Its official, for the second year in a row Melissa ‘Vanilla’ Roberts age 27 has copped the Road March queen title. The official result coming out of the Mash Secretariat is that her song High was the most played on the mash route and as such she has been adjudged the 2010 Road March queen.
Her song high came up against fifteen others including Jumo’s ‘in de air’ and Bones-man’s ‘Mashramani time is we own’. When contacted with the news Vanilla’s reaction was “ok I trust your information but I done’t really react in anyway out of the ordinary when I win.”
She said the song written by her manager Burchmore Simon is about the colourful festival of Mash and encourages all to get involved in building the spirit of Mashramani as we festival taking it to the next level.
Simon also wrote ‘Wrap It Up’ and ‘Mama I done’t Want To Be Born’ and both were adjudged as winners of the 2010 junior calypso competition and the HIV/Aids song competition. Simon also co-wrote the winning Soca monarch song donee by Bonesman titled “Is We Own”.
Of her win for a second year Vanilla said she is elated and hopes that this trend will continue. She let up that this time around because the quality of soca music around “I wasn’t sure if I was going to win this year but last year I was certain when I won with Rude.”
This is her 4th year in the competition. In 2008 she missed the crown by one point when Big Red won with ‘on the road again.’
Vanilla also placed second in the soca monarch competition as she had done last year with rude and said that she will certainly be going up for the title of soca monarch next year as well as going for a three-pete.
Burchmore Simon her manager said “it was a great season and Vanilla’s win is an additional incentive to continue to work hard and dedicate ourselves to further developing the music industry”. Two weeks from now Vanilla who hails from Berbice but resides in Georgetown said her fans can look forward to yet another scorching video from her. She will be releasing a video for her single titled “Pressure”. She expressed gratitude to all her supporters and said “I could not have donee it with out you the fans.”
By Mondale Smith