Samp­son Nan­ton

Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor

samp­son.nan­ton@cnc3.co.tt

From po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary—some aimed at the Gov­ern­ment, oth­ers knock­ing the Op­po­si­tion—to chut­ney, com­e­dy and cul­ture, the D’ Kaiso Dy­nasty ca­lyp­so tent opened on Thurs­day night at the Radis­son Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, to a large and ap­pre­cia­tive au­di­ence.

The tent, op­er­at­ed by the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­son­ian Or­gan­i­sa­tions (TU­CO), once again brought to­geth­er some of the biggest names across ca­lyp­so, chut­ney, so­ca and new wave mu­sic. The night show­cased the range and rel­e­vance of the art­form, blend­ing hu­mour, so­cial re­flec­tion and sharp po­lit­i­cal cri­tique.

The show opened with a nos­tal­gic med­ley by John Thomas and the Chorales, who de­liv­ered ren­di­tions of David Rud­der’s Ca­lyp­so, Nap­py May­ers’ Old Time Days and Black Stal­in’s Feel­ing To Par­ty.

From there it was on to Broth­er Mu­da­da, who fo­cused his com­po­si­tion on cul­ture and na­tion­al iden­ti­ty and then Rik­ki Jai, who was in­tro­duced by host Er­rol Fa­bi­en as Dr Rik­ki, not­ing that he had re­cent­ly been grant­ed an hon­orary doc­tor­ate by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Dressed in black trousers, a white shirt, black bow tie and a glit­ter­ing gold jack­et, the vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian de­liv­ered Doh Spoil Meh Name, a so­cial com­men­tary framed as a con­ver­sa­tion be­tween a fa­ther and son.

“In this com­mu­ni­ty every­body know me as a re­spectable man and peo­ple com­plain­ing about the things you’re do­ing...doh spoil meh name, doh spoil meh name,” the lyrics said, as the fa­ther urged his son to change his ways.

The per­for­mance earned warm and sus­tained ap­plause.

The cast in­clud­ed reign­ing Ex­tem­po Monarch Black Sage, whose in­tel­li­gent­ly writ­ten tune Play­ing With Words ex­am­ined how lan­guage is used to make dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions ap­pear less se­vere.

With a set of the­saurus­es dis­played on a screen be­hind him, Black Sage sang that “we don’t call the min­is­ter a ly­ing politi­cian, he mis­poke or got mis­in­for­ma­tion” and that “big com­pa­nies don’t use the ug­ly word re­trench­ing, in­stead they say they’re down­siz­ing.”

He had the au­di­ence laugh­ing when he added that “you do not call man ug­ly, he may not like it, but say he has a se­vere ap­pear­ance deficit.”

The duo of Re­ece and Nel fol­lowed with a love-themed blend of kaiso and chut­ney, with Re­ece rep­re­sent­ing kaiso and Nel, some­times singing in Hin­di, rep­re­sent­ing the chut­ney side.

They were fol­lowed by Ker­nal Roberts with Bad Lucky Me, a so­cial com­men­tary in which he said he was search­ing for some­one to sing lyrics to make sense of re­cent po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sions, in­clud­ing the CEPEP and URP dis­missals, but lament­ed that his “ca­lyp­so grand­fa­ther,” Chalk­dust, “got a stroke.”

Ter­ri Lyons, dressed in a flow­ing white dress and white head­piece, de­liv­ered the prayer­ful bal­lad Bless­ings, fo­cus­ing on na­tion­al heal­ing.

“Trinidad needs a bless­ing, To­ba­go needs a bless­ing, Trin­ba­go needs a bless­ing,” she sang.

Among the more overt­ly po­lit­i­cal pieces, La­dy Gyp­sy was the first to bring out the belt, as she crit­i­cised col­leagues and or­gan­i­sa­tions she said had black­list­ed her be­cause she showed sup­port for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

“They want me to big up Dr Row­ley, say­ing he’s the best prime min­is­ter I ever see, for ten years he re­al took care of we...they want me to lie, tell lies, they want me to lie, lie, lie. I’m not ly­ing to favour no­body, all the wicked­ness they have done to me, be­cause I stood up for the UNC, they black­list me...they want me to lie,” her song said.

Dwayne O’Con­nor fol­lowed with Alexan­der Yuh Great, us­ing props that in­clud­ed cut-outs of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Alexan­der the Great.

Against a loop­ing video back­ground of Min­is­ter Alexan­der out­side Par­lia­ment blow­ing in­to a white plas­tic bag, he sang, “When you hear him speak it does make you weak....Alexan­der the Great con­quered lands east, west, north and south...but we Alexan­der con­quer we with his mouth...if you take in his maid­en speech, look how far this man reach...no lie, he’s the luck­i­est man alive.”

For­mer UNC min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters, dressed in a red glit­ter­ing jack­et, ques­tioned whether he was “wast­ing an­oth­er ca­lyp­so” try­ing to in­flu­ence be­hav­iour­al change among young black men.

“Am I wast­ing an­oth­er song to tell young black boys to pull up your pants, to tell them give your­self a chance,” he asked.

Called back for an en­core, Pe­ters shift­ed his fo­cus square­ly on the rul­ing UNC Gov­ern­ment.

“When I sing some­thing and I eh re­mem­ber, I just re­plac­ing the word, and that is why I have to tell you, ex­act­ly what is the code, so even if you doh be­lieve me, I re­al­ly wouldn’t drop dead, I ain’t want to see nut­ten yel­low, that is why the Gyp­sy wear red,” he sang.

Yung Bred­da fol­lowed with The Mes­sen­ger, an up­lift­ing song en­cour­ag­ing young peo­ple to dream big and build to­wards their goals.

Al­so ap­pear­ing were Squeezy Rankin, Chuck Gor­don, Preedy and Free­town Col­lec­tive.

One of the most en­er­getic per­for­mances of the night came from 2011 Ca­lyp­so Monarch Karene As­che. Her song No­body Wins Un­til fo­cused on the Gov­ern­ment’s slo­gan, “When UNC wins, Every­body wins.”

Dressed in a sari, she re­flect­ed on de­ci­sions sur­round­ing CEPEP and URP, con­clud­ing that un­til di­vi­sion and back­bit­ing end, “til then, no­body wins.”
The D’ Kaiso Dy­nasty tent con­tin­ues at the Radis­son Ho­tel through­out the Car­ni­val sea­son.