JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Yung Bredda among newcomers heading to Calypso Monarch finals

by

Shaliza Hassanali
20 days ago
20250224

In six days, 11 fi­nal­ists will vie for the pres­ti­gious Ca­lyp­so Monarch crown at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain.

They will take on reign­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch Machel Mon­tano who is a mas­ter per­former and en­ter­tain­er in the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty.

But a few of the 11 fi­nal­ists are promis­ing to give a show­down at the Big Yard on Sun­day, as they try to wres­tle the crown from Mon­tano.

Yes­ter­day, the Trinidad Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so Or­gan­i­sa­tion is­sued the names of the fi­nal­ists and one re­serve for the com­pe­ti­tion af­ter they squared off in the semi­fi­nal round at Skin­ner’s Park, San Fer­nan­do, on Sat­ur­day.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to five of the fi­nal­ists who shared their thoughts on the up­com­ing com­pe­ti­tion, promis­ing to put on a per­for­mance of a life­time and sing from their hearts.

Crowd favourite Akhen­aton Lewis (Yung Bred­da), who sang We Rise to ad­vance to the fi­nals said in a What­sApp mes­sage that he was “elat­ed to be part of the great 11. I knew it was a win from the crowd re­sponse. The voice of the peo­ple is the voice of God.”

Asked who he saw as his biggest com­peti­tor, Yung Bred­da’s re­sponse was, “God is my on­ly com­pe­ti­tion!”

This will be Yung Bred­da’s first time in the Big Yard which he’s look­ing for­ward to.

Ann Marie Parks Ko­jo, pop­u­lar­ly known as Twig­gy, has promised to put her best foot for­ward when she hits the big stage.

The re­sults, she said, brought her to tears. “I am a very emo­tion­al per­son. It was tears of joy for me this morn­ing. I have 50 years of ex­pe­ri­ence un­der my belt. I am not look­ing at the chal­lengers. I am there. I am al­ready a win­ner hav­ing made it to the fi­nals.”

Twig­gy, 68, a vet­er­an in the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty, edged out her son, who al­so com­pet­ed as a semi­fi­nal­ist.

She is one of four fe­male fi­nal­ists and the old­est in the con­test.

The oth­er three are Ter­ri Lyons, Karene As­che and Roslyn Reid Hayes.

Her 65 and Still Rel­e­vant ren­di­tion penned by Kurt Allen grabbed the pa­trons’ at­ten­tion.

Allen, who al­so qual­i­fied as a fi­nal­ist with his song Your Turn Now was at the re­ceiv­ing end of a toi­let pa­per posse.

Twig­gy de­fend­ed Allen.

“Kaiso is po­lit­i­cal and pi­cong. We are the voic­es for the peo­ple. We break gov­ern­ments and build them. So all he (Allen) was singing about is your turn now. And you know, San Fer­nan­do crowd...San Fer­nan­do is a po­lit­i­cal­ly in­vig­o­rat­ed crowd. So they came there. I am sure Kurt was ex­pect­ing that. He was not sur­prised about that...be­cause we knew that was go­ing to hap­pen be­fore.”

In 2009, Twig­gy was a Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal­ist.

Rod­er­ick Gor­don, who sings un­der the so­bri­quet Chuck Gor­don, al­so tipped his hat to Allen for ex­e­cut­ing his per­for­mance seam­less­ly in the face of the toi­let pa­per gang.

“Kurt is a mas­ter per­former.  And the few pro-PNM peo­ple in the au­di­ence would not de­ter Kurt.”

Hav­ing placed 28th in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, Chuck said he had to give it his best shot at Skin­ner Park.His dit­ty Look Tuh Press won the hearts of the judges.

“No­body is think­ing of me as a favourite and that is fine. I am ac­cus­tomed to that as well.”

Chuck won the monar­chy in 2014 and 2015.

An­tho­ny “Squeezy Rankin” La Fleur was over­joyed by the news of earn­ing the spot as a fi­nal­ist af­ter de­liv­er­ing his crowd favourite kaiso, Jus­tice.

It’s Squeezy Rankin’s first time singing ca­lyp­so.

Squeezy Rankin’s re­cent win at the 2024 Freestyle Monarch, marked a piv­otal mo­ment in his ca­reer, paving the way for his for­ay in­to ca­lyp­so.

As a new­com­er to the sa­van­nah, Squeezy Rankin promised not to let his guard down, see­ing the pow­er­ful line of con­tenders.

“I nev­er sang ca­lyp­so be­fore. This is the first time I ever go in any com­pe­ti­tion on a ma­jor lev­el like this. Per­son­al­ly, I know I am not one of the favourites right now. I come to prove every­body wrong.”

Squeezy Rankin, 47, said all he has to bring with him is his A-game. “I want to sur­prise Trinidad and To­ba­go and the world. That is all.”

Helon Fran­cis is ready to be the monarch once again. In 2018, Fran­cis walked away with the cov­et­ed crown. “I am com­ing back to do my du­ty. I see no one as a chal­lenge. I chal­lenge my­self in a com­pe­ti­tion.”

Fran­cis said he wrote his song To Whom It May Be based on the vi­bra­tions and feel­ings of the peo­ple.

“I tried to guide them and open their eyes at the same time.”

Fi­nal­ists 

1.Akhen­aton Lewis- Yung Bred­da

2. Ann Marie Parks Ko­jo-Twig­gy

3.An­tho­ny La Fleur- Squeezy Rankin

4. Du­anne Ta’Zah O’Con­nor

5. Helon Fran­cis

6.Karene As­che- The Ca­lyp­so Princess

7.Kurt Allen- The Last Bad­john of Ca­lyp­so

8. Rod­er­ick Gor­don- Chuck Gor­don

9.Roslyn Reid Hayes-Roslyn

10. Sam­raj Jaimun­gal- Rik­ki Jai

11.Ter­ri Lyons

Re­serve Morel Pe­ters-King Lu­ta


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored