Oc­to­ber 2020 makes it 18 years that Trinidad and To­ba­go has been ob­serv­ing and cel­e­brat­ing Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month with the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO), and all pro­po­nents of the ca­lyp­so art­form.

The theme for this year’s com­mem­o­ra­tions is “Ca­lyp­so, Be­yond Bound­aries and Bor­ders”, and ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and The Arts, this month will see homage paid to “ca­lyp­so’s in­flu­ence on cul­tures around the world and their deep seed­ed con­nec­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go”.

“Our coun­try is a his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al melt­ing pot and every race, creed and class has been ei­ther in­flu­enced by or con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of the art form,” says Sen­a­tor Ran­dall Mitchell, Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts.

In the Min­istry’s state­ment, Min­is­ter Mitchell ob­serves that ca­lyp­so has played a key role in the so­cial, ed­u­ca­tion­al, eco­nom­ic and cer­tain­ly po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“As we cel­e­brate Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month along with TU­CO, let us take the time even in the face of the chal­lenges that con­front us to pay trib­ute to an art form that has tak­en us through Eman­ci­pa­tion to In­de­pen­dence and be­yond,” he said.

He not­ed: “The im­por­tance of this cel­e­bra­tion has be­come even more sig­nif­i­cant in 2020 as every year we look to ca­lyp­so­ni­ans as the sto­ry­tellers and archivers of our his­to­ry and our her­itage,” the Min­is­ter stat­ed. 

Min­is­ter Mitchell added: “Through ca­lyp­soes we pay trib­ute to our pi­o­neers and the re­silience of our peo­ple.  Through ca­lyp­soes our cre­ativ­i­ty and wit take cen­tre stage and pro­vide an im­por­tant plat­form from which to tell the sto­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s jour­ney through time.  In the class­room of life in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are cer­tain­ly our teach­ers.”