Barbados Today

Biggie Irie’s sweet sounding vocals will be missing from this year’s Sweet Soca competition.

The former Sweet Soca monarch, who took the title back in 2014, has opted not to take part in this year’s competition.

He told Bajan Vibes he was taking this year to relax. “Sometimes you need to take a break and recharge but I’ve had a good run. A couple seconds, and a win,” he said.

Biggie added: “For the past couple years, what I’ve been doing is trying to build a catalogue of songs that I can tour with so when a promoter calls me, I can go on and do a hour and a half of reggae and soca.”

“So I’m just going to take a little hiatus this year and sit back and relax and watch what’s going,” he explained.

As for whether he will be back in competition next year, Biggie said he was not certain. “I don’t know if the break is just for this year, it’s supposed to be, but you never know,” he explained.

But while he may not be taking part in the competition, Biggie is still very much a part of the festival and has been taking in the music. “The season is going good. It just started but it’s going good,” he said.

He went on: “Music is good this year. I think we have some good songs this year. It’s going to be a good season.”

Where Bashment soca is concerned, the veteran calypsonian said he had no problem with the music but didn’t think it would take over.  “I don’t think Bashment can ever take over. There’re some Bashment songs that I like. Some are a bit too risqué for me but it could never take over because the vast amount of sweet soca songs we have is great,” he said.

“Bashment is a new thing but it could never take over,” he added.