Local Celebrity Scandal
Winner: Room 201
Girls, Ganja and a Government Minister. If there was a Naparima Girls’ Bachannal Cookbook that would most certainly be the recipe for public scandal. Earlier this year in May, a video surfaced featuring a man who both looked and sounded like then Sports Minister Anil Roberts, rolling a small amount of marijuana in a hotel room whilst surrounded by a bevy of women. Despite the uncanny likeness in appearance and voice, Roberts adamantly denied that the self-proclaimed ‘two-pull man’ in the video was him. When questioned, his response was simply “It wasn’t me”, which either meant he took the public for fools or was listening to an old Shaggy CD before the press conference. However, just when we had all but forgotten Mr. Roberts, another video scandal would bring him back into the spotlight…
Runner Up: The ‘Flavour of Lurbz’ sex tape
Kim Kardashian may have broken the internet with her magazine cover in November, but local DJ Kevaughn ‘Lurbz’ Savory damn well broke Trini WhatsApp with his sex tape in December. Following an unsuccessful assassination attempt, and a mountain of speculation around it, all uncertainty was pretty much put to rest when the most crudely shot 37 seconds of insult and noisy cunnilingus surfaced on what would become known as Sex Tape Saturday. Lurbz (who should probably consider a name change to ‘Slurpz’) had dealt Roberts the ultimate blow, with his wife taking some ‘licks’ in the process too.
15 Minutes of Fame
Winner: Chick Mansion
On July 19th, Trini social media was alive and kicking for two reasons – one was Tribe’s band launch and the other was the 2 hour season premiere of local reality show Chick Mansion. Fast forward to 2015 however and only one of these is still relevant, with the initial hype and interest surrounding Chick Mansion (which turned out to more of a Chick Guesthouse) having died faster than the battery of the iPhone 5 it was filmed on.
Runner Up: Ravi Maharaj
In what was quite possibly the most pointless protest of the year, Ravi Maharaj decided that the best way to end one man’s hunger strike was to start one of his own. After falsifying his credentials, (Maharaj claimed to be an advisor to the UWI Principal but turned out to be just a technician with no ties to UWI) he set up camp near Wayne Kublalsingh, but after a mere 72 hours, he sacrificed road for roti and called it a day.
Unsolved Crime
Winner: Trinidad Juices cocaine bust
Which is better – Coke in the bottle or Coke in the can? Well, in January last year, we learned that one drug trader made their preference clear when a shipment of cocaine with a street value of over half a billion was discovered at a Virginia port in juice cans which came from Trinidad. Almost overnight, Trinidad came under scrutiny for the record drug bust with FBI Investigators dispatched to trace the shipment origin and parent company SM Jaleel were forced to issue a statement denying any involvement in the illegal trafficking. With the involvement of American law enforcement, many had anticipated an unprecedented high-profile arrest, but like many before it, the case went cold and forgotten after a few weeks. #surprisesurprise
Runner Up: LifeSport Project
In Trinidad it have tief, and it HAVE TIEF. This was a case of the latter with over $30m tax-payers dollars spent on a project that never even got off the ground. Ghost companies, payments for services that were never performed, personal withdrawal of funds… this had all the ingredients of white collar crime not seen since the infamous CL Financial/HCU scandal. It was also another incident linked to Sports Minister Anil Roberts, making 2014 a year he’ll surely want to forget.
Fashion F*uck Up
Winner: Reema Carmona @ UN First Ladies’ Event
Imagine you were still in school and your mom came to a PTA meeting in a navel-breaker. Except, you aren’t a student, you’re a country, and it isn’t a PTA meeting but a United Nations conference. In either case, having yuh belly outside is not acceptable attire, but it is 100000000000 times more unacceptable in the case of the latter. We await our pre-action Protocol letter.
Runner Up: Kamla Persad-Bissessar @ Mandela’s funeral
This faux pas actually occurred in December of 2013, but it was too big of a f*ck up to overlook. We’re gonna keep this short and simple – Tanty Kams, a funeral in Africa, is still a funeral. That means you come in traditional funeral attire. No need to come looking like yuh going the Emancipation Village in the Savannah, a simple black dress would have sufficed.
Best Meme
Winner: Kermit sipping tea, i.e. #thatsnoneofmybusiness
It all started with a simple Lipton advertisement for their ‘Be More Tea’ campaign, from which a snippet was taken and dubbed over with the now legendary “that’s none of my business” line. This innocent little edit then lead to perhaps the most universally viral meme in internet history. Kermit made the comeback of the century as the number one means for making out or throwing shade on anybody via social media.
Runner Up: Starter Pack
This one may have surfaced near year’s end but what it lacked in longevity it made up for in diversity. Trinis did their creative best and made a starter pack for everything from Aria Night Club, to the Treasure Queen, to Diego Sec Girls, to (once again) Anil Roberts.
Unnecessary Beat Up
Winner: Soaka tickets
Getting tickets for soaka last year was harder than it is for Machel and Bunji to make a hot soca collaboration right now(or any collaboration for that matter.) These promoters really have come up with an ultimate strategy for selling tickets.. If you didn’t know someone who knows someone who knew someone who was selling tickets for this fete, chances are that the tickets came out and were sold out before the news even got to you. This would mean that if you wanted to go (well, who didn’t wanna go?) you were looking at paying as much as two or three times the original cost. The insane beat up for soaka tickets was surely one of the craziest things we have seen for the year, and takes us back to business school and understanding demand and supply.
Runner Up: Hi-Lo change to Massy Stores
Not so sure what the beat up was about this, but you know we love to complain, Neal and Massy always owned Hi-Lo, and a change in name means… well, a change in name. Dropping Neal and fully establishing the entire conglomerate as just “Massy” seemed to send people into a state of hysteria. I can’t say that the backlash was necessary. A supermarket change names and people spoke about it FOR WEEKS. I mean, yea, our children might never know what “Hi-Lo” was, but umm. Isn’t that kinda how things work?
Most Controversial Infrastructure
Winner: Debe-Mon Desir Highway
Dr. Kubs vs Aunty Kams… wait is this deja vu or…? This year Dr. Kublalsingh took it upon himself to take on a second bout of the hunger strike, and well to be honest sir, I am not too sure if it is working. This time, the fight in Dr Kublalsingh was stronger, even having him recorded as setting a world record and even passing up the pastelle and ham, (I don’t know anyone with willpower like that), while the government continues to stuff their mouths and pockets. We’re into the first full week of the new year, and neither party seems to be backing down. This one, no matter the outcome, is definitely one for the books.
Runner Up: Socadrome
Well after you ban Tribe from crossing the stage one year, this was bound to happen. With the inception of the idea of the Socadrome, came the usual “that’s not real carnival” “you’re taking away the real spirit of carnival” and of course “Carnival goin and dead”. While everyone can agree that we love the big stage, we DON’T love waiting for hourssss to get on the stage for a two minutes to get push off. It’s true that the pseudo-stage helped with the congestion at the Savannah Stage since masqueraders had to take two separate routes, but we havent really heard if it was of any significance. Whether the socadrome will be back this year? We can’t say for sure. Guess we’ll soon find out.
Disease Scare
Winner: Ebola
You know something is big when it threatens to cancel the GREATEST show on earth. Although Ebola has been around in parts of Western Africa for many decades, in 2014, it came out bigger and badder than ever.. and even made it out of the motherland, causing insane havoc. To this day, you can’t tell someone that you’ve been to Africa or know someone from Africa without having them run from you, shouting “Ebola!”
Runner Up: Chick-V
The Chick-V panic can’t really come close to that of Ebola, but when it comes to people who were actually down with this virus, it was a little drastic. Similarly, every time people got a small flu, a little rash or some pain in their knee, they were ever so quick to call Chick-V on themselves. We’re like a nation of hypochondriacs. The rise in this disease also saw the decrease of the paw paw leaf, as everyone with a tree suddenly became the neighbourhood pharmacist.
Song of the Year
Winner: Chris Brown – Loyal
Ok, so this one is definitely up for debate. 2014 is what we would call the year of the anthem. We had the positive vibes anthem (Pharrell – Happy), the teen girl self-esteem anthem (Taylor Swift – Shake it Off …yea, we said it!) the anthem for your ex (Big Sean – IDFWU), and a few others. However, if you tell me that you eh hear someone say “These Hoes Ain’t Loyal” in the last 5 days, yuh lie. Not only was this song a hit from Chris Brown (all puns intended), but that one line became a basic cliche, don’t be surprised if it turns out to be be one of them American Proverbs to teach ya children.
Runner Up: Kerwin DuBois – Too Real
2014 was too real. Carnival 2014? too real. This song? Too real. I can’t remember describing anything as being “too real” until Kerwin drop this song. It’s always amazing when a tune that gets overrrrr played makes it to the end of the soca season. Probably the biggest soca song for the year (sorry if we stepped on any toes there) but no one can fault Kerwin nah, the man is GENIUS. You know a song is a good song when it the lyrics become a daily expression. Kerwin, take win.
