By Demion McTair
Delroy ‘Fireman’ Hooper first won the national Soca Monarch title in 1999. Since then, he has won Soca Monarch twelve (12) times out of twenty-three (23) times.
In 1999 he scored his first Soca monarch win with “Firewood”. In the year 2000, he won with “Anaconda”. In 2001, he won with “Spiritual”
He started the “mad sensation era” in 2005 when he won with “Madda than Yo”.
In 2006, he took a break from madness and won with “Wukie Wukie”.
In 2007, he resumed the mad sensation and brought “Charge”. He won his sixth Soca Monarch crown.
He broke the spell of not winning the crown for three consecutive years in 2011 when he sang “Turning Animal”. He won his seventh Soca Monarch crown that year.
He then won again in 2014 with a piece called “Unruly”. He won his eighth crown that year.
He came back in 2017 and 2018 with “Wild” and “Amen” to win the Soca Monarch crowns for those two years, respectively. During that period, he won his ninth and tenth crowns, respectively.
There was no competition in 2020 and 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, but he came back in 2022 and set the pace with “Bad Demon” to win his eleventh crown.
This year, 2023, nearly two decades since he began the mad sensation, he brought more Madness to win his twelfth Soca Monarch crown.
