Michelle Loubon

?Reign­ing ex­tem­po monarch Win­ston Pe­ters (Gyp­sy) says he is pleased with the "new blood" which the art form has at­tract­ed. He made this com­ment back­stage af­ter beat­ing his clos­est ri­val, Joseph Va­tour La Place­liere (Lin­go), at Kaiso­ra­ma–A Night of Cham­pi­ons at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day night. The com­pe­ti­tion was held in Trib­ute to Lord Kitch­en­er. Pe­ters copped $100,000 and cel­e­brat­ed his eighth vic­to­ry. The creme de la creme among lo­cal artistes were com­pet­ing for ho­n­ours in the Po­lit­i­cal, So­cial, and Hu­mor­ous cat­e­gories. Pe­ters said: "I was glad to see new blood in ex­tem­po. It is im­por­tant to keep the art form alive. I am still the ex­tem­po king of the world. I go all over the world keep­ing the ex­tem­po tra­di­tion alive."

He paid ku­dos to Lin­go, a vi­su­al­ly-im­paired artiste, who, he claimed, has "grown un­der his tute­lage." But like his con­tem­po­rary, Con­tender (Mark John), he ad­vised the new­com­ers that the ex­tem­po skill can­not be taught. It was a skill that was honed. "It is not some­thing you learn," Pe­ters said.

How­ev­er, in­for­ma­tion on the de­tails of cur­rent eco­nom­ic, so­cial, po­lit­i­cal and re­li­gious top­ics and a good sense of hu­mour were nec­es­sary pre­req­ui­sites in the bat­tle of the spo­ken word, he said. Turn­ing to the Di­manche Gras fi­nals, Pe­ters said he felt ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Win­ston Scar­bor­ough, Kizzy Ruiz and Kurt Allen were de­liv­er­ing com­mend­able per­for­mances.

In ex­tem­po style

In the fi­nal round, pre­sen­ter Wen­dell Eti­enne told Pe­ters and La Plac­i­ere that they were al­lot­ted six vers­es for war. Pe­ters told Lin­go that when he was fin­ished with him he "go see." Lin­go re­mind­ed him he was not God, "so how he would help him see." As they walked off­stage, Lin­go re­mind­ed Pe­ters that "his girl­friend was Gyp­sy's wife." In the ear­li­er rounds, Lin­go had the crowd in stitch­es when he said on Mon­day and Tues­day he go­ing and palance. Among the oth­er ex­tem­po ex­po­nents were La­dy Africa, Hezeki­ah Joseph, Di­mon Di­az, Phillip Mur­ray, Shel­don John and Mark John. The slew of top­ics in­clud­ed US Dol­lars Miss­ing, Horner Man, the late Roland Gor­don and Gary Hunt's Apol­o­gy.

Com­peti­tors stuck to the tra­di­tion­al method of se­lect­ing the top­ics from a hat. Guest artistes in­clud­ed Rik­ki Jai, Bri­go, Lord Nel­son, Flam­ing Lim­bo dancers and pan­nist Ken Pro­fes­sor Philmore. Tu­co pres­i­dent Er­ic Tay­lor said he was pleased with the large crowd and boast­ed the at­ten­dance "had grown tremen­dous­ly over the years." There was no chut­ney seg­ment in the com­pe­ti­tion this year.