Twelve soca artists will do battle with reigning UK Soca Monarchs Muzik lil Muzik on Sunday 19 August to decide who will wear the prestigious crown in 2012.

The contest takes place at the Scala nightclub in London and marks the start of the countdown to Notting Hill Carnival one week later.

Artists resident in the European Union are now being invited to submit their entries for this year’s event. They can enter one or more songs for both the Power and Groovy categories. Registration ends at midnight on Friday 8 June.

Now in its third year, UK Soca Monarch (UKSM) 2012 promises to be better than ever. Soca News, the media organisation which produces the competition, said it expects soca music and artists to get greater exposure this year because the genre’s birthplace – Trinidad and Tobago – is celebrating its 50th anniversary of independence.

“We hope to promote greater support for UK soca artists and their music,” the organisation said. “The intention is to create something that we can call our own, to help to solidify a soca industry here in the UK.”

Artists interested in taking part should submit their entry to uksm@socanews.com including the following details:

Full name
Performance name
Date of birth
Country you represent
Country of residence
Biography (No more than 300 words)
Category (‘Power’ or ‘Groovy’)
Song title
Writer
Producer
Email
Twitter name (if you have one)
Web address (if you have one)
Contact number

A non-refundable registration fee of £20 must be paid per entry per category via Pay Pal using the following link: www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=BXFD6N9GJQFEQ

Artists must also supply a high resolution Jpeg image (300dpi) of themselves as well as an mp3 version of their track and confirmation of registration fee payment.