It's Carnival Time again in Miami and despite the confusion over the move 'down south' and the split from two to three carnivals the soca lovers came out to wave their flags jump and up and have a good time.

On September 7th, 2003 a small crowd but decent sized crowd attended the Miami Carnival Warm-up fete at the Hialeah Race Track. The show's lineup previously billed with Denise Belfon, Destra Garcia and Bunji Garlin was switched at the last minute to include Rupee and Alison Hinds.

The Crowd enjoyed the sets of the champion bubbles Alison Hinds as she performed from Square One's repotoire of hits including "Faluma Ding" and "Bazodee" she had the crowd jumping throughout her entire set.

Rupee followed later with his road march song "Jump" getting the crowd of the ground. Rupee put out a solid set as he seemed equally as comfortable with the Ragga as he did with the Soca, even leading the receptive crowd through a few of the latest Jamaican dances such as Pon the River, and give them a Run adpated to the soca beat. He performed his now classic "Tempted to touch" and hits from his new CD thisisrupee.com and was joined on stage by Red Rat who also guests on Rupee's new CD.

In their first peformance together Red Rat called Rupee "his little brother" as Rupee obliged with a "oh-no" much to the crowd's delight and the chemistry was obvious as the two charismatic performers demonstrated Red Rat's tourist dance [see video low | high].

From the various role calls that night it was clear that the Virgin Island posse had the largest numbers and the closing band was the reason why. The Jam Band performed their uptempo soca set with their usual mix of the latest dancehall and pop songs and their originals including "indicator" in their always entertaining show. MC Giselle D'Wassi One brought the night to a relatively early end for a soca fete.

Next stop Miami Carnival.

Related Clips

• A hilarious clip from a Rupee interview courtesy of Jouvay.com read the entire interview on jouvay.com where Rupee talks about how people used to mix him up for Red Rat.
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