An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Ca­lyp­so is not dead. So said the chair­man of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Com­mit­tee, Tho­ra Best.

She was speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day at the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion held at the Mod­ern Sa­van­nah Grass, Kaiso House Ca­lyp­so Tent, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, as 30 ju­niors vied for 15 spots, which will be an­nounced this week.

Best not­ed that Ca­lyp­so is very strong in the ju­nior fra­ter­ni­ty.

“Ca­lyp­so is not dead. It is very strong, you would be sur­prised when some peo­ple see some per­for­mances of the ju­niors, they are blown away be­cause some of them, I dare to say,  per­form bet­ter than the se­niors, and some of them sing bet­ter than the se­niors. I mean, I am kind of bi­ased, but the com­mit­tee is ex­treme­ly proud of the ju­niors that passed through and are now singing with the adults,” she said.

Best said that the pre­lim­i­nar­ies of the com­pe­ti­tion were held in To­ba­go last Mon­day. The fi­nals will be held on Feb­ru­ary 5 at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah at 10 am.

Mar­cus Mc­Don­ald and Josi­ah Jor­dan per­formed in the com­pe­ti­tion af­ter be­ing dis­qual­i­fied in 2023 af­ter their com­po­si­tions were found to be in breach of com­pe­ti­tion rules.

A’Janae King Fras­er was de­clared the 2023 Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch, re­plac­ing Mc­Don­ald who was dis­qual­i­fied along with Jor­dan af­ter com­plaints about the rules breach sur­faced.

The venue was packed with many school­child­ren from across the coun­try who came to sup­port their per­form­ers yes­ter­day.

The next gen­er­a­tion of ca­lyp­so sang on top­i­cal sub­jects, many send­ing a mes­sage to the na­tion.

Ko­quice Davi­son, from Bish­op’s High School, To­ba­go, sang Some­thing Wrong and Kyah Arnold, of Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary School, To­ba­go, sang A Prayer for Peace and Love. Isa­iah El­lis, of Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, Port-of-Spain, sang Ac­count­abil­i­ty, while Caleb Hins, of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, sang Is we Who Have to Save we.

Many par­ents said they were im­pressed with this year’s ren­di­tions and crafts­man­ship from the ju­niors.