Local singer Chad Bowen, popularly known as ‘Sir Ruel’, has been blessed with an incredible opportunity to perform in Coventry, London for six months.
Bowen, who will be leaving to perform next month, told The Barbados Advocate that he would have found his love for performing when he first entered the Junior Monarch competition in 2005.
“I entered the competition and the first year I got in and it was there that I developed a love for calypso. I only won the competition when I took part in my final year, when I was 18,” he said.
“After winning the Junior Monarch, I went on to the senior competition the following year and I went all the way to the finals. I learned an important lesson that year. You should never underestimate a person and their ability. People were saying ‘I wonder if he could do the transition to the senior programme’ and ‘He is so young he’s going to get beaten by the big guns’. But I just went in, not knowing what to expect and placed 4th.”
On recalling how he got the opportunity to perform for six months, Bowen expressed that he believed God was good and He worked everything for the best.
He recalled he went to an event because he was being awarded by the BLP; however, when he got there, he would have been asked to move his seat four different times.
“I couldn’t understand why I was being moved so much, but I wasn’t upset about it,” he said.
“Eventually they put me next to this lady who said that the event was taking really long and she wanted to go home, so I said ‘just be patient’. And she looked at me like ‘who are you and why is young man telling me to be patient?’ I didn’t tell her who I was and when I went up for my award, they listed my accolades and afterwards she told me she works with young people and gave me her number and that’s how I got the opportunity.”
Bowen encouraged young, aspiring artists to do what their hearts told them and to follow their dreams regardless of the voices and opinions of others. (CLF)