On a night of high dra­ma at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Ter­ri Lyons de­liv­ered a com­mand­ing per­for­mance of Bless­ings on the Di­manche Gras stage, seal­ing her vic­to­ry with pow­er­ful lyrics, con­vic­tion and un­de­ni­able stage pres­ence.

As the ear­ly favourite through­out the sea­son, she rose to the mo­ment when it mat­tered most, walk­ing away with $1 mil­lion and a KGM Ko­ran­do Emo­tion. Ri­val­do Lon­don se­cured sec­ond place and Rik­ki Jai third, but it was Lyons who owned the night.

Her tri­umph is sig­nif­i­cant. In an era where the art­form faces stiff com­pe­ti­tion from oth­er gen­res and shrink­ing at­ten­tion spans, Lyons re­mind­ed the na­tion what elite ca­lyp­so sounds and feels like. Pre­ci­sion. Pas­sion. Au­thor­i­ty. She did not mere­ly per­form; she com­mand­ed.

And yet, this year’s Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion will be re­mem­bered not on­ly for a de­serv­ing cham­pi­on, but for a deeply trou­bling mo­ment that struck at the heart of the art­form it­self.

Dur­ing the per­for­mance of reign­ing monarch Helon Fran­cis — who ul­ti­mate­ly placed sixth with Doh For­get — view­ers watch­ing the livestream on Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) lost au­dio just as he be­gan his sec­ond verse. The sound nev­er re­turned for the re­main­der of his pre­sen­ta­tion. So­cial me­dia quick­ly lit up with con­fu­sion, then con­cern, as view­ers sought to de­ter­mine whether the is­sue was iso­lat­ed. It was not. The si­lence was wide­spread.

For a brief pe­ri­od, Fran­cis’ full per­for­mance could be seen on WACK TV’s YouTube chan­nel. Still, the video was lat­er re­moved, ac­com­pa­nied by a mes­sage in­di­cat­ing that the as­so­ci­at­ed ac­count had been closed. On air, com­men­ta­tor Wendy Lewis apol­o­gised for what she de­scribed as a “two-minute” in­ter­rup­tion. The per­for­mance was not re­peat­ed, de­spite it be­ing cus­tom­ary for TTT to al­low a restart when tech­ni­cal is­sues dis­rupt a con­tes­tant.

The op­tics are trou­bling. Ca­lyp­so is not back­ground mu­sic; it is so­cial com­men­tary, po­lit­i­cal cri­tique and cul­tur­al mem­o­ry. From Atil­la the Hun to The Mighty Spar­row, from Shad­ow to Singing San­dra, from Chalk­dust to Fran­cis him­self, the tra­di­tion has al­ways been to speak truth to pow­er — un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly. Dis­com­fort is part of the pack­age. Satire is the point.

Whether the au­dio fail­ure was tech­ni­cal in­com­pe­tence or some­thing more de­lib­er­ate, the re­sult is the same: a ca­lyp­son­ian was ef­fec­tive­ly si­lenced on the biggest stage of Car­ni­val. That can­not be brushed aside with a ca­su­al apol­o­gy.

The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) and its pres­i­dent, Ains­ley King, must pro­vide a full, trans­par­ent ex­pla­na­tion. Di­manche Gras is not an am­a­teur hour pro­duc­tion. It is the pin­na­cle of the ca­lyp­so sea­son, fund­ed by pub­lic and pri­vate in­vest­ment, and en­trust­ed with safe­guard­ing one of our most sa­cred tra­di­tions. Ac­count­abil­i­ty is not op­tion­al.

This mo­ment al­so forces a broad­er reck­on­ing. Too many mediocre com­po­si­tions have slipped in­to fi­nals in re­cent years, weak­en­ing the stan­dard of a com­pe­ti­tion meant to rep­re­sent ex­cel­lence. When the bar drops ar­tis­ti­cal­ly, and tech­ni­cal ex­e­cu­tion fal­ters, the in­tegri­ty of the en­tire event suf­fers.

Ter­ri Lyons de­serves her crown — un­equiv­o­cal­ly. Her vic­to­ry should be cel­e­brat­ed loud­ly and proud­ly. But cel­e­bra­tion can­not mean si­lence on se­ri­ous con­cerns. Ca­lyp­so has nev­er been timid, and nei­ther should we be in de­fend­ing it.

If we are to pre­serve the art­form’s fear­less spir­it, we must en­sure that no voice — whether cham­pi­on or chal­lenger — is ever mut­ed again.