Gillian Cal­iste

Build­ing on the lega­cy of Growl­ing Tiger, Atil­la the Hun, Mighty Spoil­er and Lord Melody, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans like the Mighty Spar­row, Black Stal­in and Chalk­dust con­firmed through their works that the job of the ca­lyp­son­ian is to teach and point out. The ca­lyp­son­ian's role is to be the eyes and ears of the peo­ple, con­vey­ing the feel­ings of the peo­ple and hold­ing those who of­fer them­selves to gov­ern as ser­vants of the peo­ple to ac­count. Most im­por­tant­ly, the ca­lyp­son­ian calls us, the peo­ple, to be in­tro­spec­tive and ex­am­ine our­selves.

Giv­ing voice to the is­sues of the day in song has been a task tak­en up by not on­ly males. Fe­male ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in the line of the dy­nam­ic Ca­lyp­so Rose–the first fe­male to win the Monarch in 1978–the pi­o­neer­ing Singing Francine and Denyse Plum­mer, and the pow­er­ful Singing San­dra–the on­ly fe­male to take the ti­tle twice (1999 and 2003)–have al­so lent their pas­sion and sway to the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness.

Whether wrapped in fig­u­ra­tive lan­guage, hu­mour, haunt­ing or in­fec­tious melodies or de­liv­ered with a caus­tic bite, ca­lyp­so styles have var­ied among in­di­vid­u­als and time pe­ri­ods, and at the Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, the lo­cal bench­mark of a ca­lyp­son­ian's suc­cess, it is the judges who have the fi­nal say.

Tonight, as the 2023 Di­manche Gras un­folds from 7 pm at the Grand Stand, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, the sea­son's re­splen­dent King and Queen and Ju­nior Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion win­ners will be on dis­play in the sump­tu­ous show­case of T&T cul­ture. The fo­cus, how­ev­er, will be on the se­nior ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who will be called up­on to per­form their role.

While some con­tin­ue to knock the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the Ca­lyp­so Monarch, and by ex­ten­sion, the Di­manche Gras as the most cel­e­brat­ed plat­form for lo­cal cul­ture, oth­ers be­lieve it must be al­lowed to evolve and find new paths. The old guard at the Ca­lyp­so Monarch has in­deed changed. The line­up is main­ly a new crop but most have roots in the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Monarch or oth­er as­pects of T&T cul­ture. Five of them are ne­new­com­ers to the Ca­lyp­so Monarch stage. Three for­mer Mon­archs Karene As­che (2011), Rod­er­ick “Chuck” Gor­don (2014 and 2015) and Helon Fran­cis (2018) are among the 11 fi­nal­ists who will come up against reign­ing Monarch Ter­ri Lyons who topped the field in 2020 be­fore the on­set of COVID. A grand prize of $800,000 com­pris­ing $500,000 in cash and a car val­ued at $300,000 is at stake. Five hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars will go to the sec­ond-place win­ner and $350,000 to the ca­lyp­son­ian com­ing in third.

With the con­tenders ready and rear­ing to go, the view­ing au­di­ence will see an­thems, ral­ly­ing songs and songs of thanks­giv­ing for the coun­try af­ter al­most three years of eco­nom­ic and so­cial stress as most have shied away from po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary.

Sun­day Guardian zoomed in on a few fi­nal­ists, in­clud­ing reign­ing Monarch Ter­ri Lyons to gar­ner a lit­tle in­sight in­to their ca­lyp­so jour­ney, their 2023 of­fer­ings and how prepa­ra­tions for tonight were shap­ing up.

Du­ane Ta'zyah O'Con­nor–"Sing Al­lelu­lia"

Duane Ta'zyah O'Connor

The son of 2012 Monarch Du­ane O'Con­nor, 20-year-old Du­ane Ta'zyah O'Con­nor is a promis­ing young ca­lyp­son­ian who urges all to dance and “Sing Al­lelu­lia” to a per­son­i­fied moth­er Trin­ba­go who has sac­ri­ficed much to ad­vance her sons and daugh­ters and who is “greater now than be­fore.” The young ca­lyp­son­ian is ex­pres­sive on stage and seems to thor­ough­ly en­joy him­self.

O'Con­nor said af­ter per­form­ing his Bri­an Lon­don com­po­si­tion as a fi­nal­ist in the Di­a­mond Ju­bilee In­de­pen­dence com­pe­ti­tion last Au­gust, he was even more moved by it and felt that it need­ed to be en­tered at the Ca­lyp­so Monarch.

He ad­mit­ted that he was a lit­tle ner­vous about tonight, but promised to give his “best as usu­al” and come out “with all guns blaz­ing.”

“It is so hum­bling and I'm so ex­cit­ed and grate­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty,” he added.

He re­called a time when he was not so sure about pur­su­ing ca­lyp­so. En­ter­ing with his fa­ther's songs, he said that he would al­ways win the ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions at his pri­ma­ry school New­town Boys' RC as a young­ster.

“Af­ter a while, I would not have the mo­ti­va­tion to en­ter be­cause I felt they were just plac­ing me first be­cause of my dad. Then I start­ed singing parang with Ali­cia Jages­sar and I placed first and I got best male vo­cal­ist. That's when I re­alised Ta'zyah you've got some­thing.”

He de­cid­ed to give ca­lyp­so a go once more and en­tered the Ju­nior Monarch for the first time at 17 while still a stu­dent of St Mary's Col­lege. He copped the ti­tle the sec­ond time around with “Man of In­tegri­ty”.

“Ju­nior Monarch gives you the step­ping stone, it pre­pares you for a large au­di­ence, and helps with your nerves. Hav­ing to ma­noeu­vre the stage as a child is a lot of work and as an adult, you would have ben­e­fit­ed from the prac­tice, the ex­po­sure,” he said.

O'Con­nor led a band called “Steam” for a cou­ple of years, singing var­i­ous types of mu­sic and pro­duc­ing cul­tur­al shows at Queen's Hall. He plans to pro­duce a cul­tur­al show lat­er this year.

He has been en­joy­ing a suc­cess­ful year, hav­ing placed sec­ond in his de­but at Young Kings and mak­ing it straight through to the Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals on his first en­try in the com­pe­ti­tion. He and his fa­ther be­came the first fa­ther and son to ap­pear at the semi­fi­nal round on Feb­ru­ary 11 and al­though the vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian did not make it to the fi­nals along­side his son, the younger O'Con­nor shared that his fa­ther was ex­cit­ed and hap­py for him as his suc­cess was al­so his fa­ther's suc­cess.

O'Con­nor said he was thank­ful to God, his fa­ther, his moth­er, Dones­sa, who had to put up with his con­stant re­hearsals at home, and every­one who sup­port­ed him in his jour­ney, adding that the en­cour­age­ment from many on so­cial me­dia gave him hope that the pub­lic ap­pre­ci­at­ed the con­tri­bu­tion of the youth.

Rod­er­ick “Chuck” Gor­don–"De Maths Eh Math­sin'"

Former Calypso Monarch and 2023 Monarch finalist Roderick Gordon, "Chuck Gordon" .

Gor­don said he was fine-tun­ing his ma­te­r­i­al, get­ting his stage pre­sen­ta­tion in­tact and leav­ing the rest up to the judges and God.

As to what the pub­lic can ex­pect from the two-time back-to-back Monarch come Sun­day night, he said: “A good stage per­for­mance and a pre­sen­ta­tion that speaks to the is­sues that I'm ad­dress­ing.”

With a melo­di­ous voice and a catchy, heavy old-school bassline, Gor­don presents a “wake-up call” to the peo­ple of this coun­try to un­der­stand what is tak­ing place with their af­fairs and to de­mand bet­ter in his ca­lyp­so penned by Mar­vin Ma­son.

“It's call­ing peo­ple to recog­nise that the state of gov­er­nance and the econ­o­my is not what it's sup­posed to be. I think we have got­ten to a de­featist state of mind where we think yeah that's just how it is. But the song is call­ing for, in a very cre­ative and clever way, peo­ple to raise their aware­ness and to recog­nise the traf­fic on a morn­ing doesn't have to be, the food prices don't have to be. The lev­els of cor­rup­tion and in­equal­i­ty that con­tribute to those things don't seem to be on the tips of peo­ple's tongues enough be­cause we're still in sur­vival mode about who is PNM and UNC and the rel­a­tive forces play on those emo­tion­al wounds, so to speak,” he said.

He said he took the lyrics and came up with a mu­si­cal arrange­ment that pre­sent­ed the ca­lyp­so in a way that would make peo­ple re­al­ly take stock.

“It's a protest song done in a fun way and that is the on­ly way it could be done for the peo­ple to lis­ten and ap­pre­ci­ate it, I think.”

He said in a land where the ma­jor­i­ty was “on par­ty”–recre­ation­al­ly and po­lit­i­cal­ly–the ca­lyp­son­ian had to be cre­ative to be tru­ly heard and un­der­stood.

Agree­ing with re­cent state­ments by a fel­low com­peti­tor and for­mer Monarch Fran­cis that ca­lyp­so need­ed a re­brand, he said such a re­brand had to en­tail go­ing back to its roots and ac­tu­al­ly fo­cus­ing on the role of the ca­lyp­son­ian and the role of ca­lyp­so.

“Who else is there to pro­vide a mir­ror and a per­spec­tive for you to re­flect on your­self?” he ques­tioned.

“If we don't have these jour­nal­ists, these po­ets, these philoso­phers do­ing that work in the space, then we're lost. The ca­lyp­son­ian is sup­posed to be the most pow­er­ful en­ti­ty in the space in terms of in­flu­enc­ing thought and the ca­lyp­son­ian has lost his way be­cause of his po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sion and as­so­ci­a­tion now to the point of not be­ing able to speak out and be­cause of oth­er struc­tur­al forces in the state.”

He felt that a ma­jor part of this re­brand­ing should start in schools.

“Ca­lyp­so is sup­posed to be in schools teach­ing chil­dren about their his­to­ry in a cre­ative, in­formed way be­cause it's not just read­ing po­et­ry, there's mu­sic, there are per­for­ma­tive as­pects, there's so­cio-cul­tur­al as­pects. So, there's tremen­dous val­ue to in­cor­po­rate ca­lyp­so in schools but the so­ci­ety does not val­ue it suf­fi­cient­ly to de­mand that,” said Gor­don who is al­so a coun­sel­lor and so­cial work­er at the Chil­dren’s Court of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

As to how Ju­nior Monarch shaped him as a ca­lyp­son­ian he said it was a good av­enue to grow a sol­id crop of young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

“In terms of the phys­i­ol­o­gy of a young per­former, it be­comes sec­ond na­ture. Your body grows ac­cus­tomed to ma­nip­u­lat­ing the space and your con­fi­dence de­vel­ops. The oth­er thing would be the ca­ma­raderie you de­vel­op over the years. You learn to deal with and in­ter­act with your peers. You learn how to lose grace­ful­ly. Be­cause you've been per­form­ing for so many years, you learn how to work in the space, grow in the space and what­ev­er the out­come, you learn to ac­cept it,” he said.

Gor­don, who lives in Aranguez but con­tin­ues to be an ac­tive fig­ure in his home­town of Laven­tille, car­ries the con­fi­dence of hav­ing come from a fam­i­ly of tal­ent­ed cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers. His fa­ther was the late es­teemed cul­tur­al stal­wart Roland Gor­don and his un­cle–his fa­ther's broth­er-in-law–was the late Ca­lyp­so Monarch and Road March Champ Pen­guin (Seadley Joseph). He said he was al­so in­flu­enced by the steady stream of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans like Blakie, De Fos­to, Roots­man and Ex­plain­er that his fa­ther would en­ter­tain at their home. But it was be­ing around his old­er sis­ter Man­dis­sa and Peguin's son Kris­son, his cousin, that re­al­ly sparked his in­ter­est in singing. From the age of four or five, he would ac­com­pa­ny them to re­hearsals and ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions and by age sev­en or eight, he was ready to join them on stage.

He said he won the Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle back-to-back in 2014 with “Wey Yuh Think” and “Wed­ding of de Cen­tu­ry” and in 2015 with the na­tion-build­ing “I Be­lieve” and “The Rose” dur­ing a pe­ri­od of self-re­al­i­sa­tion and growth. At the time, he was work­ing heav­i­ly with ace com­pos­er and arranger Ray Hol­man who did the mu­si­cal arrange­ment for “Wed­ding of de Cen­tu­ry” and “I Be­lieve” and who act­ed as a men­tor and fa­ther fig­ure to him for many years.

Pri­or to that, he had been crowned the Lord Byrn­er In­de­pen­dence Monarch in 2012 and had ap­peared at a num­ber of Na­tion­al Ju­nior Monarch fi­nals. The sea­soned ca­lyp­son­ian who has al­so graced the In­ter­na­tion­al Groovy So­ca Monarch stage five times will make his 10th ap­pear­ance at tonight's Monarch fi­nals.

The singer, song­writer and the­atre per­former said he was grate­ful to his moth­er, Glen­da Gor­don, aunts, es­pe­cial­ly his fa­ther's sis­ter Mar­garet, sib­lings and, of course, his fa­ther for mould­ing and sup­port­ing him.

“I want to lift up my fa­ther, Roland Gor­don. He has brought good graces to me through his life–the lev­el of work and con­tri­bu­tion he has made to the peo­ple–and that's a bless­ing, and a les­son I take very se­ri­ous­ly,” he said.

He said ho­n­our should be giv­en to the his­tor­i­cal and rit­u­al as­pects of Car­ni­val, that one's work as an artiste must af­fect the way peo­ple live and that his hope was to im­pact the con­scious­ness of the peo­ple.

Ker­ine Williams-Fi­garo (Tiny)–“To You With Love”

Kerine “Tiny” Williams-Figaro

In the vein of Ex­plain­er's “He­roes”, Williams-Fi­garo em­path­i­cal­ly pro­claims that she is giv­ing “flow­ers” to ca­lyp­so icons while they are still here. Fo­cus­ing her per­for­mance cen­tre stage at the mic in the semis, she de­liv­ered the well-re­ceived com­po­si­tion by Shel­don Nugget and was now elat­ed and hum­bled to be in the fi­nals, she said.

The Bish­op Anstey East Busi­ness Stud­ies teacher said she was typ­i­cal­ly a qui­et per­son and ca­lyp­so had giv­en her a voice. She had ad­mired Singing San­dra af­ter see­ing her on TV at nine years old, and au­di­tioned twice for Ju­nior Monarch but start­ed singing pro­fes­sion­al­ly in 2010 with a com­mu­ni­ty tent in San­gre Grande dur­ing her late teens. She first made the ca­lyp­so semis at Skin­ner Park in 2012, singing “Pi­ran­ha”, a so­cial com­men­tary on the is­sues fe­male artistes face in the ca­lyp­so are­na. She would ap­pear in the semis six more times to date. Peo­ple start­ed call­ing her “Tiny” be­cause of her pe­tite frame but were amazed that she had a strong voice when she sang.

She has been at­tached to Di­vas Women's Cabaret In­ter­na­tion­al in 2012 and 2013, Gen­er­a­tion Next in 2016, and Kaiso Car­a­van from 2018 to the present. Hav­ing tak­en the third spot on three oc­ca­sions in pre­vi­ous years. She placed sec­ond in the NWAC Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen this year.

She won the NACC's Top 20 Ca­lyp­soes of the Year with “Fruits Ain't Ripe” (2016), “Repa­ra­tion” (2018) and “No Means No” (2020).

In ex­plain­ing her song choice, Williams-Fi­garo said hav­ing grown up in the small com­mu­ni­ty of San­gre Grande, she was taught to ap­pre­ci­ate oth­ers by her moth­er. Her ca­lyp­so not on­ly en­cour­ages oth­ers to recog­nise and ap­pre­ci­ate artistes, but peo­ple in gen­er­al. It pays homage to one of her men­tors, in par­tic­u­lar, Singing San­dra who, she said, helped and sup­port­ed many young artistes.

“I looked at ca­lyp­so which I love with all my heart. We lost Moth­er, I call her 'Moth­er' be­cause she has been piv­otal in my ca­reer and I wish she would have been there on Sun­day but I'm go­ing to do that one just for her.

“The flow­ers sig­ni­fy a trib­ute that they are roy­al­ty, that we love them. I want to let them know that they are ap­pre­ci­at­ed and I'm sor­ry I can­not give flow­ers to every­body,” she said.

Stress­ing that she had great re­spect for vet­er­an ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, she said ca­lyp­so should fo­cus more on hav­ing suc­ces­sion plan­ning where the old­er bards work to in­clude the younger ones.

Tonight, she will give her “usu­al en­er­getic per­for­mance” but one wor­thy of the Ca­lyp­so Monarch, she laughed.

Car­los “Skatie” James–"De New Nor­mal"

Mak­ing his sixth ap­pear­ance at the Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals, James of­fers thanks­giv­ing for the preser­va­tion of T&T dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

Ezekiel Yorke–"Be­ing Hu­man"

Ezekiel Yorke

INNIS FRANCIS

From the age of five, Yorke has risen through the ranks of Ju­nior Monarch and NY­ACC's Stars of To­mor­row, be­com­ing a sec­ond-place win­ner of the 2016 Young Kings. Through a smooth, clean per­for­mance in a crisp, melo­di­ous voice, he de­liv­ers a philo­soph­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tion of what dis­tin­guish­es one from be­ing a hu­man be­ing and be­ing hu­man.

Heav­en “Snakey” Charles–"What Yuh Need Again Trin­ba­go"

Heaven "Snakey" Charles

RISHI RAGOONATH

The 2023 Young King and Di­a­mond Ju­bilee In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so Champ, Charles has been hav­ing a bumper sea­son as he of­fers a mu­si­cal tourist brochure ask­ing the peo­ple of this coun­try what else is re­quired to know your worth in his self-writ­ten, well-re­ceived “What Yuh Need Again Trin­ba­go”. The pop­u­lar en­ter­tain­er who start­ed out some 26 years ago, has crossed over from his typ­i­cal­ly comedic com­po­si­tions in the chut­ney so­ca “The Dhoti Song”(2014), so­ca and parang so­ca gen­res to a more sober­ing call for in­tro­spec­tion.

Helon Fran­cis–"Mighty"

Helon Francis

RISHI RAGOONATH

Telling the me­dia in a press state­ment a few weeks ago that ca­lyp­so need­ed a re­brand, Fran­cis, again, seems to be putting his own stamp on things through his stir­ring ode to T&T, “Mighty”.

In one cho­rus he sings: “Is we who put the wine in Mighty Spar­row/And we who put the hype in Machel Mon­tano/ And we who put them legs on we boy Ato (Cause we are Mighty, Mighty)/Is we who put the flare in Bri­an Lara and we who give Dwight Yorke he raw pow­er/ So if you feel­ing like you are not a star (Doh diss we coun­try cause we are holy.)”

The young artiste im­pressed in his de­but on the Di­manche Gras stage in 2016 with “Par­adise” and “The Re­al Ban­dits”, plac­ing sec­ond and al­so earn­ing the Young King ti­tle that year. Urg­ing “Change” in 2018, he cap­tured the Ca­lyp­so Monarch crown and re­turned the fol­low­ing year to take third place.

Fran­cis gives off David Rud­deresque vibes but is unique­ly him­self. His fresh­ness and the mu­si­cal­i­ty in his man­ner­isms and gait pen­e­trate, as does his voice. His col­lect­ed easy-go­ing per­son­al­i­ty com­bined with the emo­tive, po­et­ic lyrics and melody of his ca­lyp­so is a po­tent force.

Karene As­che–"Oa­sis"

Karene Asche

INNIS FRANCIS

As­che is a study in the art of pre­sen­ta­tion and de­liv­ery who us­es her hon­ey-sweet voice and lyri­cal­ly-pow­er­ful of­fer­ings to her great­est ad­van­tage and al­ways holds her own.

“Once the rhythm wet meh, no prob­lem cyah fret meh/ Come splash in the wa­ter to cure the fever...Meh tongue was hang­ing, not a cow­bell ring­ing, now rhythm bang­ing” are some of the rous­ing lines sung by the sea­soned ca­lyp­son­ian who de­parts from her so­cio-po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary to jump up in up­beat, in­fec­tious ju­bi­la­tion for the re­turn of Car­ni­val–her “Oa­sis”.

Maria Bho­la-Paul–"Peo­ple Man"

Maria Bhola-Paul

INNIS FRANCIS

In her self-penned of­fer­ing, Bho­la-Paul speaks as a wife/girl­friend who is aware of her part­ner's cheat­ing and gives per­mis­sion to the out­side woman to par­tic­i­pate in her mar­riage/re­la­tion­ship as long as the out­side woman can make a sol­id con­tri­bu­tion. In­stead of un­leash­ing a prop­er tongue lash­ing on the woman com­pet­ing for her part­ner, Bho­la-Paul in­vites her, for in­stance, to take up the slack and help cook and do ac­tiv­i­ties with the chil­dren as Bho­la-Paul could do with a rest. The ca­lyp­son­ian al­so checks women who lapse in keep­ing the flames alive in their ro­man­tic re­la­tion­ships.

Laced with dou­ble en­ten­dre, the wit­ty piece is an in­ter­est­ing take on the un­savoury sub­ject of “be­ing horned” and Bho­la-Paul en­joyed a great crowd re­sponse at the semis.

Known for her dou­ble ar­se­nal of hard-hit­ting lyrics and hu­mour, Bho­la-Paul's 32 years in ca­lyp­so have deep­ened her de­sire to ex­plore top­ics more imag­i­na­tive­ly and give more to the art form, she told Sun­day Guardian a week be­fore the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta semis. A writer for some up-and-com­ing artistes, she wrote one of reign­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ter­ri Ly­on's win­ning songs Meghan My Dear, with in­put from Lyons, and hopes to help im­prove the qual­i­ty of ma­te­r­i­al pro­duced and re­store the art of en­ter­tain­ment in ca­lyp­so.

Mark East­man–"Pride"

Mark Eastman

INNIS FRANCIS

East­man will grace the Ca­lyp­so Monarch stage for the first time with his na­tion build­ing song which urges the peo­ple of T&T to show pride for their moth­er­land.

Tamei­ka Dar­ius–"Susheila's Ja­ha­ji Bash"

Ref­er­enc­ing Broth­er Mar­vin's Ja­ha­ji Bhai which unites our African and East In­di­an an­ces­tors in broth­er­hood for hav­ing ar­rived to this coun­try by boat (for sim­i­lar rea­sons and lat­er sub­ject­ed to sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances), Dar­ius takes the Op­po­si­tion Leader to task for in­sult­ing the Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, and by ex­ten­sion, Afro-Trinida­di­ans for hav­ing the names of slave mas­ters. Ad­dress­ing the Op­po­si­tion Leader by her mid­dle name, Dar­ius gives a les­son in his­to­ry along the way.

She is the cur­rent NWAC Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen and will make her sec­ond trip–her first hav­ing been in 2011–to the Monarch com­pe­ti­tion stage tonight as an ex­pe­ri­enced, con­fi­dent per­former. She made the semis at Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta on five oc­ca­sions and was a fi­nal­ist in the 2022 In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion.

Re­serve: Aaron Dun­can–"Moth­er of All Car­ni­vals"

Nine­teen-year-old Aaron Dun­can con­tin­ues to show his love for ca­lyp­so and so­ca through his en­er­getic and melod­ic salute to this year's Car­ni­val theme. Im­mersed in the cul­ture since the age of three, the tal­ent­ed Dun­can dom­i­nat­ed the Ju­nior Monarch, win­ning on four oc­ca­sions from age six, be­fore test­ing com­pe­ti­tion age lim­its and mak­ing it to the semis of the Ca­lyp­so Monarch at age 16 and the fi­nals of the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch in 2021. Last year, he was ad­judged sec­ond in the Di­a­mond Ju­bilee In­de­pen­dence com­pe­ti­tion with “I Love Meh Coun­try Bad”, con­tin­ues to fly the flag of T&T lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, and will de­liv­er a sol­id per­for­mance if called up­on to ap­pear in what would be his first Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals tonight.