Defend & Attack

Determination was the keyword for Samantha Greaves, stage name SammyG, during the 2014 Crop Over Season. It was not only a significant year for the Festival and the Foundation, but it was also her final year in Secondary School, her penultimate year in the 13-18 category of the Scotiabank Junior Monarch Programme and the way she saw it, it was her year to do something big.

Sammy had already tasted a win in this category at the age of thirteen and she was determined to have a second bite at the crown.  Now with two titles under her belt and a budding appetite for the win at Pic-O-De-Crop, this eighteen-year-old lass says she is on a mission to “defend and attack”.  With great gusto Sammy expressed that she will be giving it her all in 2015 to fervently defend her crown and to exit the Scotiabank Junior Calypso Monarch Programme on a high.

In addition to defending in the junior category however, she will again be on the attack in the Pic-O-De-Crop Competition and for the first time the Sweet Soca competition, in pursuit of two other titles – Calypso Monarch and Sweet Soca Monarch.

Sammy was commenting last Sunday, February 8th as she departed Barbados for Trinidad on an exchange programme which affords the reigning Junior Calypso Monarch an opportunity to perform on the Trinidadian National Junior Calypso Monarch stage.  Though this wasn’t her first time performing on this stage, Sammy remarked that because of her age and experience she was now better able to appreciate the exposure to methods of performance preparation and other lessons to be learnt from our neighbours across the ocean.

For the first time this year, the 13-18 Monarch was accompanied by the 8-12 winner Ranaan Hackett who also travelled to Trinidad as an observer compliments Scotiabank.

Last year, Scotiabank’s Senior Marketing Manager, Lisa Cole pledged the company’s continued commitment to the Junior Monarch Programme with an increase in the prize money for the competition and a special prize for the Best Junior Soca Song which was won by Rickardo ‘RJ’ Reid with his Schoolboy Jam.  As a longtime sponsor of the Festival for over 20 years, Scotiabank wanted to do something special for the 40th Anniversary of Crop Over and they saw this increased involvement as an ideal opportunity to cement their support not only for Junior Monarch but also for the Crop Over Festival on the whole.