As the Car­ni­val 2026 sea­son heats up and the year’s new so­ca tunes hit the air­waves, the Bo­cas Lit Fest will launch a new se­ries of “Kaiso Con­ver­sa­tions” fo­cused on the art of ca­lyp­so song­writ­ing, with a spe­cial event fea­tur­ing mu­si­cal icon David Rud­der.

On Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 20, Rud­der will join mu­sic crit­ic and writer Nigel A Camp­bell on stage at the pop­u­lar Kafe Blue venue on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, for a con­ver­sa­tion fo­cused on ca­lyp­so lyrics, cre­ative tra­di­tions and in­flu­ences, and the lit­er­ary as­pects of the ca­lyp­son­ian’s art.

The event dou­bles as a spe­cial fundrais­er for the Bo­cas Lit Fest, whose year-round work pro­motes and de­vel­ops writ­ers and read­ers of all ages and gen­res across T&T and the wider Caribbean.

The fo­cus on ca­lyp­so is no de­par­ture for the Bo­cas Lit Fest, with the na­tion­al mu­si­cal art­form fea­tured in nu­mer­ous events over the years, in­clud­ing the ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed Ex­tem­po De­bate at the an­nu­al fes­ti­val in April.

“We al­ways in­sist Bo­cas is about words, sto­ries, and ideas,” says fes­ti­val di­rec­tor Nicholas Laugh­lin, “in all forms and gen­res. T&T’s best ca­lyp­so­ni­ans have al­ways been cul­tur­al crit­ics, po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tors, and po­lit­i­cal philoso­phers, and ca­lyp­so lyrics are some of the most en­dur­ing works in our lit­er­ary her­itage. David Rud­der is un­doubt­ed­ly a mas­ter of the art­form, and this will be a rare op­por­tu­ni­ty to hear him ex­plore what re­al­ly lies at the heart of ca­lyp­so writ­ing, past, present, and fu­ture.”

This “Kaiso Con­ver­sa­tion” is in­tend­ed as the first in a se­ries, con­cep­tu­alised by mu­sic writer Nigel A Camp­bell in part­ner­ship with the Bo­cas Lit Fest.

“Derek Wal­cott mock­ing­ly wrote, ‘The in­tel­lec­tu­als … apoth­e­o­sized the folk form, in­sist­ing that ca­lyp­sos were po­ems,’” ex­plains Camp­bell. “These con­ver­sa­tions are in­spired by the crit­i­cal work of Pro­fes­sor Gor­don Rohlehr, whose work push­es back on that Wal­cot­t­ian idea. David Rud­der and oth­er ca­lyp­so­ni­ans fig­ure in the con­ver­sa­tions of im­por­tant writ­ers from the Caribbean, like our No­bel lau­re­ates, who have writ­ten on ca­lyp­so. VS Naipaul wrote, ‘Wit and ver­bal con­ceits are fun­da­men­tal; with­out them no song, how­ev­er good the mu­sic ... can be judged a ca­lyp­so.’ Bob Dy­lan proved that lyrics are wor­thy of a No­bel Prize. So are our ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ oeu­vre.”

For more in­for­ma­tion about the Bo­cas Lit Fest and its pro­grammes, vis­it bo­caslit­fest.com or fol­low @bo­caslit­fest on so­cial me­dia.