David Cuffy

Gyp­sy (Win­ston Pe­ters) won his ninth Na­tion­al Ex­tem­po Monarch ti­tle dur­ing Kaiso­ra­ma 2016–The Night of Cham­pi­ons staged by Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Calyso­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) at the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day night.

In a keen­ly con­test­ed fi­nal with his clos­est ri­val and de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Lin­go (Joseph Va­tour La Place­liere) that high­light­ed their knowl­edge of words, quick think­ing and wit to cre­ate rhyming sen­tences, Gyp­sy con­vinced the judges that he was su­pe­ri­or on the oc­ca­sion and was re­ward­ed with the $250,000 first prize. For his ef­fort Lin­go won $150,000.

Eight par­tic­i­pants con­test­ed the first round. They were Bri­an Lon­don, Dion Di­az, Lin­go, La­dy Africa (Leslie Ann Bris­tow), My­ron B (My­ron Bruce), Abebele (Neil Bap­tiste), Black Sage (Phillip Mur­ray) and Gyp­sy. Their top­ics in­clud­ed Smart Woman; Is Not A Horn, Is A Help­ing Hand; A Deputy Es­sen­tial; Cyar Make Love On Emp­ty Bel­ly; Mar­riage Ad­vice; and Fight­ing For ISIS, among oth­ers.

The four se­lect­ed and paired to ad­vance to the sec­ond round were Lin­go/My­ron B, and Gyp­sy/Black Sage. Their top­ics were Who Does Lie Bet­ter, Man or Woman; and No More Night Mas, re­spec­tive­ly. Black Sage and My­ron B were elim­i­nat­ed, but earned the third and fourth prizes, to­geth­er val­ued at $125,000. Con­tes­tants plac­ing fifth to eighth won $20,000 each.

In the Cat­e­gories Com­pe­ti­tion, Karene As­che won the so­cial com­men­tary seg­ment and $50,000 prize for her show­case of Bring Back De Love. Plac­ing sec­ond and win­ning $30,000 was Bri­an Lon­don with We Trinidad, while third place and the $20,000 prize went to Helon Fran­cis do­ing Par­adise.

Du­ane O'Con­nor was ad­judged win­ner of the po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary cat­e­go­ry for his of­fer­ing ti­tled Mod­ern Nurs­ery Rhymes. Cro Cro (We­st­on Rawl­ins) placed sec­ond with Ad­vice To The Boss, and Chuck Gor­don (Rod­er­ick Gor­don) was third singing Fix­ing Time. Prizes in both cat­e­gories were the same. A 15-mem­ber pan­el judged con­tes­tants in the ar­eas of lyrics, mu­sic, and pre­sen­ta­tion.

The pro­gramme was staged in trib­ute to Trinidad Bill (Paul Trot­man), a Car­ni­val re­nais­sance man whose mul­ti­ple con­tri­bu­tions to the arts in Trinidad and To­ba­go have had a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the cre­ative land­scape.

Mak­ing guest ap­pear­ances on the play­bill were Natasha Wil­son, reign­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch of Bar­ba­dos William Wait­he (Clas­sic), leg­endary pan­man Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore, North West Laven­tille Cul­tur­al Move­ment, Ca­lyp­so Rose (Mc­Cartha Lewis) and David Rud­der.

Mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment was pro­vid­ed by Kel­ly Green and Har­mo­ny, and show host du­ties were shared by Wen­dell Eti­enne and Omari Ash­by.