Derek Achong

Du­ane Ta'zyah O'Con­nor sang hal­lelu­jah as he was crowned this year's Ca­lyp­so Monarch yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter his first-ever for­ay in­to the com­pe­ti­tion. 

The re­joice­ful ti­tle of his song "Sing Hal­lelu­jah" rang true as O'Con­nor, the 20-year-old son of the 2012 win­ner with whom he shares the same name, beat a cast of young but much more ex­pe­ri­enced per­form­ers to add to his fam­i­ly's tro­phy cab­i­net.

O'Con­nor, the spit­ting im­age of his fa­ther in looks and on-stage pres­ence, im­pressed both the judges and the au­di­ence at the Di­manche Gras show as he held his own with an en­er­getic and dy­nam­ic per­for­mance which show­cased his nat­ur­al tal­ent. 

O'Con­nor's catchy song, com­posed by vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Bri­an Lon­don and which he per­formed at the Di­a­mond Ju­bilee In­de­pen­dence com­pe­ti­tion last Au­gust, urged cit­i­zens to cel­e­brate a per­son­i­fied moth­er Trin­ba­go for her sac­ri­fices for her sons and daugh­ters. 

"I am here to cel­e­brate, this twin is­land State, with a glo­ri­ous chant wor­thy of your six­ty. Yuh toil and yuh toil. Take care of we wile yuh drilling oil, al­so teach­ing we to put some seeds in the soil," O'Con­nor sang. 

"So let we all stand up for this na­tion. Let we stand up in ju­bi­la­tion. Hooray! Hooray! Come let we sing hal­lelu­jah."

2023 Calypso Monarch Duane Tazyah O'Connor lifts his trophy as the Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, Randall Mitchell, second from left, his father, Duane O'Connor, and TUCO President Anisley King hold his cheque during the prize giving at the Dimanche Gras show.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

Speak­ing to jour­nal­ists af­ter re­ceiv­ing his over­sized cer­e­mo­ni­al $500,000 cheque and the keys to his $300,000 or­ange Suzu­ki S-Cross, the young ca­lyp­son­ian said he was sur­prised and hum­bled by the out­come. 
"It is some­thing to be sur­prised about be­cause I don't ever go in­to a com­pe­ti­tion think­ing I am per­fect and go­ing to win it," he said. 

"I am so ex­cit­ed. I am ex­treme­ly grate­ful," O'Con­nor, who be­gan to fol­low in his fa­ther's foot­steps in 2015, said. 

O'Con­nor's fa­ther, who ap­peared ec­sta­t­ic com­pared to his im­pres­sive­ly com­posed son, was more con­fi­dent in his son's abil­i­ty to cop the top prize even be­fore the judges' de­ci­sion was an­nounced af­ter 1 am. 

He said that he was con­vinced that his son would place in the top three af­ter watch­ing his flaw­less per­for­mance and sur­vey­ing his com­peti­tors on the night. 
"He glides across the stage. His per­for­mance was fan­tas­tic," he said. 

His dad ex­plained that af­ter he was knocked out of the semi­fi­nal round of the com­pe­ti­tion, he and his wife worked with their son on fine-tun­ing as­pects of his per­for­mance. 
"We knew what we had to do. He was ready from the word jump," the proud fa­ther said. 

While the fa­ther and son ad­mit­ted that they were ex­cit­ed about com­pet­ing against each oth­er in the fu­ture, they re­fused to pre­dict who would be the first to win their sec­ond ti­tle. 

"That is for the judges to de­cide," the younger O'Con­nor said diplo­mat­i­cal­ly. 

"It is not like we are af­ter each oth­er. It is not about that. We are about tak­ing our cul­ture where it is sup­posed to reach. Our cul­ture is about to go glob­al," the el­der O'Con­nor added.

 They al­so shared some gen­uine fa­ther-and-son ban­ter over the use of one part of the prize. 

"You know, I would have to take a lit­tle dri­ve in the S-Cross," the el­der O'Con­nor said jok­ing­ly.

"Of course," his son re­spond­ed, with a play­ful smile. 

This year's Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion was a hard-fought af­fair with no weak com­po­si­tions or per­for­mances from the 12 com­peti­tors in­clud­ing last year's cham­pi­on Ter­ri Lyons. 

Kerine "Tiny" Williams-Figaro, singing "To You With Love", placed second.

KERWIN PIERRE

How­ev­er, Lyons was un­able to de­fend her crown with her pow­er­ful so­cial com­men­tary "House Clean­ing" call­ing for cit­i­zens to stand up against do­mes­tic, gen­der and sex­u­al vi­o­lence. Ker­ine "Tiny" Williams-Fi­garo came in sec­ond place with her song "To You With Love", which sought to pay trib­ute to ca­lyp­so icons while they are still alive. 

Her stir­ring per­for­mance in­clud­ed a cer­e­mo­ny where she gave bou­quets of flow­ers to Er­rol "Bal­ly" Bal­lan­tyne, Tim­o­thy "Baron" Watkins, and John­ny King, who joined her on stage. 

"I giv­ing them flow­ers while they here...I giv­ing them flow­ers to show I care," she sang. 

Williams-Fi­garo, a teacher at Bish­op Anstey East, was a fan favourite as she al­so won the $10,000 Peo­ple's Choice award through an on­line poll to add to her $500,000 sec­ond-place prize. 

Karene As­che, who won the com­pe­ti­tion in 2011, placed third as she shied away from her usu­al so­cial com­men­tary with an up­beat song "Oa­sis", which cel­e­brat­ed the re­turn of Cra­nial af­ter a two-year hia­tus due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.  

Al­though Maria Bho­la-Paul's top­i­cal hit "Peo­ple Man" was an au­di­ence favourite as she re­ceived an ova­tion even be­fore tak­ing the stage, she did not seem to im­press the judges as she placed eighth. 

The on­ly dis­ap­point­ment on the night was that on­ly a mod­est crowd was on hand to wit­ness the the­atri­cal but­ter­fly-themed Di­manche Gras show apt­ly en­ti­tled "Meta­mor­pho­sis: From Mud to Mas", which was di­rect­ed by Davlin Thomas. 

The show fea­tured the Ca­lyp­so Monarch and Car­ni­val King and Queen com­pe­ti­tions as well as per­for­mances from scores of dancers and pop­u­lar so­ca artistes in­clud­ing Machel Mon­tano, De­stra Gar­cia, Patrice Roberts, Ravi B, Nailah Black­man and Farmer Nap­py.

There was even an ap­pear­ance from 91-year-old ca­lyp­so icon Lord Nel­son, who showed that he still had his sig­na­ture dance moves in a trade­mark sparkling chest-bear­ing suit. 

There was al­so no short­age of fire­works and py­rotech­nics on dis­play through­out. 

Karene Asche, singing 'Oasis", placed third.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

Ca­lyp­so Monarch Re­sults

1. Du­ane Ta'zyah O'Con­nor-Sing Hal­lelu­jah
2. Ker­ine "Tiny" Williams-Fi­garo-To You With Love
3. Karene As­che-Oa­sis
4. Rod­er­ick "Chuck" Gor­don-Maths Eh Math­s­ing
5. Tamei­ka Nan­di Dar­ius-Ja­ha­ji Bash
6. Ter­ri Lyons-House Clean­ing
7. Ezekiel Yorke-Be­ing Hu­man
8. Maria Bho­la-Paul-Peo­ple Man 
9. Helon Fran­cis-Mighty
10. Heav­en "Snakey" Charles-What Yuh Need Again Trin­ba­go?
11. Mark East­man-Pride
12. Car­los "Skatie" James-De New Nor­mal