Pe­ter Ray Blood

For many he was the sur­prise win­ner of the 2013 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle. A son of San­gre Grande, Pink Pan­ther (Er­ic Tay­lor) copped the win singing Trav­el Woes and Cry­ing in the Chapel.

The de­fend­ing monarch has mixed feel­ings about his reign. "It was a nice ex­pe­ri­ence in some ways, not so nice in oth­ers," he said. "Things hap­pened for me dur­ing the year but not in Trinidad. I got op­por­tu­ni­ties to per­form abroad but lo­cal pro­mot­ers were not as will­ing to hire me. This coun­try has a back­ward mind­set that we have to get rid of if we are to progress.

"I don't know why the gov­ern­ment has snubbed me dur­ing my reign. Per­haps they per­ceive me a PNM monarch and not the na­tion­al ca­lyp­so monarch of T&T. The gov­ern­ment had sev­er­al func­tions dur­ing 2013, in T&T and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, and I was not in­vit­ed to per­form in one.

"Would you be­lieve that the na­tion­al ca­lyp­so monarch wasn't even in­vit­ed to per­form at our own Di­manche Gras here, but was guest of ho­n­our St Thomas Car­ni­val. Those peo­ple rolled out the red car­pet for me. This sad­dened me, not be­ing shown love or ap­pre­ci­a­tion at home.

"I al­so had shows in Toron­to and New York, and through­out the Caribbean. I was al­so a spe­cial guest of ho­n­our at a big show in An­guil­la. Peo­ple up the is­lands show more re­spect to ca­lyp­so­ni­ans than what is shown in Trinidad."

Pink Pan­ther be­lieves that Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) could do much more to en­gen­der re­spect for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

He said: "As the na­tion­al ca­lyp­so monarch, I hope that Tu­co would ad­vo­cate that the hold­er of this ti­tle is en­sured of bet­ter treat­ment, in­clud­ing what treat­ment he must en­sure at the air­port. You are the na­tion­al ca­lyp­so monarch and you have to jos­tle with every­body in Pi­ar­co."

For Car­ni­val 2014, Pink Pan­ther re­turns to Ka­lyp­so Re­vue as one of its pre­mier singers.

Pink Pan­ther has been mar­ried for the past 30 years and has four chil­dren. His hob­bies in­clude play­ing ta­ble ten­nis. He said: I am al­so pas­sion­ate about pol­i­tics. I spent 30 in the pub­lic ser­vice serv­ing the pub­lic as a Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment su­per­vi­sor, so it is nat­ur­al for me to want to con­tin­ue serv­ing my com­mu­ni­ty and the wider pub­lic."

Stat­ing that he likes watch­ing Niger­ian movies, Pink Pan­ther added: "I love mac­a­roni and cheese. You could give me that every day. Meat is not my favourite thing. I can­not eat the flesh of an in­no­cent an­i­mal."

A PNM can­di­date in the last gen­er­al elec­tion, Pink Pan­ther re­it­er­at­ed his com­mit­ment to the pol­i­tics of the land. He said: "The PNM had some nice vic­to­ries in 2013 and, as a mem­ber of the gen­er­al coun­cil and the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive, this was pleas­ing. We in­tend to launch a se­ri­ous chal­lenge to the gov­ern­ment when­ev­er the next gen­er­al elec­tion is called."

Pink Pan­ther end­ed by say­ing: "Be warned. This year I am re­turn­ing to de­fend my ti­tle."