‘Stop treating Culture like a stepchild’, says Fireman

‘Stop treating Culture like a stepchild’, says Fireman

Reigning Soca monarch, Delroy ‘Fireman’ Hooper, has made a call for more attention to be paid to the traditional elements of the country’s carnival, even going so far as to call for Culture to be assigned its own Ministry.

The self-proclaimed ‘Ruler of the Land’ took his 14th Soca monarch crown earlier this month in Victoria Park, teaming up with long-time rival Gamal ‘Skinny Fabulous’ Doyle to win the power soca competition with ‘Erupt’.

During an interview on WEFM 99.9 SVG on Monday, July 21, 2025, Hooper spoke about his concerns for what he described as the “fading” of Vincentian culture.

“We need to start teach. Some part of the syllabus has to have our culture in it because it was fading because they want to do everything commercialized now and we are losing that natural element of the culture,” adding, that the “CDC [Carnival Development Corporation] alone cannot do it”.

Hooper also raised an issue with the subsuming of the Culture portfolio within other ministries which, he argued, was taking the focus away from promoting and pushing culture as a main revenue-earning avenue for local creatives.

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