Kevon Felmine

In a show­ing off force against the nu­mer­ous con­tro­ver­sial poli­cies of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, more blows are ex­pect­ed to be dealt as the 11 fi­nal­ists for the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch were an­nounced on Sat­ur­day night. The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ued to take heavy blows in the sec­ond half of the show which end­ed short­ly af­ter 10 pm. Af­ter boos echoed around the ground for Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was al­so shunned as she walked through a thick crowd at the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do.

As Per­sad-Bisses­sar ven­tured in­to the au­di­ence shak­ing hands, some pa­trons re­fused to greet her. The Prime Min­is­ter who ar­rived at the venue short­ly af­ter 4 pm was en­ter­tained by ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who con­tin­ued to bash the Gov­ern­ment's poli­cies. Among those ad­vanc­ing to the fi­nals were Michael Os­una, known in the ca­lyp­so world as Sug­ar Aloes, whose per­for­mance sent the crowd wild with ex­cite­ment. Even be­fore his po­si­tion was called, fans kept call­ing for Aloes to grace the stage. Be­gin­ning his song Doh Force Meh Hand with a spaghet­ti west­ern mo­tif, he lam­bast­ed Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal who was al­so at the show, Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Tim Gopeesingh. He sang: "Gopeesingh fell bam bam... tell Gopeesingh doh force meh hand," and sent the crowd wild.

Con­tro­ver­sial artiste, We­st­on Rawl­ins so­bri­quet Cro Cro wreaked hav­oc as he sang his se­lec­tion Say Some­thing. Cro Cro was in a fiery mood call­ing one min­is­ter a "dumb boy" and be­seech­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy and Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er to say some­thing about what is tak­ing place in the coun­try. He sang: "Come on John Sandy say some­thing/Al­lyuh call State of Emer­gency and on­ly ar­rest­ed black peo­ple.... doh leave your peo­ple to suf­fer so." But the biggest shout of the night came for Na­tion­al 2012 Young Kings cham­pi­on Du­ane O'Con­nor with his song, The Hunt Is On. Dressed like crime show host Ian Al­leyne, O'Con­nor rocked the park with his song which utilised the phras­es the tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty us­es on a dai­ly ba­sis.

How­ev­er, in all the prais­es the show host got in the song, the catch line of the cho­rus: "The pro­gramme is just a front/Its Gibb's work he wants" gen­er­at­ed the most laugh­ter. He had pa­trons in stitch­es when he sang: "Di­rec­tor, do you have that clip/where de mos­qui­to bite the Prime Min­is­ter on her lip." Even de­fend­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch Karen As­che was jump­ing up to the song. De­spite the raves cre­at­ed ear­li­er on in the show by Mista Shak, he was lim­it­ed to be­ing the sec­ond re­serve for the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals on Feb­ru­ary 19 at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah where they will come up against reign­ing monarch Karen As­che.

Fi­nal­ists

Bri­an Lon­don

Sug­ar Aloes

Singing San­dra

Cro Cro

Du­ane O'Con­nor

Heather Mc In­tosh

De­von Seales

Chalk­dust

Kurt Allen

Leslie Ann El­lis

Stinger