AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

“His tro­phy’s taller than mine!”

This comedic fact was shared by reign­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ter­ri Lyons as she beamed with moth­er­ly pride. She was not talk­ing about a ri­val ca­lyp­son­ian, but rather the bright­est and newest star in her house­hold — her son, Math­ias Supreme Lyons For­tune.

With pan sticks in hand and con­fi­dence that stretch­es far be­yond his years, this 12-year-old mu­si­cian, bet­ter known as “Afro King”, is al­ready mak­ing his mark on T&T’s cul­tur­al stage. His lat­est mile­stone? Be­ing crowned Mr San Fest Young Star 2026.

Fresh off his vic­to­ry at the an­nu­al San Fer­nan­do Arts Fes­ti­val com­pe­ti­tion host­ed by the San Fer­nan­do Arts Coun­cil, Math­ias said the ex­pe­ri­ence was nev­er about chas­ing a grand tro­phy. As the grand­son of so­ca vet­er­an Austin “Su­perblue” Lyons and the son of the ca­lyp­so queen her­self, it is no se­cret that mu­sic roy­al­ty al­ready runs in his DNA, along with the thrill of com­pe­ti­tion.

“Well, I want­ed to try it, see how it feels to be in a com­pe­ti­tion. I didn’t have that kind of men­tal­i­ty, of you know, “I can win.” I just did it for the fun. I was sur­prised when I even won,” Math­ias told Guardian Me­dia.

Per­form­ing Lord Kitch­en­er’s icon­ic Pan in ‘A’ Mi­nor, Math­ias cap­ti­vat­ed the San Fest judges. His per­for­mance on the sin­gle tenor pan not on­ly demon­strat­ed his mu­si­cal­i­ty, but al­so his love for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

“I just love pan, and I start­ed pan when I was about sev­en years old with Cou­va Joy­lan­ders, and af­ter I just have been des­tined to play the pan over and over again,” he said.

And what makes the Afro King stand out in a sea of young tal­ent? Well, it is not on­ly his lush, curly ‘fro, but al­so his high-en­er­gy per­for­mance style.

“Well, for me, it’s my an­tics? Peo­ple say I do re­sem­ble Dane Gul­ston plen­ty with how I play the pan and my fa­cial ex­pres­sions.”

That in­fec­tious and an­i­mat­ed ex­e­cu­tion was on full dis­play at the com­pe­ti­tion over the week­end. While oth­ers bat­tled stage fright, Math­ias was com­plete­ly in his el­e­ment, hav­ing one mis­sion on his mind: “just play pan.”

“When re­sults time came? I was com­fort­ing more my friends than my­self. But it felt good oth­er­wise. I was so con­fused, and I was very hap­py at the same time.”

The mo­ment felt ex­tra spe­cial as well, as the steel­pan he played car­ries a leg­endary his­to­ry of its own. The in­stru­ment was gift­ed to him by none oth­er than the So­ca King him­self, Machel Mon­tano.

“Af­ter I played in one of his shows. He had asked me, “What do you want, like in re­ward, in re­turn?” And he thought I was gonna say mon­ey or some­thing. I was like, “No. Can I get a tenor pan?” He’s like, “Sure, no prob­lem.” And that’s how I end­ed up with this pan, and I got my whole sig­na­ture marked on it,” Math­ias said.

Com­ing from a fam­i­ly with a deeply mu­si­cal back­ground, he cred­its them for in­spir­ing him to en­gage with the per­form­ing arts from an ear­ly age, along with T&T’s his­to­ry and cul­ture.

He al­so cred­its his grand­fa­ther in par­tic­u­lar for en­cour­ag­ing his love of pan, mak­ing him not on­ly the fam­i­ly’s newest tal­ent but al­so the “Lyons fam­i­ly pan­nist”.

“My grand­fa­ther, he was very sup­port­ive of the pan. He love pan, he love go­ing to pan, watch­ing pan. And af­ter I re­alised, I could do some­thing. I could join with this mu­si­cal fam­i­ly and do some­thing.”

When he is not re­hears­ing on the steel­pan, Math­ias is a typ­i­cal, vi­brant pre-teen. He loves play­ing bas­ket­ball, be­ing ac­tive out­doors or sleep­ing, es­pe­cial­ly with all the free time he cur­rent­ly has as he awaits his SEA re­sults.

He is al­so a young en­tre­pre­neur, al­ready own­ing and man­ag­ing a small busi­ness ven­ture cen­tred on re­cy­cling plas­tic bot­tles. But in the long term, he in­tends to bal­ance life as a pro­fes­sion­al pan­nist and a suc­cess­ful busi­ness own­er.

With his moth­er’s un­wa­ver­ing sup­port, Math­ias said he is con­fi­dent he can bal­ance it all. Ter­ri, trad­ing her daz­zling stage per­sona for full “mom-mode”, shared that fans can look for­ward to up­com­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions, with her son ac­com­pa­ny­ing her on the pan.

The Caribbean’s ca­lyp­so queen stressed that while she con­tin­ues to ad­vance her own ca­reer, her pri­ma­ry fo­cus re­mains a dual mis­sion: ful­ly sup­port­ing Math­ias and ed­u­cat­ing him on the rich­ness of this coun­try’s cul­tur­al her­itage.

“I am very pas­sion­ate about ca­lyp­so be­cause of the his­to­ry be­hind it. I am not just singing ca­lyp­so and just mak­ing mon­ey. I have sat down and read and learnt. I know, okay, this is gold.”

She com­mend­ed San Fest for fos­ter­ing this ex­act spir­it of cul­tur­al pride and ca­ma­raderie, not­ing that the fes­ti­val or­gan­is­ers en­sured young com­peti­tors so­cialised and sup­port­ed one an­oth­er rather than view­ing each oth­er strict­ly as ri­vals.

As a moth­er and cul­tur­al am­bas­sador, Ter­ri gave this piece of ad­vice for par­ents whose chil­dren are show­ing an in­ter­est in the arts:

“Do not take the fun out of your kids’ tal­ent or pur­su­ing what­ev­er. It could be spo­ken word, pan, dance, singing, act­ing, what­ev­er it is, paint­ing, de­sign­ing…do not take the fun out of it. Be­cause some­times the par­ents end up be­ing the ones that brings ten­sion be­tween the kids,” Ter­ri said.

“I will push my son with his mu­sic, but I will al­so en­sure he has that busi­ness sense of it. This is what it is all about. This is what makes me hap­py.”

And with a sol­id foun­da­tion, a love for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and a sup­port­ive fam­i­ly back­ing him, Math­ias is prov­ing that the fu­ture of T&T’s cul­ture is not just safe, but des­tined for great­ness.