road March com­pe­ti­tion, af­ter pre­vi­ous­ly de­clar­ing he would step away from the con­test 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 the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion 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 claims 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 yes­ter­day, his wife, Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez, said this year’s de­ci­sion to re-en­ter the com­pe­ti­tion came di­rect­ly from the fans.

“The thing is, right, I mean, we move as a team. When they can’t con­vince him, they come at me to con­vince him. And with the ut­most love and re­spect and every­thing to the fans, it was a tough de­ci­sion for him, I know, and we had a dis­cus­sion,” she said.

Lyons-AL­varez ex­plained that she urged Gar­lin to look be­yond per­son­al vic­to­ry or de­feat.

“And I said to him, you know what, at the end of the day, this is not just about you win­ning some­thing or los­ing some­thing, this is about the fans lit­er­al­ly step­ping up and say­ing, this is what we want from you. So, give it to them,” Lyons-AL­varez said.

She added that once they viewed it through that lens, he agreed.

“And he’s like, well, al­right, if that’s what we’re do­ing, then that’s what we’re do­ing. So, it re­al­ly was a de­ci­sion re­al­ly spurred on by the fans. The fans are who mo­ti­vat­ed it, and we dis­cussed it as a team, and we said, okay, cool, that’s what we’re do­ing.”

Lyons-Al­varez made it clear that the move rep­re­sents a col­lec­tive de­ci­sion root­ed in fan de­mand, sig­nalling a shift from last year’s stance as Gar­lin re­turns to the Road March are­na.

The dead­line to sub­mit songs for the Road March com­pe­ti­tion was 3 pm yes­ter­day, and the TU­CO told Guardian Me­dia that once all the ap­pli­ca­tions are cross-checked and ver­i­fied, the en­tire list will be made pub­lic.