KEVON FELMINE
Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Ten-time Road March cham­pi­on Machel Mon­tano topped the se­mi-fi­nals of the Ca­lyp­so Monarch 2024 scor­ing the high­est points. Al­ready one vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian has tipped him to be a ti­tle con­tender.

Yes­ter­day Guardian Me­dia ob­tained the scores from the semi­fi­nals at Skin­ner Park last Sat­ur­day. It showed 22 points sep­a­rat­ed Mon­tano at the top from Bri­an Lon­don who sat in 10th place. Mon­tano amassed 278; Helon Fran­cis, 272; Kurt Allen, 267; and Karene As­che, 264.

De­spite singing ca­lyp­so as a child, Mon­tano spent most of his ca­reer singing So­ca, win­ning many ac­co­lades. How­ev­er, he is out to cap­ture the ca­lyp­so crown for the first time.

Mas­ter ca­lyp­son­ian Dr Hol­lis “Chalk­dust” Liv­er­pool be­lieves Mon­tano can in­deed clutch the crown.

He se­lect­ed Mon­tano as one of his four picks to win the fi­nals at Di­manche Gras on Car­ni­val Sun­day, along with Helon Fran­cis, Kurt Allen, and Rod­er­ick “Chucky” Gor­don. Liv­er­pool said it will be a tight con­test with those four ca­lyp­so­ni­ans lead­ing the pack, which in­cludes reign­ing monarch Du­ane Ta’zyah O’Con­nor and for­mer win­ner Karene As­che.

“Machel Mon­tano, he is singing well. He is singing about a sim­ple top­ic, but he is singing well. And he is mak­ing sense. He may not win, but he will be in the top four,” Liv­er­pool said.

Liv­er­pool who won the Ca­lyp­so Monarch nine times, the most in the his­to­ry of the com­pe­ti­tion, ex­plained that it is not an easy switch to move from so­ca to ca­lyp­so. But he said he no­ticed Mon­tano was more re­laxed when he jumped with the so­ca part of the song Soul of Ca­lyp­so. 

“He was in his glee. He was in his area when he sang the so­ca part,” he said.

Liv­er­pool said while so­ca and ca­lyp­so car­ry the same rhythm, most so­ca songs have no mea­sure­ment in the beats while ca­lyp­so does. He said most so­ca artistes ride a rhythm and do not nec­es­sar­i­ly have to say much, but the lyri­cal con­tent is es­sen­tial for ca­lyp­so. Liv­er­pool said he ex­plained this to Mon­tano pre­vi­ous­ly. It was then Mon­tano re­vealed that he un­der­stood the dif­fer­ence. Liv­er­pool said he was one of the rea­sons why Mon­tano was in the com­pe­ti­tion.

Mon­tano is in the fi­nal year of his Mas­ter’s De­gree in Car­ni­val Stud­ies at UTT.

Liv­er­pool al­so weighed in on oth­er fi­nal­ists.

He said he would have picked every­one the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta judges se­lect­ed ex­cept Bri­an Lon­don. 

“He (Lon­don) is a good singer, but I did not see him get­ting in. I saw him bor­der­ing be­tween ninth and 10th.” How­ev­er, Liv­er­pool said he would not have se­lect­ed To­ba­go Ca­lyp­so Monarch Dil­lon Thomas.

Thomas is the first To­ba­go monarch to gain au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the fi­nal, fol­low­ing a de­ci­sion by the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO).

“I would not have se­lect­ed the To­ba­go boy ei­ther. How can a To­ba­go boy who wins a crown in To­ba­go be in the fi­nals? I think that is non­sense. Ut­ter non­sense. If they put the To­ba­go fi­nal­ist in the fi­nals, you must put the Ari­ma and Siparia fi­nal­ists. They have won crowns, and To­ba­go is the small­est area,” he posit­ed.

No fear of Machel

Mean­while, fi­nal­ist Stacey Sobers said she was hap­py with her semi­fi­nal per­for­mance and, know­ing her score be­lieves there is al­ways room for im­prove­ment. It is her third time reach­ing the fi­nals. 

“As they say, the judges’ de­ci­sion is fi­nal, and I have noth­ing to chal­lenge. I think each com­peti­tor just needs to work to­wards get­ting a bet­ter po­si­tion the next round,” Sobers said.

Re­gard­ing Mon­tano’s en­trance, Sobers said he was no stranger to the art form and was wel­comed any­where. As for com­pet­ing against him, she said: “I bat­tle against my­self. My on­ly com­pe­ti­tion is me. I do not see any­body else in the race. I am my own com­pe­ti­tion,” she added.

The 2024 Young King, Mi­cal “Te­ja” Williams, who en­tered the com­pe­ti­tion for the first time, singing his Road March con­tender DNA, plans to do his best on Sun­day and said it is good enough.

“I am not in the com­pe­ti­tion to com­pete. I am in the com­pe­ti­tion to show­case what I am do­ing,” Williams said.

And Lon­don, who has been a fi­nal­ist in the Ca­lyp­so Monarch four times, said yes­ter­day he suf­fered in­juries in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent on Mon­day and was un­der painkillers.  But de­spite this, he said he was not fo­cused on Mon­tano but rather on com­pet­ing.

“All that mat­ters is to see if I can make it to the Ex­tem­po fi­nals and see if I can get bet­ter for Sun­day,” Lon­don said.

Lon­don com­plet­ed a hat-trick last year when he won the Na­tion­al Ex­tem­po com­pe­ti­tion three years in a row.

To­day the fi­nal­ists for the Ca­lyp­so Monarch will draw for the or­der of per­for­mance in Sun­day’s com­pe­ti­tion.

Scores from Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta

1.Machel Mon­tano- 278

2.Helon Fran­cis-272

3.Kurt Allen-267

4.Karene As­che-264

5.Mi­cal “Te­ja” Williams-262

6.Aaron Dun­can-262

7.Stacey Sobers-Abra­ham-262

8.Rod­er­ick “Chucky” Gor­don- 259

9.Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters-258

10.Bri­an Lon­don-256

11.Vic­to­ria “Queen Vic­to­ria” Coop­er-Rahim- 255

12.Cas­ton Cu­pid-254