Surprisingly it was the nor�mally pacific Valentino who launched the largest incendiary of the night at Kaiso House on Saturday, at what used to be the Globe Cine�ma on St Vincent Street.
His Change The Formula was as overtly political as you could get, except it was pointed at the calypso establishment, not the past government as seems to be the convention.
For anyone who has won�dered over the last decade or more about the sameness of all the Dimanche Gras "political" ca�lypsos, Valentino proposed an answer.
All you have to do to make the final (he sang) is "Say something 'bout Jack Warner / say something' bout Kam�la / That is the formu�la / for the Savannah".
And it's not accidental, since "A certain cabal/who control the Carnival / Ent want to see/ people like me".
That cabal apparently has a preference for cer�tain songs, or songwrit�ers: "Of the 12 contestant you see ten / Who song come from GB pen." Over to the cabal.
This isn't the first time the idea of a Carnival mafia has been float�ed–I recall Mr Shak saying something similar last year, about a small number of composers monopolis�ing the Dimanche Gras singers.
But I'm sure nothing further will be heard of this, till some brave soul drops a couple of lyrics in another tent, in another year.
But there was much more to Kaiso House than that. Valentino's song evinced one of several themes which ran through variegated line-up.
There were the statutory doses of nostalgia, nation-building, and lamentations–the chil�dren, the environment, the economy, crime, even the last US election.
Overall, an acute sense of trauma at the state of the nation pervaded songs and singers, but the determined stance protecting the present government from blame was significantly ab�sent.
This only helped the evening as a whole; it made the songs and performances more au�thentic and artistically stronger.
A significant reason for this strength of the tent was the virtue displayed by the Kaiso House singers of "making it new."
Many of them found interesting and moving ways to illustrate the much-repeated litany of woes afflicting the nation.
Even Karene Asche, who has a lot of penance to do to make up for the putrid Be Careful What You Wish For in 2011, delivered Caught in the Whirlwind with verve.
So did Marvelous Marva with A Strange Place and D Diamond with Bring it Back–which all said much the same thing, though in signifi�cantly different ways.
The singers who went in this mode were unanimous that Trini�dad was going down the tubes, and it was time to save it. Though how, no one seemed to know–prayer, build�ing self-esteem, familial responsibility. Nothing new, but, it can't be said enough, wonderfully delivered.
Poser delivered the populist consensus on child marriage–apparently, calypsonians and much of the public agree it's bad, and it's Sat Maharaj and the IRO's fault.
Even amidst all that sameness in the sub-genre, a couple of songs stood out, like the always-reliable, lyrically smooth Gypsy with Angry Land, whose title said it all.
But by far the most outstanding song in the crop was Spicy's Missing You delivered in a very appealing hybrid gospelly R&B style.
You being the ideal Trinidad & Tobago which exists in many minds, but which has no re�al-world referent.
The song, though, was nostalgic in a way that actually moved you. No small feat. This one deserves a longer life than the season.
Intriguingly, a few calypsonians decided to go "meta" this year, turning eyes and questions to themselves and their establishment, and the world in general.
There were even a couple of Ars Poetica/ Calypso type offerings.
Valentino, as already discussed, threw down one of the more political songs of this type. Black Sage also made a turn in this direction but with a different mood, with his Humor for Spite.
Rather than singing "Kamla like to drink / and Moonilal mout stink", Sage's fans want "something a lil rude / but you do not have to be crude"