Helon Francis thankful for support; says probe into mic drop will help with transparency

For­mer Ca­lyp­so Monarch Helon Fran­cis is wel­com­ing calls for a probe in­to the in­ci­dent in which his au­dio went dead on TTT while he was per­form­ing at the Ca­lyp­so Monarch Fi­nals at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on Sun­day.

He made the com­ment yes­ter­day, amid the newest call for such a probe by the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ES­CTT).

While ex­press­ing grat­i­tude for the sup­port, the ca­lyp­son­ian struck a cau­tious tone.

“So, when it comes to the com­mit­tee sup­port, you know, I re­al­ly and tru­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the com­mit­tee sup­port, right. I ap­pre­ci­ate them try­ing to give a voice for, not just for me, but for every­one who has come be­fore me, who has faced the same is­sue that I faced in the fi­nal,” he said.

“I think a probe in­to the is­sue would be a love­ly ges­ture. How­ev­er, if we’re be­ing hon­est, if we’re be­ing hon­est about the sit­u­a­tion, the trust for trans­paren­cy in this sit­u­a­tion would def­i­nite­ly be ques­tioned, and that’s where I stand in this.”

In a state­ment on Wednes­day, the ES­CTT con­demned the in­ter­rup­tion of Fran­cis’ per­for­mance as a de­lib­er­ate dis­rup­tion of the broad­cast au­dio, not­ing that view­ers at home and across the di­as­po­ra were first be­wil­dered and then be­gan to ques­tion whether pol­i­tics played a part in cen­sor­ing the ca­lyp­son­ian. The com­mit­tee high­light­ed that Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice, Bar­ry Padarath, had re­mind­ed the pub­lic that Di­manche Gras is a state-spon­sored event, cau­tion­ing that State sup­port should not be mis­in­ter­pret­ed as state con­trol. The ES­CTT de­scribed the dis­rup­tion as par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing be­cause it oc­curred while Fran­cis sang lines ad­dress­ing cen­sor­ship and so­cial is­sues.

The au­dio in­ter­rup­tion has since fu­elled claims of cen­sor­ship. The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and voic­es from sev­er­al quar­ters have al­so sug­gest­ed the move was de­lib­er­ate, aimed at si­lenc­ing point­ed lyri­cal com­men­tary against the Gov­ern­ment de­liv­ered in true ca­lyp­so tra­di­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­spond­ed pub­licly to the claims, re­ject­ing al­le­ga­tions of cen­sor­ship. In a so­cial me­dia post, she stat­ed that ca­lyp­so does not need to be cen­sored, ar­gu­ing that po­lit­i­cal ac­tors pos­ing as ca­lyp­so­ni­ans have, over the years, alien­at­ed au­di­ences with di­vi­sive con­tent.

TTT Lim­it­ed apol­o­gised for the au­dio in­ter­rup­tion dur­ing Fran­cis’ per­for­mance, at­tribut­ing it to a Dante sys­tem fail­ure.

But for Fran­cis, the is­sue runs deep­er than pol­i­tics. Rather, he said it is about artis­tic in­tegri­ty and the fu­ture di­rec­tion of the craft.

“I’m dis­ap­point­ed. I’m dis­ap­point­ed in the di­rec­tion that we car­ry in our com­pe­ti­tions, our art, and our cul­ture. I’m dis­ap­point­ed be­cause I hon­est­ly be­lieve that we can give our peo­ple much more when it comes to ex­press­ing our thoughts and views freely, freely and un­apolo­getic.”

De­spite the con­tro­ver­sy, Fran­cis made it clear his spir­it re­mains un­shak­en.

“No, broth­er. It will nev­er do that. That’s a nat­ur­al spark that comes from deep down in­side the DNA of a ca­lyp­son­ian. That will nev­er leave.”

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) for Diego Mar­tin West Hans des Vi­gnes yes­ter­day called out TTT on the is­sue, say­ing it should re­lease its log to tell the pub­lic what ex­act­ly hap­pened.

Speak­ing dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence, des Vi­gnes said, “These things are on logs. Every­body knows that. You can ex­port the log and the re­port of what hap­pened dur­ing any par­tic­u­lar time pe­ri­od. Why would TTT is­sue a state­ment and not in­clude the log for trans­paren­cy? Peo­ple are scep­ti­cal as to whether there was Gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence. There are ques­tions and peo­ple are con­cerned and the Gov­ern­ment has to re­as­sure the pop­u­la­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go that there was no in­ter­fer­ence.”

As such, he said the Op­po­si­tion said it sup­ports the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee call for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Fran­cis’ Di­manche Gras per­for­mance.

The Op­po­si­tion al­so crit­i­cised TTT for not broad­cast­ing or be­ing present at any of the Op­po­si­tion press con­fer­ences.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, TTT Lim­it­ed chair­man Michael Kerr di­rect­ed ques­tions about the ES­CTT’s call for an in­de­pen­dent probe to the com­pa­ny’s line min­is­ters.