DE­BRA RAV­EL­LO GREAVES

Amidst the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing his FI­FA bribery al­le­ga­tions and his high pro­file in the Gov­ern­ment, "Un­cle Jack" will get an "up­grade" this week­end. The "min­is­ter of every­thing" is sched­uled for a makeover from Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Karene As­che who will record a new ver­sion of "Un­cle Jack" over the week­end. The ca­lyp­so will be re­leased to ra­dio sta­tions on Mon­day. The orig­i­nal ver­sion fo­cus­es on the machi­na­tions of Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er.

The remix will fac­tor in the re­cent in­ter­na­tion­al, head­line-grab­bing foot­ball scan­dal in which Warn­er is em­broiled. As­che was tight-lipped about the song. How­ev­er, af­ter she per­formed "Un­cle Jack" at De Nu Pub, French Street, Wood­brook, on Wednes­day night, she re­vealed she had an "up­grade" com­ing.

The au­di­ence de­mand­ed to hear it but As­che was not giv­ing any­thing away. She said she had not seen the lyrics as yet.

As­che said song­writer Christophe Grant want­ed her to per­form the new lyrics on Wednes­day but she felt she was not ready. She put on one of her best per­for­mances yet of her two win­ning songs for this year's Car­ni­val-"Care­ful What You Ask For" and "Un­cle Jack"-and re­ceived en­cores for both. She said she had in­vest­ed her $2 mil­lion prize and would be per­form­ing at the Not­tinghill Car­ni­val tent, Lon­don, next month.

As­che was among a cast of young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who put on a pro­gramme, ti­tled "From Then to Now", which was an ef­fort to cre­ate link­ages be­tween the youths and ca­lyp­so vet­er­ans. The artistes per­formed their own ca­lyp­soes and se­lec­tions from se­nior ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who in­spired or men­tored them. Al­so ap­pear­ing on the cast were De­von Seales, Du­ane O' Con­nor, Bri­an Lon­don and Kizzy Ruiz.