Sascha Wil­son

With ca­lyp­so tents now in full swing, a vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian is claim­ing her con­tro­ver­sial 2023 com­po­si­tion, Po­lit­i­cal Ceme­tery, is be­ing cen­sored by a ca­lyp­so tent.

La­dy Gyp­sy (Lynette Steele), the self-pro­claimed Drag­on La­dy of Ca­lyp­so, is a mem­ber of Kaiso Showkase, the tent op­er­at­ed by the South Cen­tral Re­gion of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO). She claims she has been barred by the tent’s man­age­ment from singing the ca­lyp­so which is high­ly crit­i­cal of the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

La­dy Gyp­sy al­so takes a swipe at her broth­er, Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters, in the ca­lyp­so.

Up to yes­ter­day, Po­lit­i­cal Ceme­tery had 78,000 views on YouTube. How­ev­er, La­dy Gyp­sy said she was not al­lowed to sing the ca­lyp­so when Kaiso Showkase opened at Palm’s Club in San Fer­nan­do on Fri­day night. In­stead she per­formed One Mo­ment of Glo­ry.

She said she knew the crowd want­ed hear Po­lit­i­cal Ceme­tery.

“When I stepped on stage I know that is what the crowd was wait­ing for and it al­so kill their spir­it and my spir­it in a way too, when I sang,” she said.

Fol­low­ing her per­for­mance, La­dy Gyp­sy said she de­cid­ed she want­ed to per­form Po­lit­i­cal Ceme­tery and told the tent man­age­ment she want­ed to sing it at a tent clash sched­uled for last night in Ari­ma.

“I called cer­tain peo­ple and I say change the pro­gramme to­day, I am go­ing to do Po­lit­i­cal Ceme­tery and then some­one told me that PNM don’t want me to sing that. Hel­lo! PNM don’t want me to sing that, are you crazy? What PNM have to do with the ca­lyp­so tent? Is that where ca­lyp­so is go­ing to­day that we have to be cen­sored?” she asked.

Calypso Queen Lynette Steele " Lady Gypsy" at her Fyzabad home yesterday where she revealed her song Political Cemetery is being censored

RISHI RAGONATH

“No­body is go­ing to gag me but God. Why it is that ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are afraid to sing and speak the truth any­more be­cause of pol­i­tics? Come on!”

Ac­cord­ing to La­dy Gyp­sy, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans have al­ways been a “free spokesper­son for the peo­ple,” and it’s wrong for any­one to at­tempt to con­trol what they sing.

“You can’t tell me now that I am be­ing cen­sored be­cause I singing Po­lit­i­cal Ceme­tery against you. What about the peo­ple in the tent who singing on Kam­la and oth­er stuff? A next one singing Sushilla. They have a right to sing in the tent and so do I,” she de­clared.

La­dy Gyp­sy said her com­po­si­tion re­flects what is hap­pen­ing in so­ci­ety.

“They ain’t call me the Drag­on La­dy for noth­ing. They call me the Drag­on La­dy be­cause I speak the truth and I let fire out,” she said.

She said she has not spo­ken to her broth­er about the mat­ter.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, TU­CO South Cen­tral Re­gion chair­man Ras Kom­man­da (StevePas­call) de­nied that the is­sue had any­thing to do with the PNM.

“She could feel how she want to. We are your em­ploy­ers. We pick (One Mo­ment of ) Glo­ry for the tent. We be­lieve in our own es­ti­ma­tion that it is the song that could car­ry her,” he said.

He said La­dy Gyp­sy could “go by the road” and sing her oth­er song but the tent hired her and is pay­ing her a stipend.

“Some of these artistes don’t un­der­stand re­spect for em­ploy­ers. It’s not want you want,” he said.