Calypso Fiesta furore

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Con­tro­ver­sy fol­lowed the re­sults of Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta 2026 on Sat­ur­day night at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, af­ter sev­er­al ca­lyp­so­ni­ans with strong po­lit­i­cal and so­cial com­men­tary failed to ad­vance to the grand fi­nal of the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

The out­come sparked de­bate among pa­trons and artistes at Skin­ner Park, with re­newed ques­tions about whether po­lit­i­cal kaiso was be­ing qui­et­ly side­lined by the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) and the judges, de­spite ca­lyp­so’s his­toric role as the voice of the peo­ple.

Among those re­act­ing pub­licly was Rod­er­ick “Chuck” Gor­don, who did not ad­vance to the fi­nal with his To­ry Time. In a so­cial me­dia post, he ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with the judg­ing, writ­ing: “To­ry time! I eh go lie dis se­mi-fi­nal re­sult re­al hurt in­no… while I un­der­stand the judges’ de­ci­sion is fi­nal, the dis­crep­an­cies in the mark­ing boy! Wow!”

Sev­er­al ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and fans re­spond­ed to Gor­don’s post, with some ar­gu­ing that TU­CO may have been in­flu­enced by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment, not­ing some of the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who failed to make both the semis and fi­nal were those who had sting­ing com­men­tary against the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion. Some ar­gued that they could not un­der­stand the rea­son­ing for tar­get­ing such ca­lyp­soes, giv­en the his­to­ry of what a ca­lyp­so is and not­ing that there were sim­i­lar ca­lyp­soes un­der the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment up to last year but that this did not pre­vent the artistes from mov­ing for­ward to Di­manche Gras night.

Ca­lyp­so his­to­ri­an Zeno Obi al­so weighed in, urg­ing trans­paren­cy in the judg­ing process. In a strong­ly word­ed post, Obi called for the full re­lease of scores for all com­peti­tors, ar­gu­ing that ver­i­fi­ca­tion was nec­es­sary be­fore draw­ing con­clu­sions. He sug­gest­ed that per­form­ers should re­quest de­tailed break­downs of their marks and ques­tioned whether dis­crep­an­cies could ex­ist be­tween judges’ scores and the fi­nal mas­ter mark sheet, adding that al­le­ga­tions of score changes by of­fi­cials were not new to the com­pe­ti­tion’s his­to­ry.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Omari Ash­by, a PhD can­di­date at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies who re­search­es and lec­tures on ca­lyp­so, said clar­i­ty was need­ed, es­pe­cial­ly around TU­CO’s as­ser­tion last week that the or­gan­i­sa­tion is apo­lit­i­cal. Ash­by ex­plained that if apo­lit­i­cal means TU­CO does not sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, that po­si­tion is fair. How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that re­ject­ing po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary al­to­geth­er would un­der­mine the foun­da­tion of ca­lyp­so.

“Ca­lyp­so can be a song of praise or a song of shame,” Ash­by said.

“It tells the his­to­ry of our peo­ple and our cul­ture. It can be protest. Dou­ble en­ten­dre, so­cial cri­tique — all of these are es­sen­tial parts of the art­form. My hope is that when TU­CO says it is apo­lit­i­cal, it means the or­gan­i­sa­tion is not tak­ing po­lit­i­cal sides, not that it is dis­cour­ag­ing po­lit­i­cal ex­pres­sion.”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les, who at­tend­ed the event, said she had not seen the judges’ score sheets and there­fore could not con­clude whether po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary was tar­get­ed. She ac­knowl­edged hear­ing dis­cus­sions that sev­er­al po­lit­i­cal­ly charged ca­lyp­soes failed to ad­vance but not­ed that dis­agree­ment over re­sults is a reg­u­lar fea­ture of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions. Beck­les said with­out ac­cess to the judg­ing cri­te­ria and scores, it would be un­fair to ac­cuse the judges, adding that pub­lic de­bate and dis­sat­is­fac­tion are part of the Car­ni­val tra­di­tion.

At the end of the se­mi-fi­nal round, 11 per­form­ers were se­lect­ed from a field of 40 to ad­vance to the fi­nal on Di­manche Gras night at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, where they will chal­lenge de­fend­ing monarch Helon Fran­cis for the ti­tle and $1 mil­lion prize.

Ad­vanc­ing to the fi­nals are Yung Bred­da, Ter­ri Lyons, Rik­ki Jai, Giselle Fras­er, Karene As­che, Kerice Pas­call, Muham­mad Muwak­il, Nicole Thomas-Clarke, Ri­val­do Lon­don, Roslyn Reid Hayes and Ta’Zyah O’Con­nor. Bri­an Lon­don was named re­serve.

Vet­er­an en­ter­tain­er Rik­ki Jai, per­form­ing un­der his giv­en name Sam­raj Jaimun­gal, de­liv­ered one of the day’s most im­pact­ful pre­sen­ta­tions in Doh Spoil Meh Name, blend­ing hu­mour and emo­tion while re­flect­ing on fa­ther­hood, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and lega­cy. His per­for­mance res­onat­ed strong­ly with the au­di­ence and se­cured his place in the fi­nals.

Ak­e­nathon “Yung Bred­da” Lewis al­so earned a fi­nals berth with a con­fi­dent, com­mand­ing per­for­mance of The Mes­sen­ger, which was cen­tred on moral guid­ance and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Ter­ri Lyons, dressed in red, al­so drew roar­ing ap­proval for her faith-based and re­flec­tive pre­sen­ta­tion of Bless­ings, be­com­ing one of the night’s most dis­cussed per­form­ers on so­cial me­dia for her pre­sen­ta­tion, which in­clud­ed her surf­ing through the crowd.

Ear­li­er in the com­pe­ti­tion, Du­ane O’Con­nor en­er­gised the crowd with a satir­i­cal per­for­mance ex­am­in­ing lead­er­ship, ac­count­abil­i­ty and the use of pow­er. De­spite strong au­di­ence en­gage­ment, plac­ards and chants, he did not ad­vance to the fi­nals.

Heather Mac In­tosh shift­ed the mood with a so­cial­ly charged ca­lyp­so ad­dress­ing jus­tice, re­spect and the treat­ment of cul­tur­al icons and their fam­i­lies, spark­ing vis­i­ble emo­tion and dis­cus­sion among pa­trons. Last year’s Young King Monarch Squeezy Rankin ex­plored themes of vi­o­lence, pres­sure and moral strug­gle in mod­ern so­ci­ety, while Free­town Col­lec­tive’s Muham­mad Muwak­il de­liv­ered a vi­su­al­ly rich per­for­mance cel­e­brat­ing ca­lyp­so and na­tion­al iden­ti­ty in Ca­lyp­so.

On Thurs­day, TU­CO is­sued a state­ment say­ing it re­mained apo­lit­i­cal but at the show on Sat­ur­day, ca­lyp­so lovers ac­cused the or­gan­i­sa­tion of sidelin­ing po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to TU­CO pres­i­dent Ains­ley King and vet­er­an ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Dr Hol­lis “Chalk­dust” Liv­er­pool and We­st­on “Cro Cro” Rawl­ins but there were no re­spons­es to the calls.

Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal­ists

Ak­e­nathon “Yung Bred­da” Lewis - The Mes­sen­ger

Giselle Fras­er - No Vil­lage Can

Karene As­che - No­body Wins Un­til

4. Kerice Pas­call - No Con­science

5. Muham­mad Muwak­il - Ca­lyp­so

6. Nicole Thomas-Clarke - Sac­ri­fice

7. Ri­val­do Lon­don - Wa­ter Thick­er

8. Roslyn Reid Hayes - Ca­lyp­so Call­ing Me

9. Ta’Zyah O’Con­nor - Cast Them Away

10. Ter­ri Lyons - Bless­ings

11. Rik­ki Jai - Doh Spoil Meh Name

Re­serve:

Bri­an Lon­don - De Code