Bo­bie-Lee Dixon

It was no sur­prise that Ife Al­leyne was crowned the win­ner of the 2014 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen com­pe­ti­tion which took place on Jan­u­ary 19 at Queen's Hall, St Ann's. The com­pe­ti­tion was put on by the Na­tion­al Women's Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NWAC), the women's arm of the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC).

The re­sults, which were re­leased on Jan­u­ary 22, de­clared Al­li­son Bernard and Ker­ine Williams sec­ond and third place win­ners, re­spec­tive­ly, with their com­po­si­tions, Time to Arise and How Much.

Al­leyne won with her com­po­si­tion, Child of Lib­er­ty, which was a trib­ute to Africa and keep­ing African her­itage alive in the lives of Afro-Trinida­di­ans. It al­so made a call for black men and women to re­alise the roy­al­ty in their blood as many would have come out of the bel­lies of African kings and queens, princes and princess­es.

The song was not orig­i­nal. It was, in fact, one of the many songs per­formed on the night with the te­dious theme of "call­ing down the African an­ces­tors." What won it for Al­leyne was her beau­ti­ful and pow­er­ful voice, de­cent props and a per­for­mance that could have been a mi­ni Eman­ci­pa­tion con­cert.

It was rather dis­ap­point­ing to see Tam­mi­co "Spicey" Moore placed so low. It was not just her stage pres­ence, but Moore, the evening's first con­tes­tant had the par­tial­ly filled au­di­to­ri­um eat­ing out of her hands with her piece called D'Ad­vice, which fo­cused on the break­down of re­la­tion­ships. Even one pa­tron yelled from his seat "Oh gosh, de ca­lyp­so was nice."

Not on­ly was the con­tent au­then­tic, ex­cit­ing and hu­mor­ous, but with very few props–props that made sense in com­par­i­son to some that were quite dis­tract­ing and in some cas­es un­nec­es­sary–she was able to dri­ve home a smooth de­liv­ery. She was al­so one of the stronger vo­cal­ists whose dic­tion was quite clear.

Oth­er no­table per­for­mances in­clud­ed Natasha Nurse who sang A Farmer's Plight, beg­ging for the ban on hunt­ing to be lift­ed. And a pan spe­cial ti­tled Out­ta De Box, by Rachel For­tune.

Be­fore the com­pe­ti­tion be­gan, the or­gan­i­sa­tion recog­nised two ho­n­ourees who were pre­sent­ed with awards. They were Liseli Daa­ga, wife of Cari­com Cul­tur­al Am­bas­sador, Makan­dal Daa­ga and for­mer ca­lyp­son­ian turned gospel artiste Denyse Plum­mer.

On re­ceiv­ing her award, Plum­mer thanked Daa­ga and the NJAC for wel­com­ing her with open arms on her for­ay in­to the ca­lyp­so are­na when she en­tered the ca­lyp­so queen com­pe­ti­tion in 1986. She spoke of her dif­fi­cult jour­ney as a lighter-skinned Trinida­di­an singing ca­lyp­so.

Bor­row­ing the words of African-Amer­i­can civ­il rights ac­tivist, Mar­tin Luther King, she said: "In the US to­day, it is Mar­tin Luther King Day and I am hap­py to be here tonight re­ceiv­ing this award, be­cause it says that peo­ple have paid at­ten­tion to all your hard work and con­tri­bu­tion over the years.

I have had a very dif­fi­cult jour­ney, and most­ly be­cause of the colour of my skin. But I al­ways re­mem­ber Mar­tin Luther King's words, "Judge me not by the colour of my skin, but by the con­tent of my char­ac­ter."

She praised Daa­ga, say­ing even when he was heav­i­ly in­volved in the 1970 Black Pow­er Move­ment, he still wel­comed her with­out con­di­tion and that in it­self was an ho­n­our.

She be­lieves it was be­cause of the com­pe­ti­tion in which she par­tic­i­pat­ed for a num­ber of years and won the ti­tle on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, that she was able to rise above her chal­leng­ing start to be­come a well-ac­cept­ed and loved pa­tron of the ca­lyp­so art form.

Re­sults

Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen

1st: Ife Al­leyne � Child of Lib­er­ty

2nd: Al­li­son Bernard � Time to Arise

3rd: Ker­ine Williams � How Much

4th: Stacey Sobers � Spe­cial Day

5th: Natasha Nurse � A Farmer's Plight

6th: Meguel­la Si­mon � Ah Cyar Breathe

6th: Wendy Gar­rick � Not One Drop

8th: Roslyn Reid � Make the Right Choice

9th: Tam­mi­co Moore (Spicey) � D' Ad­vice

10th: Make­da Dar­ius � Start Now