Kevon Felmine

The Na­tion's Pride's preser­va­tion of our lega­cy of rich cul­ture and im­mense tal­ent was dis­played in a high­ly spir­it­ed man­ner last Thurs­day. En­ti­tled, The Con­tin­u­a­tion, it was the third edi­tion of Champs of Ca­lyp­so and Road March con­cert at the South West Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Point Fortin.

Win­ners of Car­ni­val events over the past decade per­formed be­fore a live­ly au­di­ence, thrilling with en­thu­si­as­tic dis­plays of lo­cal cul­ture. The Na­tion's Pride is an or­gan­i­sa­tion found­ed by pro­found lover of lo­cal arts, and own­er of W Con­nec­tion Foot­ball Club, Michael John-Williams. The event was held in ho­n­our of Point Fortin's cul­tur­al icons, Austin "Su­perBlue" Lyons and the late Kelvin Pope who went by the so­bri­quet The Mighty Duke. The first two shows were held in 1998 at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Ma­coya, and fea­tured the ca­lyp­so mon­archs from 1962 to 1998. The sec­ond edi­tion en­tailed road march win­ners from 1962-2000 and was held at Guaracara Park, Point-a-Pierre.

The 2011 edi­tion came to the com­mu­ni­ty as part of the Point Fortin Bor­ough Day Cel­e­bra­tions and al­so boast­ed a cham­pi­on line-up of ca­lyp­so mon­archs and road March win­ners from 1999- 2011. Each artiste per­formed their win­ning tunes in the re­spec­tive com­pe­ti­tions, along with top-notch per­for­mances on an evening well spent. Among the su­per­stars of the ca­lyp­so are­na were Denyse Plum­mer who per­formed her 2001 hit Nah Leav­ing. At a ma­ture age, this blue-eyed ca­lyp­so queen jumped off the stage and en­gaged in dance with some men in the au­di­ence. Sug­ar Aloes, aka Michael An­tho­ny Os­una, came on next and ig­nit­ed the au­di­ence's de­sire for en­ter­tain­ment with Look in the Mir­ror, the song which won him the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle in 2008. Hol­lis Ur­ban Lester Liv­er­pool, bet­ter known as Chalk­dust, came to the stage glow­ing in all-white at­tire. Songs such as I in Town Too Long and Doh Touch My Heart were some of the tunes he se­lect­ed from his vast reper­toire.

Reign­ing Ca­lyp­so Queen Karene As­che com­mand­ed a stand­ing ova­tion af­ter an en­er­getic per­for­mance of Be Care­ful What You Ask For and Un­cle Jack, her win­ning com­bi­na­tion for 2011. The young star was en­er­getic and ex­pres­sive and cre­at­ed scenes of ju­bi­lant danc­ing among the pa­trons. Kurt Allen, We­st­on Rawl­ins (Cro Cro), San­dra Milling­ton-Des Vi­gnes (Singing San­dra) and Morel Pe­ters (Lu­ta) round­ed off the ca­lyp­so seg­ment. There was al­so a spe­cial trib­ute to the Mighty Duke as Dwayne O'Con­nor donned him­self in the trade­mark at­tire of the fall­en artiste, com­plete with knee-length for­mal coat. Though no one could re­place the Point Fortin mu­si­cal hero him­self, O'Con­nor made good of Pope's Black is Beau­ti­ful and Thun­der. The Road March win­ners of the past decade be­gan with a live­ly per­for­mance for Win­ston Bai­ley, aka The Mighty Shad­ow, singing Bass­man. He brought pa­trons to their feet with his 2001 ti­tle win­ning song, Stranger. Naya George, broth­er of Neil "Iw­er" George, per­formed his se­lec­tion, Trinidad, be­fore JW & Blaze palanced about the stage. On sale at the show were DVDs of the first two edi­tions of The Na­tion's Pride from which the pro­ceeds are geared to­wards es­tab­lish­ing a pen­sion fund for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.