TERENCIA TC COWARD'S Hot Sun & Riddim is set to heat up the International Soca Monarch at Trinidad Carnival next year.

The reigning Sweet Soca and Party Monarch received her letter of invitation for the finals of both the Groovy and Power Soca Monarch competitions at a Press conference at the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) yesterday.

"I believe that I can represent Barbados very, very well at both competitions . . . . 2010 is going to be a good year, and Barbados I will make you proud," the double crown monarch said.

TC could not say if she would be singing Hot Sun & Riddim in both competitions, but she gave the assurance her producer Nicholas Brancker and songwriter Neil Bernard were looking at the situation.

The Big Show singer said she would be bringing a "full CSME attitude towards the competition". Hot Sun & Riddim has a Trinidad/Barbados connection, and TC said they might look at bringing some more islands into the mix.

TC said the presentation, and finding ways of financing it, were going to be the biggest challenge for the International Soca Monarch.

Representatives from the NCF declined to comment "at this time" on what support was likely to come from the foundation.

TC's presentations for the Sweet Soca and Party Monarch competitions ran close to $20 000 at Crop-over.

The NCF and Caribbean Prestige Foundation, producers of the International Soca Monarch, signed an agreement two years ago which makes the winner of the Party Monarch competition an automatic finalist in the competition held on Fantastic Friday, the last weekend of Carnival.

Khiomal Nurse was the first monarch to benefit from that arrangement, when he represented Barbados in the Power Soca competition.

Barbados' Biggie Irie became the first non-Trinidadian to win the competition when he took the Groovy Soca Monarch title in 2007.

Soca monarchs from Antigua, St Lucia, Grenada and St Vincent also have automatic places in the International Soca Monarch finals. (YB)