Clear cut

Malika is out. Keisha Christian is out. And Keann is out. In are Natahlee, Statement and Peter Ram.
It took a new panel of judges – Leslie Lett (chief), along with Scott Headley, Dionne Knight, Kirk Worrell, David Harris and Brian Cole – two days to pick the Sweet Soca 17 for the semi-finals. But that has only given the artistes four days to prepare.
Locked away Saturday and most of yesterday morning, the judges listened to 99 songs while being watched by a team of independent observers selected by the “various calypsonians and tent managers and the adjudication process was observed by the arbiter”.
Within minutes of the points being tabulated yesterday by auditors of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the media were called into the conference room of the National Cultural Foundation to hear a “new” Sweet Soca line-up.