Brent Zephyrine

Don't be a "one-day African" for the Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions this year. These words were echoed by Sasha-Ann Moses whose ren­di­tion of the song 'One day Africans' on Fri­day, earned her a spot in the fi­nal leg of the 15th An­nu­al Eman­ci­pa­tion Ca­lyp­so and Ex­tem­po Com­pe­ti­tion held at the SWW­TU Hall on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. The Na­tion­al Ac­tion Cul­tur­al Com­mit­tee (NACC) and the Na­tion­al Youth Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NY­AC) in as­so­ci­a­tion with First Cit­i­zens, host­ed the event in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tions de­c­la­ra­tion of 2011 as the In­ter­na­tion­al Year for peo­ple of African de­scent. Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston 'Gyp­sy' Pe­ters who brought greet­ings on be­half of his min­istry, ad­vo­cat­ed strong­ly his de­sire for peo­ple to have "more re­spect for the ca­lyp­son­ian."

Moses,15, of San Juan, chas­tised those per­sons of African ori­gin who donned their na­tive ap­par­el, ate tra­di­tion­al cui­sine, beat drums, and paid homage to their an­ces­tral he­roes /cul­ture on­ly dur­ing the Eman­ci­pa­tion sea­son which cul­mi­nates on Au­gust 1 each year. She urged them to be "full fledged Africans" who were con­scious of their eth­nic ori­gin "all the way" and re­mained true to the cause. Of the 12 par­tic­i­pants be­tween the ages of five and 18 years in the ju­nior ca­lyp­so monarch cat­e­go­ry, Timel Ri­vas emerged vic­to­ri­ous with his ren­di­tion of 'They just can't take it, our lega­cy'. Plac­ing sec­ond was Cav­el Gor­don with his com­po­si­tion en­ti­tled 'True eman­ci­pa­tion' while Fer­di­nand Smith who sang 'Cel­e­brate', set­tled for third.

Sim­i­lar­ly, of the 12 fi­nal­ists in the se­nior ca­lyp­so monarch cat­e­go­ry (ages 19 to 32), au­di­ences wit­nessed a vic­to­ry for Cas­ton Cu­pid with his 'Re­mem­ber the strug­gle' which was close­ly fol­lowed by Khadi­ja An­toine's 'Ah had too'. The third spot went to Megan Wal­rond with her stel­lar per­for­mance of 'Woman, my hero'. De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the event, man­ag­er of First Cit­i­zens' West Court Branch Stephen Pen­nie said his or­gan­i­sa­tion was proud to be the spon­sors of the event for a "fourth con­sec­u­tive year." He said: "This reaf­firms our com­mit­ment to ini­tia­tives which sup­port our poli­cies for cul­tur­al growth and aware­ness through­out T&T, un­der­stand­ing ful­ly that our coun­try has been shaped by hands of many colours and minds of many cul­tures." The Ex­tem­po crown of this year's com­pe­ti­tion went to Ro­han Richards (Fire­ball) with Nkosi Anyi­ka and Phil Browne cap­tur­ing the sec­ond and third place prizes re­spec­tive­ly.