Gillian Cal­iste

From its in­cep­tion in 1962 and held at dif­fer­ing mile­stones in Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T) over the years, the In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so Monarch has been a fo­rum to trace the his­to­ry and note­wor­thy achieve­ments of this coun­try...and of­fer ad­vice for im­prove­ment.

 In cel­e­bra­tion of T&T’s 60th an­niver­sary, to­day at 5 pm, the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Gov­ern­ment, hosts the Di­a­mond Ju­bilee In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion 2022 at the Grand­stand, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Pleased that the Di­a­mond Ju­bilee co­in­cid­ed with the re­open­ing of the coun­try af­ter two years of re­stric­tions on in-per­son shows due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, TU­CO Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Sher­ma Orr-Watkins told Sun­day Guardian that she was urg­ing the pub­lic to come out in their na­tion­al colours and sup­port. She de­scribed the $60 gen­er­al en­trance fee as “a gift to the na­tion”, adding that the pub­lic could ex­pect a tight show with “kaiso and more kaiso” from a “sol­id” line­up of com­peti­tors.

From a field of 64 in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, 20 com­peti­tors qual­i­fied for the semis, and tonight a fi­nal ten will ap­pear. Among them, are for­mer ca­lyp­so mon­archs King Lu­ta (1994 and 2006), Karene Ashe (2012) and Don­ald “Du­anne” O’Con­nor (2012), along with reign­ing Na­tion­al Ex­tem­po Cham­pi­on Bri­an Lon­don. Rod­er­ick “Chucky” Gor­don the last In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so Monarch did not make it to the fi­nals.

The fi­nal­ists will face off for a prize of $200,000. Seem­ing­ly a far cry from the $1,000 grand prize copped by Lord Bryn­ner (Kade Si­mon) at the first In­de­pen­dence Monarch 60 years ago, tonight’s prize is sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than the $.5 (half) mil­lion of­fered at the last such com­pe­ti­tion in 2012.

Tonight’s com­pe­ti­tion is em­ceed by John Benoit and Scrunter (Ir­win Reyes John­son) while reign­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ter­ri Lyons will grace the stage as guest artistes.

Orr-Watkins said the or­gan­is­ers were grate­ful to spon­sors NL­CB, bmo­bile, NGC, and Vis­it Trinidad.

Karen Asche

KERWIN PIERRE

The line­up of fi­nal­ists in or­der of ap­pear­ance:

1. Bri­an Lon­don–”A Small Price to Pay”

2. Tamei­ka Dar­ius–”Now More Than Ever”

3. Eu­nice Pe­ters–”Hard Ques­tions”

4. Vic­to­ria Coop­er–”Hold On Gyul”

5. Morel Pe­ters–”Cel­e­brate with Pride”

6. Bethany Light­bourne–”Trin­ba­go We Be­lieve”

7. Aaron Dun­can–”Luv Meh Coun­try Bad”

8. Don­ald “Du­ane” O’Con­nor–”Di­a­mond Time”

9. Heav­en “Snakey” Charles–”What Yuh Need Again Trin­ba­go”

10. Karene As­che–”For­ev­er Di­a­mond”

Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans speak

Veteran calypsonian Morel Peters (King Luta).

Photo courtesy Morel Peters

Sun­day Guardian spoke with three fi­nal­ists across three gen­er­a­tions to find out their feel­ings on be­ing in the fi­nals, their thoughts about T&T’s Di­a­mond Ju­bilee In­de­pen­dence, and how prepa­ra­tions were shap­ing up.

Morel Pe­ters (King Lu­ta)–“Cel­e­brate with Pride”

Rep­re­sent­ing the old guard of ca­lyp­so, Morel Pe­ters known as King Lu­ta sings Hap­py Birth­day to T&T, urg­ing cit­i­zens to “Cel­e­brate with Pride”.

He said he end­ed up in the com­pe­ti­tion by de­fault as he had ini­tial­ly writ­ten the ca­lyp­so for his niece. Five days be­fore the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, they re­alised she would be out of the coun­try, and find­ing no one else to sing it at the time, he de­cid­ed to en­ter.

“I was prob­a­bly the last per­son to reg­is­ter. I went in on the last day in the af­ter­noon be­cause I had to learn the song and feel com­fort­able. I just didn’t want the song to go to waste,” he ex­plained.

Pe­ters said the In­de­pen­dence Monarch dif­fered from a ca­lyp­so monarch–where top­ics could be wide and var­ied–in that com­peti­tors had to find in­no­v­a­tive ways of ad­dress­ing the com­mon theme of pa­tri­o­tism.

He said he de­cid­ed to not go the ob­vi­ous route of list­ing the coun­try’s achieve­ments which was a task in it­self while try­ing to stick to the theme, and point­ed out that craft­ing a na­tion-build­ing song did not mean that crit­i­cisms could not be made.

“When they say it must be pa­tri­ot­ic and so on, I know what they mean. They don’t want it to be crit­i­cal and that is a mis­con­cep­tion. A na­tion-build­ing song can be very, very crit­i­cal of the things that we do. But in the opin­ion of those who con­trol the thing, if you crit­i­cise the sta­tus quo, you’re not be­ing pa­tri­ot­ic and it’s not a na­tion-build­ing song. And I hope that some­day they will come to un­der­stand that is not so. There are con­struc­tive crit­i­cisms that one can levy in the in­ter­est of build­ing a na­tion,” he said.

He said peo­ple, in gen­er­al, of­ten shift be­tween two ex­tremes of too much praise or too much crit­i­cism, how­ev­er. He felt that strik­ing a bal­ance be­tween praise and con­struc­tive crit­i­cism that of­fers so­lu­tions was im­por­tant. Such was the role of the ca­lyp­son­ian, he re­mind­ed, ref­er­enc­ing a throw­back ca­lyp­so by Short Pants (Llewellyn Mac In­tosh) en­ti­tled, “Ei­ther You Think or You Ain’t Think”.

“...that is one ca­lyp­so mak­ing sug­ges­tions. Even Fun­ny (Don­ric Williamson) with ‘25 Years Have Gone, How Yuh Feel’ (1987), that is look­ing at so­ci­ety and ques­tion­ing you. You think you made the right deals, de­ci­sions?...it’s ques­tion­ing you...telling you to think about it again. It’s giv­ing you some­thing to think about as you go for­ward. I like that type of ca­lyp­so,” he said.

Pe­ters, who cap­tured 2nd place ren­der­ing “Check the Foun­da­tion” and “Kaiso Kaiso” in the 2005 In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so Monarch and clinched the Ca­lyp­so Monarch crown the fol­low­ing year with the same com­po­si­tions, re­called his ca­lyp­so for the na­tion’s 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence in 2012, “Fifty-Fifty”. He said that he gave the coun­try a 50-50 rat­ing then, mak­ing a play on words with the coun­try’s gold­en mile­stone.

“Not so bad, not so good, 50-50 at 50.

“Some of the good things we achieved, I high­light­ed those and where we fell down, I high­light­ed those. We’re mak­ing some steps here, but like we back ped­dling here...it wasn’t an all-out slaugh­ter. It was ac­tu­al­ly weigh­ing the pros and the cons and open­ing up the eyes,” he ex­plained.

The kaiso bard who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in all In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so Mon­archs ex­cept for the first 60 years ago, is typ­i­cal­ly a heavy-hit­ter, at times, spew­ing scorch­ing lyrics in the kaiso ring. He said he would have penned a more hard-hit­ting piece this year if he had made it specif­i­cal­ly for him­self.

He said gain­ing our in­de­pen­dence and be­com­ing a re­pub­lic were ma­jor achieve­ments and he was proud to pay trib­ute to his coun­try to­day.

“It’s good to sing Hap­py Birth­day to my na­tion. We could have done a lot more, I think, but when you com­pare us to oth­er na­tions in the world just like us, we did pret­ty good, and we must com­pli­ment our­selves for that. Some of the time, we tend to just look at the things that should have been and not look at the things that have been.”

Hav­ing be­gun his ca­lyp­so ca­reer in 1972, Pe­ters went on to be­come the first joint Ca­lyp­so Monarch, shar­ing the crown with Franz Lam­bkin (De­lamo) in 1994 with “Good Dri­ving” and “Li­censed Firearm”. “Check the Foun­da­tion” and “Kaiso, Kaiso” earned him the win again in 2006. The Hum­ming­bird medal re­cip­i­ent for his con­tri­bu­tion to the art form said he was hap­py to see the youths get­ting in­volved and glad to be among them, but would like to see more young men and more young writ­ers.

Calypsonian Victoria Cooper-Rahim (Queen Victoria).

Photo courtesy Victoria Cooper-Rahim

Vic­to­ria Coop­er-Rahim (Queen Vic­to­ria)–“Hold On Gyul”

A sea­soned com­peti­tor at the Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals since 2013, in this her first In­de­pen­dence com­pe­ti­tion, Coop­er-Rahim of­fers a hon­ey-voiced, medi­um-paced ral­ly­ing cry to T&T, “Hold on Gyul”.

Penned by Coop­er-Rahim and her team, the ca­lyp­so en­cour­ages the peo­ple of this coun­try to come to­geth­er and go for­ward as one force. The Bible promis­es long life–three­score and ten years to those who re­main sto­ic and faith­ful–and we are al­most there at 60 or three­score and will con­tin­ue to be blessed once we “hold on”, Coop­er-Rahim ad­vis­es in her cho­rus:

“If you live good, the Good Book say then, you go live to three­score and ten...Hold on Gyul, Hold on Trin­ba­go Hold on Gyul.

In her pore-ris­ing ren­di­tion, she urges: “Ral­ly the troops, hear the trum­pet sound.”

The up­beat 31-year-old who of­ten lev­els blis­ter­ing com­men­tary wrapped in hu­mour in her po­lit­i­cal and so­cio-po­lit­i­cal of­fer­ings like “Po­lit­i­cal Love Af­fair” (2014) and “Sus­pect Band” (2019) said she was hap­py to be among the fi­nal­ists and ad­mit­ted that while she had been gear­ing up for Ca­lyp­so Monarch 2022, en­ter­ing the com­pe­ti­tion had been a last-minute de­ci­sion.

“We’ve been crav­ing the stage for the past two years due to the pan­dem­ic and I was so pre­pared this year and then we had no ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion and I was so dis­ap­point­ed. So, I grasped this op­por­tu­ni­ty to pre­pare for 2020, but at first, I re­al­ly was un­pre­pared. Ex­act­ly five days be­fore, my hus­band and oth­ers around me start­ed telling me to en­ter. So, I ac­tu­al­ly learned my first verse five days pri­or to the pre­lims,” she said.

As for her thoughts on this coun­try’s 60-year mile­stone?

“At 60 years when it comes to in­de­pen­dence, we are very young, but at the same time, it’s cel­e­bra­tion time. For me, as a young adult, it’s a lot of years and it’s some­thing grand, a time to be joy­ful.”

The daugh­ter of a pas­tor, Coop­er’s ca­lyp­so ca­reer took off when she was eight years old. She said she was to­tal­ly im­mersed in the cul­ture, es­pe­cial­ly ca­lyp­so, her pas­sion fu­elled by her par­ents, hus­band and fam­i­ly.

“Be­cause I start­ed so young, it be­came a rou­tine. It’s some­thing that you just look for­ward to. Dad­dy used to write gospe­lyp­soes, so that is al­so in me. I love so­ca, but ca­lyp­so is my whole heart.”

Coop­er-Rahim ably rep­re­sent­ed her home­town of Princes Town in nu­mer­ous ju­nior and South com­pe­ti­tions be­fore tak­ing her place among the ca­lyp­so vet­er­ans of T&T. Her home tent is Kaiso Showkase.

The moth­er of a sev­en-year-old and a four-year-old who runs her own con­struc­tion com­pa­ny said of her up­com­ing per­for­mance in the com­pe­ti­tion to­day, “ex­pect your heart to be touched”.

Musical artiste Aaron Duncan.

Photo courtesy Aaron Duncan

Aaron Dun­can–“Luv Meh Coun­try Bad”

At 19, Aaron Dun­can is keep­ing it live­ly and vibesy with a melo­di­ous up­tem­po arrange­ment “Luv Meh Coun­try Bad”. Gift­ed song­writer Christophe Grant and leg­endary pro­duc­er/arranger Le­ston Paul join the young artiste in this heart­warm­ing ode to T&T. To­geth­er they blend old-school horns and basslines and ex­cite with sounds of the steel­pan, East In­di­an in­stru­ments like the dhan­tal and har­mo­ni­um, adding a sprin­kling of Chi­nese in­stru­men­ta­tion to rep­re­sent the unique callaloo that is Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Dun­can’s vo­cals even bear in­flec­tions of the Mighty Baron as one com­menter on the video on YouTube ob­serves.

“Six­ty, thank God we make 60...As a tri­ni ah glad and ah proud. T&T on this great ju­bilee, I must sing your prais­es loud. Fret and fuss if you will, cuss and even talk her ill, but Ce­dros up to Char­lot­teville...I re­al­ly love meh coun­try still...still...still...still...still,” Dun­can sings, lat­er adding that: “pas­sion is meh ID card”.

He said the ca­lyp­so was pro­duced in his own stu­dio, and that he has worked with song­writer Grant since 2017.

De­spite his wide reper­toire–hav­ing sharp­ened his mu­si­cal acu­men in the ca­lyp­so are­na from age three, and lat­er in the so­ca are­na–his ap­pear­ance to­day will be the young artiste’s de­but at the In­de­pen­dence Monarch. In 2020, just be­fore the pan­dem­ic when age lim­its were re­laxed at these com­pe­ti­tions, he made it to the semis of the Ca­lyp­so Monarch at age 16 and was a fi­nal­ist at the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch last year.

“I feel great, I feel over­whelmed be­ing one of the fi­nal­ists in the com­pe­ti­tion,” Dun­can told Sun­day Guardian.

“I was un­der­age and un­able to en­ter and now I’m of age and this is my first chance at it in the In­de­pen­dence Monarch.

“I’m ac­tu­al­ly hap­py that I’m get­ting the chance against the old­er ones. There’re a lot of amaz­ing com­peti­tors and I’m glad to be wor­thy enough to go up against them.”

De­spite his youth, he said T&T achiev­ing 60 years of in­de­pen­dence held great mean­ing for him.

“As a na­tion, we went through a lot; there’s so much to men­tion and while many look at the bad, we must pay re­spect to the great things. I am hap­py to be a cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go and a great am­bas­sador as well.”

Cur­rent­ly study­ing Mu­sic Tech­nol­o­gy at UTT, Dun­can is al­so chan­nelling his pas­sion for the coun­try’s mu­sic and cul­ture in­to new re­leas­es for Car­ni­val 2023.

One of his 2023 of­fer­ings, “For­ev­er” (Car­ni­val Call­ing My Name) has been en­joy­ing favourable air­play lo­cal­ly and abroad ever since he launched it over two weeks ago at the GMGT Live Stu­dio, New York. Writ­ten by Dun­can and pro­duced by Xplic­it­Mevon, the so­ca sums up Dun­can’s mu­si­cal ca­reer and ex­press­es the feel­ings of many peo­ple of T&T who are hap­py and re­lieved that the pan­dem­ic is over so they can en­joy Car­ni­val and cul­ture with­out ever hav­ing to face an­oth­er cat­a­stro­phe like the pan­dem­ic.

Dun­can has done in­ter­views abroad be­fore but said it was his first time launch­ing one of his songs at an in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dio. A few days ago, he dropped an­oth­er so­ca, “Freeze”, writ­ten by him­self and Kit Is­rael, and pro­duced by Ad­voK­it Pro­duc­tions.

For all his youth, Dun­can has nev­er tried to tran­si­tion from ca­lyp­so to so­ca. Nor does he re­strict him­self to one genre.

“It’s be­cause I love it all! And I al­ways try to show that in my mu­sic. I try to do mu­sic that would fit both the young and the old. If you look at the mu­sic video, ‘For­ev­er’ re­flects my jour­ney, my growth. ‘Freeze’ is more a song for the youths, the en­er­gy, the vibes and we have stuff com­ing for the adults, the Car­ni­val lover, for every­body.”

And what can the pub­lic ex­pect from Aaron Dun­can in to­day’s com­pe­ti­tion?

“This Sun­day’s per­for­mance is gonna be a movie. I’m com­ing with ‘Luv Meh Coun­try Bad’ and I’m putting my best foot for­ward,” he said.