ESCTT calls for investigation into Helon Francis calypso disruption

The Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ES­CTT) has voiced strong sup­port for Helon Fran­cis, the 2025 Ca­lyp­so Monarch, fol­low­ing the dis­rup­tion of his per­for­mance at Di­manche Gras on Car­ni­val Sun­day night.

ES­CTT de­scribed the in­ter­rup­tion as “strange” and ques­tioned whether it was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed. The Com­mit­tee not­ed that Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice, Bar­ry Padarath, had re­mind­ed the pub­lic that Di­manche Gras is a State-spon­sored event, but cau­tioned against in­ter­pret­ing State sup­port as State con­trol.

The dis­rup­tion oc­curred as Fran­cis per­formed lines ad­dress­ing cen­sor­ship and so­cial is­sues:

"Tell me where, tell me where else can we go

If they try to ban de words in meh ca­lyp­so?

…You could try to stop so­cial me­dia

Or de tap­ing of po­lice mur­ders

You could rewrite a Bill like de ZOSO

But don’t for­get, dis is Trin­ba­go!"

View­ers at home and across the di­as­po­ra ex­pressed con­fu­sion and con­cern over the in­ter­rup­tion. Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) lat­er apol­o­gised, at­tribut­ing the in­ci­dent to a “con­nec­tiv­i­ty Dante tech­ni­cal er­ror”. ES­CTT is call­ing on the TTT Board to launch an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion to re­as­sure cit­i­zens that no po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence oc­curred.

The Com­mit­tee al­so crit­i­cised re­marks re­port­ed­ly made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who de­scribed the ca­lyp­so as “di­vi­sive” and sug­gest­ed that pre­vi­ous po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in the art form had alien­at­ed the pop­u­la­tion. ES­CTT ar­gued that ca­lyp­so is not in­tend­ed to en­ter­tain alone but serves as a ve­hi­cle for sto­ry­telling, cri­tique, and so­cial com­men­tary, cit­ing Pro­fes­sor Gor­don Rohlehr’s recog­ni­tion of the genre’s tra­di­tion­al func­tions in­clud­ing af­fir­ma­tion, protest, satire, and praise.

Con­cerns over cen­sor­ship have been height­ened fol­low­ing re­ports that dur­ing a livestream on WACK 90.1 FM, a man whis­pered, “we mut­ed Helon’s mic on TTT,” and that WACK’s livestream­ing plat­form was sub­se­quent­ly shut down. ES­CTT sug­gest­ed this may in­di­cate the in­flu­ence of “un­ac­count­able elites.”

The Com­mit­tee urged the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter to apol­o­gise for the per­ceived den­i­gra­tion of the ca­lyp­so art form and em­pha­sised the need for lead­ers to en­gage mean­ing­ful­ly with youth and cul­tur­al is­sues.