Lyons secures Calypso Monarch title on controversial night

Derk Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Ca­lyp­son­ian Ter­ri Lyons reaped the bless­ings of her hard work, ded­i­ca­tion and faith in God as she was crowned the 2026 Ca­lyp­so Monarch yes­ter­day morn­ing.

In a com­pe­ti­tion marked by sev­er­al un­re­mark­able per­for­mances, miss­ing vet­er­an bards, and an un­for­get­table tech­ni­cal glitch, Lyons was the undis­put­ed cham­pi­on.

Her soul­ful and al­most spir­i­tu­al ren­di­tion of her song “Bless­ings” earned her a sec­ond ti­tle since her first win in 2020.

She al­so re­ceived the lone stand­ing ova­tion from the largest au­di­ence to at­tend the Di­manche Gras show at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in re­cent mem­o­ry.

The an­nounce­ment of Lyons’ plac­ing pla­cat­ed the row­dy spec­ta­tors, who packed the Grand Stand and re­cent­ly re­opened North Stand, and they vo­calised their dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the judge’s rank­ings un­til she was the last name to be called.

Ri­val­do Lon­don placed sec­ond with “Wa­ter Thick­er”, which al­so earned him this year’s Na­tion­al Ac­tion Cul­tur­al Com­mit­tee Young King ti­tle, ear­li­er this month.

Fol­low­ing up on the theme of fam­i­ly, nine-time Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Sam­raj “Rik­ki Jai” Jaimun­gal placed third with his ren­di­tion “Doh Spoil Meh Name”-a mes­sage from a fa­ther to a son.

Fol­low­ing up on his third-place fin­ish in his first for­ay in the com­pe­ti­tion last year, Akhen­aton “Yung Bred­da” Lewis placed fourth on his re­turn with “The Mes­sen­ger”.

Reg­u­lar con­tender and one-time win­ner Karene As­che placed fifth with her po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary “No­body Wins Un­til”, which fea­tured clear East In­di­an el­e­ments in its melody and pre­sen­ta­tion.

How­ev­er, de­fend­ing monarch Helon Fran­cis’ pre­sen­ta­tion “Doh For­get” was the ma­jor talk­ing point of the night.

It would not be re­mem­bered for his strong ren­di­tion, elab­o­rate props, its pow­er­ful lyri­cal con­tent or even­tu­al sixth-place fin­ish, but rather for a con­tro­ver­sial cut in the au­dio in the live broad­cast of the show by State tele­vi­sion sta­tion TTT.

So­cial me­dia was im­me­di­ate­ly flood­ed with con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries al­leg­ing that the for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor’s air­time was botched to cen­sor his thin­ly veiled cri­tique of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment.

Op­po­si­tion politi­cians, in­clud­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, were quick to add fu­el to the fire in their own posts as they di­rect­ly al­leged a po­lit­i­cal con­spir­a­cy.

“We will not sit qui­et­ly and idly by al­low­ing the UNC to use and abuse state re­sources and in­sti­tu­tions to cen­sor our free speech, ex­pres­sion, and cul­ture,” Young said.

For­mer two-time monarch Rod­er­ick “Chuck” Gor­don, who was a sur­prise omis­sion from the fi­nal af­ter a seem­ing­ly strong show­ing in the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta semi­fi­nal, al­so chimed in.

“From the pre­lim­i­nary round of the Ca­lyp­so Monarch to now, what we have wit­nessed is a bla­tant at­tempt by this ad­min­is­tra­tion to sti­fle, muz­zle, and lim­it the role of the ca­lyp­son­ian in ex­press­ing so­cio-po­lit­i­cal views-a foun­da­tion from which ca­lyp­so it­self was born,” Gor­don said.

In a press re­lease is­sued hours lat­er, TTT de­nied al­le­ga­tions of a ne­far­i­ous plot as it claimed that the au­dio drop was due to a “net­work rout­ing er­ror”.

What­ev­er the rea­son, the is­sue could not be blamed for the judges’ much-ma­ligned ad­ju­di­ca­tion, as they did not have to re­ly on TTT’s feed to as­sess the per­for­mances, which were un­in­ter­rupt­ed at the venue.

As­che’s pre­sen­ta­tion, which was ar­guably more satir­i­cal, did not suf­fer the same tech­ni­cal is­sue as Fran­cis’s, though their place­ment was sim­i­lar.

Lyons’ cap­ti­vat­ing per­for­mance be­gan with her kneel­ing and de­liv­er­ing a solemn prayer.

“I tired, and I wor­ried, and I feel­ing. My faith been test­ed time and time again. But my spir­it is de­ter­mined to be­lieve and over­come life’s tri­als that seem to nev­er done, but still, I kneel be­fore you in a prayer in song,” she sang.

“I come to pray for the strength that is re­quired. Amen. I pray for my peo­ple to not lose their fire. Amen. I send­ing prayers for those who are suf­fer­ing in si­lence. Amen. Grant them wis­dom, cures, clar­i­ty and guid­ance. Amen.”

“I pray­ing for the young and for the old, cov­er their minds and don’t let them lose con­trol. Though we stand in sin and our trans­gres­sions are many, we thank God for the life that he gave we.”

“To all who doubt­ing and los­ing faith, time to con­gre­gate aint no time to sep­a­rate. I call­ing on my prayer war­riors in the coun­try, come forth Trin­ba­go need we,” she sang.

Her pre­sen­ta­tion fea­tured nu­mer­ous back-up dancers, ac­tors, sev­er­al wardrobe changes and was more akin to a pro­fes­sion­al con­cert pro­duc­tion than a usu­al com­pe­ti­tion of­fer­ing.

It end­ed with her wear­ing on­ly a frac­tion of the mod­est white en­sem­ble and head­wrap she start­ed with and wav­ing a na­tion­al flag in front of the cheer­ing au­di­ence mem­bers, some of whom were moved to tears by her vo­cal range and en­durance.

Be­fore be­ing in­ter­viewed by the me­dia, Lyons, the con­sum­mate per­former, called for a mi­cro­phone and de­liv­ered an a capel­la ren­di­tion of the cho­rus of her song, much to the de­light of the pa­trons who re­mained in the North Stand to en­sure she had not been hard done by the judges.

Lyons was over­whelmed by the out­come as she just found the time to eat when the re­sults were an­nounced short­ly af­ter mid­night.

She said she was hap­py she was able to de­liv­er the pre­sen­ta­tion she in­tend­ed.

“I’m not a com­pet­i­tive per­son, but I like to use this fo­rum in or­der to have a show, you know, a lit­tle mi­ni eight-minute con­cert, and that is what I love to do,” Lyons said.

She said she was stunned by the crowd’s re­ac­tion- a feat rarely achieved by ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in the mod­ern era of the com­pe­ti­tion.

“I’m just hap­py that peo­ple re­ceived the song, be­cause that song was re­al­ly dear to me,” Lyons said.

Lyons’ fa­ther, so­ca leg­end Austin “Su­per Blue” Lyons, was present to lend emo­tion­al sup­port be­fore she took to the stage.

She ad­mit­ted that she drew in­spi­ra­tion from her moth­er, a Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist, who passed away in 2002.

How­ev­er, she not­ed that the song was a uni­ver­sal call to prayer for re­li­gious and spir­i­tu­al cit­i­zens from all faiths.

“When I say I call on all the prayer war­riors, I mean all the re­li­gious peo­ple. Not just one re­li­gion,” she said.

Lyons shared the vic­to­ry with her son, Matthias For­tune, whom she said she strives to be a role mod­el for.

She not­ed that while her teenag­er has shown promise in car­ry­ing on their fam­i­ly’s rich mu­si­cal lega­cy, he had cho­sen to play the steel­pan over vo­cal ex­pres­sion.

“I just want to be an ex­am­ple for him and for oth­er kids. I don’t like to give a false im­age of star­dom. I need them to know that this is hard work,” she said.

The moth­er and son shared a play­ful in­ter­ac­tion as he of­fered to help her dri­ve the Suzu­ki Vi­tara she re­ceived from Lifestyle Mo­tors, in ad­di­tion to a $1 mil­lion cash prize.

Lon­don re­ceived $500,000 for his sec­ond-place fin­ish, while Jaimun­gal re­ceived $350,000. The fourth and fifth place ca­lyp­so­ni­ans re­ceived $250,000 and $175,000, re­spec­tive­ly.

All oth­er com­peitors in­clud­ing Fran­cis, re­ceived $45,000 for their par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Pa­trons in the Grand Stand and those who at­tend­ed for free af­ter the North Stand was re­opened since 2012 were treat­ed to clas­sic songs from ca­lyp­so king Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co per­formed by so­ca stars and ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in­clud­ing Kes Di­ef­fen­thaller, Swap­pi, and Michael “Sug­ar Aloes” Os­ouna.

The lat­ter de­liv­ered a pore-rais­ing ren­di­tion of Fran­cis­co’s clas­sic “Slave”.

While an ail­ing Fran­cis­co did not at­tend the event, a pre-record­ed mes­sage from him was played for the au­di­ence, com­plete with his un­mis­tak­able rau­cous laugh.

2026 Ca­lyp­so Monarch Re­sults

1. Ter­ri Lyons - Bless­ings - 263

2. Ri­val­do Lon­don - Wa­ter Thick­er - 245

3. Rik­ki Jai - Doh Spoil Meh Name - 241

4. Yung Bred­da - The Mes­sen­ger - 240

5. Karene As­che - No­body Wins Unit - 239

6. Helon Fran­cis - Doh For­get - 237

7. Nicole Thomas-Clarke - Sac­ri­fice - 236

8. Ta’Zyah O’Con­nor - Cast Them Away - 235

9. Giselle “GG” Fras­er - No Vil­lage Can’t - 230

10. Muham­mad Muwak­il - Ca­lyp­so - 228

11. Kerice Pas­call - No Con­science - 225

12. Roslyn Hayes -Ca­lyp­so Call­ing Me - 212