Tam Tam wins epic Soca Titans showdown

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

So­ca Ti­tans lived up to its name on Wednes­day with an epic clash at Car­ni­val City that left pa­trons mes­merised.

The event has be­come the mar­quee com­pe­ti­tion in To­ba­go Car­ni­val, as close to 2,000 peo­ple de­scend­ed on Mar­ket Square, Scar­bor­ough, to wit­ness the show­down.

One point sep­a­rat­ed the first-place win­ner from sec­ond as Bernar­do “Tam Tam” Thomp­son edged his cousin and de­fend­ing champ Ja­heim “Verrse” Thomas for the crown and $75,000 first prize.

From the be­gin­ning of his per­for­mance, Tam Tam showed he would take no pris­on­ers, cook­ing a Cocrico in a pot, an ap­par­ent jab at Fos­ter Gen­er­al who was viewed as a ti­tle con­tender with his song about the na­tion­al bird.

Pay­ing homage to his Grena­di­an roots, Tam Tam ig­nit­ed the Scar­bor­ough crowd with a fiery jab ex­pe­ri­ence, en­hanced by oil-slick, fire-breath­ing moko jumbies in the fever-pitched crowd.

His song, Fol­low Me, had pa­trons seem­ing­ly in a trance, obey­ing his every in­struc­tion, wav­ing from left to right.

As if to make sure every­one was com­pli­ant, the Rox­bor­ough artiste brought on stage for­mer Road March cham­pi­on Mar­vin Lewis, who in­cor­po­rat­ed his glob­al hit Fol­low the Leader in­to the per­for­mance.

Speak­ing to the me­dia, Tam Tam said his vic­to­ry came af­ter con­quer­ing his fears.

“When I was small I used to fraid the jab. I used to run, but now I de­vel­op a love for it. That’s in my blood. My grand­fa­ther from Grena­da,” he said.

Mean­while, Verrse, who fell short in his quest for a third straight ti­tle, had no re­grets af­ter giv­ing his all in what many have hailed as a mem­o­rable So­ca Ti­tans bat­tle.

Wear­ing a red and gold suit, Verrse pro­duced an en­er­getic per­for­mance, backed by sev­er­al dancers.

He was pre­ma­ture­ly crowned on stage, much to the de­light of the crowd, by none oth­er than so­ca leg­end Su­per Blue.

Tourism sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett was ec­sta­t­ic af­ter the show as she cel­e­brat­ed To­ba­go cul­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly Fos­ter Gen­er­al’s Cocrico, be­ing fea­tured so promi­nent­ly in mu­sic. How­ev­er, she was blown away by the win­ning per­for­mance.

“Tam Tam was re­al­ly good in how he en­gaged the crowd. I felt like I was on a na­tion­al stage tonight,” she said.

Not­ing the So­ca Ti­tans win­ner is guar­an­teed a place in the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch (ISM) semis next year, she called on To­bag­o­ni­ans to sup­port him in the fu­ture.

“Be­cause we have not had ISM in the na­tion­al space for a while, To­ba­go has set the stage. It’s al­most like To­ba­go is out the sta­bles be­fore Trinidad,” she said.

Fos­ter Gen­er­al placed fourth in the com­pe­ti­tion while Kedane O’ Con­nor was third and She­quane placed fifth.

Mean­while, So­ca Ti­tans judge Machel Mon­tano teased the crowd by com­ing on stage af­ter the per­for­mances. De­spite not singing, his mes­sage de­light­ed the au­di­ence. Mon­tano said he was im­pressed by the fi­nal­ists and vowed to help a few reach the next lev­el in their ca­reers.