Ian Wa­son

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

An­tho­ny “Squeezy Rankin” La Fleur has joined a long list of leg­ends, in­clud­ing King Lu­ta, David Rud­der and The Mighty Cro Cro, af­ter win­ning the 2025 Young Kings Com­pe­ti­tion at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day evening.

Decked out in a full white suit and aid­ed by dancers and ac­tors, he gave a strong per­for­mance, win­ning the judges’ nod as he de­liv­ered his 2025 hit ca­lyp­so, Jus­tice.

Singing at num­ber 18 on the night, La Fleur ig­nored fel­low com­peti­tor Kyle Cowie, who called him out dur­ing his per­for­mance of West­ern Town and added a new verse to the song, call­ing on par­ents to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their chil­dren’s lives, which was well re­ceived by the crowd.

Jus­tice is con­sid­ered to be a front-run­ner for the Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion as well, and La Fleur is hop­ing to em­u­late the likes of Rud­der, Cro Cro and De­lamo, join­ing a list of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who have won both the Young Kings and Ca­lyp­so Monarch in the same year.

On­ly David Rud­der has done the “triple,” tak­ing both ti­tles as well as the Road March in 1986.

La Fleur is al­so the reign­ing Freestyle cham­pi­on and will de­fend that ti­tle on Tues­day at the Radis­son.

Af­ter his win, the 2025 Young King re­mained hum­ble de­spite his now “roy­al” sta­tus.

He said, “What I know is that even though this song is go­ing to get a lot of sup­port, I still have to go and per­form to win. It’s not just about this song.

“I have to per­form. I have to bring this song to life on stage.”

Look­ing ahead to the de­fence of his Freestyle Monarch ti­tle at the Radis­son on Tues­day, La Fleur said he wel­comed the chal­lenge that would be com­ing from oth­er artistes like Or­lan­do Oc­tave.

“It’s the bat­tle of the ages. The glad­i­a­tors are in the are­na,” he said.

Cowie, in his sec­ond-place per­for­mance, decked out in cow­boy garb with a red hat and match­ing red footwear, gave a sol­id per­for­mance while he com­pared the crime rate in Trinidad and To­ba­go to the Wild West.

Muham­mad Muwak­il’s Take Me Home was al­so well re­ceived, his per­for­mance earn­ing him third place.

Dur­ing the night, sev­er­al per­form­ers strug­gled with the sound sys­tem, and some ca­lyp­so­ni­ans com­plained they could not hear them­selves on the mon­i­tor, find­ing it dif­fi­cult to project their voic­es for the judges.

An­oth­er con­tes­tant whose per­for­mance res­onat­ed with the au­di­ence was Cas­ton Cu­pid, who sang Here Again as he rea­soned with the Grand Stand that de­spite his “dis­ap­point­ments” at ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tions, he would con­tin­ue to re­turn with the sup­port of well-wish­ers.

Def Prince’s Va­grant Phi­los­o­phy hu­mor­ous­ly por­trayed so­cial­ly dis­placed per­sons as ac­tu­al­ly be­ing com­fort­able, since they did not have to wor­ry about bills and were seem­ing­ly im­mune to sick­ness­es the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion wor­ried about.

An­oth­er stand­out on the night was Marq Pierre, who brought A Fa­ther’s Wealth to life with a well-played skit be­ing per­formed qui­et­ly in the back­ground, de­pict­ing a hap­py fam­i­ly who val­ued fam­i­ly time and morals above ma­te­r­i­al wealth.

At the be­gin­ning of the show, vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Don­rick “Mas­ter Fun­ny” Williamson was ho­n­oured for his long-stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to ca­lyp­so.

Fun­ny, who de­liv­ered clas­sics like Fun­ny Win, Ac­ci­dent Pol­i­cy and Sweet, Sweet Trinidad re­ceived a plaque from Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Kei­ba Ja­cob Mot­t­ley.

2025 YOUNG KINGS RE­SULTS (TOP 6)

1st- Squeezy Rankin

2nd- Kyle Cowie

3rd- Muham­mad Muwak­il

4th- Slash­er

5th- Lyrikal

6th- Pharaoh