Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Akhen­aton “Yung Bred­da” Lewis and An­tho­ny “Squeezy Rankin” La Fleur have, for the first time in their ca­reers, made it to the se­mi-fi­nal round of the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do.

The two, known most­ly for their dance­hall and steam mu­sic gen­res, will now per­form on a ca­lyp­so stage at Skin­ner Park, pop­u­lar­ly called Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta, on Feb­ru­ary 22.

Yung Bred­da tried the so­ca genre for the first time this year and has a hit with The Great­est Bend Over. How­ev­er, he has gone to an­oth­er lev­el by al­so try­ing ca­lyp­so, and has sur­prised many with his ren­di­tion of We Rise, which has earned him a place in the se­mi-fi­nal.

Squeezy Rankin has sim­i­lar­ly en­tered the ca­lyp­so are­na af­ter years in the dance­hall genre and earned his place with Jus­tice.

The 40 se­mi-fi­nal­ists, out of the 199 who au­di­tioned at the pre­lim­i­nary stage, were an­nounced yes­ter­day at the Radis­son Ho­tel by the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO).

For­mer com­pe­ti­tion win­ners, Du­ane Ta’Zyah O’Con­nor, Karene As­che, Kurt Allen, Rod­er­ick Gor­don and Ter­ri Lyons have al­so made it to the semis. They se­mi-fi­nal­ists will be vy­ing for a chance to de­throne Machel Mon­tano, who lift­ed his first monarch ti­tle last year.

TU­CO pres­i­dent Ains­ley King boast­ed that so far, prepa­ra­tion for the com­pe­ti­tion has been go­ing smooth­ly with state and pri­vate spon­sor­ships not be­ing a ma­jor is­sue this year.

King re­vealed that first prize will be $750,000 in cash plus a ve­hi­cle val­ued at $300,000. The artiste plac­ing sec­ond will re­ceive $500,000 while the third-place fin­ish­er will take home $350,000.

King said over half of their tick­ets for the 12,000-ca­pac­i­ty Skin­ner Park venue have al­ready been sold and this year, TU­CO is putting an end to com­pli­men­ta­ry tick­ets.

“And the com­pli­men­ta­ry (tick­ets) that we nor­mal­ly give out, we are not able to do it be­cause the tick­ets are sell­ing. If you want to be a part of the event, go buy a tick­et,” he warned, say­ing ear­ly bird tick­ets are fin­ished. But King said this year will be un­like any oth­er, as he an­nounced a re­nais­sance for the art­form which he hopes will bring more re­spect to ca­lyp­so and at­tract younger par­tic­i­pants and spec­ta­tors.

“We at TU­CO have de­cid­ed to put some at­ten­tion to ca­lyp­so, to bring more vis­i­bil­i­ty and at­trac­tive­ness. So, what we de­cid­ed to do is to de­clare the whole year, the year of ca­lyp­so,” King said. He added, “We are go­ing to put in­ten­sive at­ten­tion by hav­ing ac­tiv­i­ties through­out the year and set­ting up plat­forms to ed­u­cate. Be­cause we recog­nise where our mu­sic in­dus­try is con­cerned, the ed­u­ca­tion is need­ed. Be­cause what ca­lyp­so means and its val­ue, we re­alise a lot of peo­ple don’t know. We hear peo­ple say­ing ca­lyp­so is a dy­ing art, we hear peo­ple say­ing ca­lyp­so is not draw­ing in­ter­est. But ca­lyp­so is deep­er than that. In fact, ca­lyp­so is a spir­it and one that would nev­er die.”

King said changes have al­ready been made, as there are no longer guar­an­tees or “seed­ed spots” for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans per­form­ing at the tents.

“We saw that as sti­fling and bring­ing a stag­na­tion to kaiso. Ca­lyp­so be­longs to the na­tion, and every young per­son who choos­es to sing kaiso. And that sort of struc­ture and sys­tem would on­ly force them to be­come dis­cour­aged. So, we have opened up the gate to give young and new peo­ple a chance. So, every­body had to au­di­tion.”

King said TU­CO has tak­en note of the dis­re­spect met­ed out to ca­lyp­so, which he said is brand­ed as an art­form on­ly for the el­der­ly.

“We have plant­ed a seed and this seed is to open up so young peo­ple can know this is not just for dad­dy and granny and them. You are see­ing Yung Bred­da and oth­er peo­ple are com­ing be­cause they have the un­der­stand­ing. Ca­lyp­so is sim­ply an art­form that re­quires cre­ativ­i­ty and peo­ple who have a spir­it with them. So, it’s not an old man thing or old peo­ple thing,” King said.

He ad­mit­ted that pro­mot­ing the art­form has been a chal­lenge in the past and that has led to what he is call­ing an “iden­ti­ty cri­sis” in this coun­try’s mu­sic in­dus­try.

King lament­ed that so­ca and oth­er gen­res have lost their lo­cal flavour and now sounds like an amal­ga­ma­tion of oth­er styles of mu­sic. He be­lieves ca­lyp­so can bring more fo­cus to T&T’s in­dige­nous spir­it.

“You can imag­ine you go to get a Gram­my and your mu­sic sound­ing like R&B? But we ac­cept it here be­cause so­ca is any and every­thing and peo­ple are ac­cept­ing the hype and not re­al­ly hav­ing some form of iden­ti­ty or sell­ing a prod­uct that rep­re­sents the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we push that aside for hype. And these are things we need to be con­scious of be­cause we have been dam­ag­ing this in­dus­try.”