Aba A Luke

For over 30 years, the name William Munroe has stood firm­ly with­in the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try of Trinidad and To­ba­go. From trade, busi­ness and re­al es­tate, the Caribbean Pres­tige Foun­da­tion founder delved in­to en­ter­tain­ment in the 70s, and to this day he re­mains em­bed­ded in the fi­bre of T&T's Car­ni­val cul­ture.Over the years Munroe's am­bi­tions have proven suc­cess­ful, with many be­ing launch­ing pads for artistes of the 70s and 80s, whose names are well re­spect­ed to­day.In 2011, many hear the name William Munroe and im­me­di­ate­ly think So­ca Monarch. But truth be told, So­ca Monarch is but one of the many cul­ture-re­lat­ed ac­com­plish­ments un­der his belt.

From ca­lyp­so to so­ca

In his chat with the T&T Guardian in De­cem­ber, Munroe, who cel­e­brates 19 years of stag­ing the So­ca Monarch In­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion this year, ex­plained that he first got in­volved in en­ter­tain­ment as an ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er of ca­lyp­so mu­sic in the 70s. He be­came in­volved in record­ing, and sub­se­quent­ly ex­posed a num­ber of al­ready known and some new artistes of that era, among them Shad­ow, Mer­chant, Ajala, Ken­ny J, Black Stal­in, Com­pos­er, and even the cur­rent Cul­ture Min­is­ter, Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters.

Be­tween 1972 and 1982, Munroe's name gained promi­nence in the art form of ca­lyp­so when he sin­gle-hand­ed­ly rev­o­lu­tionised the ca­lyp­so show­case are­na."I was the first in­di­vid­ual to build a home for ca­lyp­so in the Caribbean," he said .Re­fer­ring to the King­dom of the Wiz­ards Tent he con­struct­ed at 111-117 Hen­ry Street in Port-of-Spain, Munroe said pri­or to his in­volve­ment, he felt that ca­lyp­so­ni­ans of that time did not rep­re­sent them­selves well, and he moved to change that.

"I love glam­our, beau­ty and in­no­va­tion," said Munroe, in­di­cat­ing that this was lack­ing at that time, so he stepped in and of­fered the artistes big­ger wages in a bid to have them present a high­er lev­el of show­man­ship for the world to see.Ac­cord­ing to Munroe, the build­ing was lat­er leased to the Mar­tineau broth­ers and called Spek­taku­la Fo­rum, af­ter a de­cline in at­ten­dance one year.To­day, Spek­taku­la Fo­rum is no more and the build­ing is oc­cu­pied by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Sport Com­pa­ny.

Con­fi­dent of a sold-out show

With big ideas and a per­se­ver­ing at­ti­tude, William Munroe trekked for­ward. "Once I know I can achieve it, telling me no is like telling me yes," he high­light­ed, and added that he did not like to be lim­it­ed. Be­yond his years in the ca­lyp­so tent are­na, Munroe is cred­it­ed for in­tro­duc­ing the Kings of Kings Com­pe­ti­tion in 1984. Ca­lyp­so Ex­po fol­lowed at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and Jean Pierre Com­plex, much to the ap­pre­ci­a­tion of thou­sands near and far.With his de­sire to fos­ter change in the at­ti­tudes of both the peo­ple on the ground and the peo­ple in com­mand­ing po­si­tions as it re­lat­ed to the ex­po­sure of lo­cal cul­ture, Munroe found­ed and backed many oth­er ini­tia­tives. In 2011, he is high­ly revered for his 19 years of host­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion.

With plans al­ready un­der way, Munroe ex­cit­ed­ly stat­ed, "When peo­ple hear who are the guest artistes and celebri­ties, they'll be run­ning to get their tick­ets, and they bet­ter do that be­cause I am con­fi­dent that tick­ets will be sold out this year."Plans, ac­cord­ing to the cul­tur­al de­vel­op­er, are quite big this year as the teenage years of the com­pe­ti­tion come to an end.

"This year we want to give it a blaze of glo­ry," he said.

Munroe seeks bright,in­no­v­a­tive minds

Com­ment­ing on the ef­forts of the artistes this year, Munroe said, " The mu­sic is re­al­ly good," cred­it­ing the high stan­dard of pro­duc­tion to the gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to of­fer a $2 mil­lion dol­lar first prize purse in 2011. "When that was an­nounced, my phone wouldn't stop ring­ing. Every­one was call­ing to tell me they were en­ter­ing," he told the Guardian, with a laugh.He said the com­pe­ti­tion be­longs to the peo­ple of T&T, adding that there is tremen­dous po­ten­tial to make mon­ey. "Peo­ple think I make so much mon­ey with So­ca Monarch. They couldn't be fur­ther from the truth.

"There is how­ev­er tremen­dous po­ten­tial to make a lot of mon­ey- but the com­pe­ti­tion still needs nur­tur­ing," he said."I am hon­est­ly from the bot­tom of my heart tired, and I want to give it up but I need to get some young minds to take over and take it to a high­er lev­el," said Munroe.

In ho­n­our of theP­rime Min­is­ter

Even as he speaks of re­tire­ment from the helm of the Caribbean Pres­tige Foun­da­tion, William Munroe te­dious­ly works along­side his team to show­case the tal­ent of the Caribbean. Again in 2011, win­ners of So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tions across the Caribbean will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be en­tered in Trinidad on Fan­tas­tic Fri­day."So­ca Monarch is an in­vest­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go will reap the ben­e­fits of," he said, adding that the show cre­ates 4,000 jobs.

"We have a great prod­uct that is ac­cept­ed al­ready. We have to build it be­cause the world is not ac­cept­ing medi­oc­rity," he in­cit­ed, urg­ing the peo­ple of the is­land to sup­port what was theirs, and to come out with high en­er­gy and full sup­port on Fan­tas­tic Fri­day March 4."On the present gov­ern­ment's in­volve­ment in this year's com­pe­ti­tion, Munroe of­fered words of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for its sup­port."This year, the pro­duc­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch is ded­i­cat­ed to the Prime Min­is­ter for the fi­nan­cial in­cen­tive and the gov­ern­ment's in­no­va­tion. I want to thank them for work­ing with the prod­uct, some­thing that the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, did not en­tire­ly sup­port."

• The 2011 In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion (Groovy and Pow­er) will be of­fi­cial­ly launched to­mor­row evening at The Hy­att Re­gency, on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, at 7 pm.