For Guyanese-born artist Nesta Nelson, winning the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport-organized Mashramani Dancehall Monarch title in Georgetown is a moment she will cherish for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels great because being a woman in a male-dominated competition,\u201d she told Caribbean Life<\/strong> after winning the competition on Sunday night, Feb. 15. \u201cI had to level up triple times more to earn that title.\u201d<\/p>\n The East Coast Demerara native took the top prize thanks to her popular dancehall single \u201cRide\u201d, a song she deliberately chose to push herself beyond her Soca comfort zone.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to step outside my comfort zone and pay homage to a genre that is bold, confident and expressive,\u201d she said, describing the move from Soca to dancehall as a natural evolution.<\/p>\n The strategy worked.<\/p>\n \u201cRide had the best crowd response based on the marketing strategy my team and I used to make the song popular,\u201d Nesta said.<\/p>\n When asked what set her apart from the other competitors, her answer was simple and assured: \u201cMy vision for creativity and artistic expression.\u201d<\/p>\n Having won the Junior Calypso Monarch titles in 2007 and 2008 as a child prodigy, Nesta was elated with winning the dancehall competition in 2026, declaring the victory carried deep meaning.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the result of discipline, setbacks and unwavering belief,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n As Guyana\u2019s first female Dancehall Monarch, Nesta is already focused on the future.<\/p>\n \u201cCreating more great music that resonates with fans across the globe is what I intend to do,\u201d she said. \u201cThis title is just the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For Guyanese-born artist Nesta Nelson, winning the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport-organized Mashramani Dancehall Monarch title in Georgetown is a moment she will cherish for the rest of her life. \u201cIt feels great because being a woman in a male-dominated competition,\u201d she told Caribbean Life after winning the competition on Sunday night, Feb. 15. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}