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