Sev­er­al songs about Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith dom­i­nat­ed the first half of Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch semi­fi­nals at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do on Sat­urday.

Sev­er­al of the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans based their com­po­si­tions on the ac­tions of the top cop who has been mak­ing head­lines since his ap­point­ment last Au­gust.

Some front­line pa­trons waved posters of Grif­fith’s face dur­ing the per­for­mances.

Per­form­ing first on stage was Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters to a al­most emp­ty field with the po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary When Ele­phants Fight.

His de­ci­sion to par­tic­i­pate in the com­pe­ti­tion did not sit well with some ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and oth­er stake­hold­ers who felt that he held an un­fair ad­van­tage be­cause of his po­si­tion in NCC but Pe­ters de­fend­ed his po­si­tion say­ing his pro­fes­sion was a ca­lyp­son­ian.

Un­der an over­cast sky and backed by Er­rol Ince and Mu­sic Mak­ers, a field of 40 ca­lyp­so­ni­ans mount­ed the stage to win the judges’ nod to make the fi­nal 15 cut to com­pete in the fi­nals at Kaiso­ra­ma on Feb­ru­ary 28.

They are each hop­ing to de­throne reign­ing ca­lyp­so monarch Hel­lon Fran­cis at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah at the Night of Cham­pi­ons.

Melody and lyrics in the judg­ing cri­te­ria car­ried the most amount of points at 30, ren­di­tion ac­count­ed for 20, pre­sen­ta­tion ten and orig­i­nal­i­ty ten.

The Peo­ple’s Choice is based on text to code sys­tem for each ca­lyp­son­ian.

Mak­ing a come­back af­ter be­ing no­tably ab­sent from the com­pe­ti­tion for a few years, Robert “Mighty Tri­ni” Elias per­formed in po­si­tion eight and was well re­ceived by ca­lyp­so lovers.

Elias an­nounced that yes­ter­day was al­so his 76th birth­day. How­ev­er, the al­most dor­mant crowd came alive when ca­lyp­son­ian Maria Bho­la emerged in po­si­tion 15 with her hu­mourous ren­di­tion False Alarm, which was based on Grif­fith’s hos­pi­tal scare.

Around 4.49 pm Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ar­rived and walked through the crowd greet­ing pa­trons and took pho­tos with them.

He was ac­com­pa­nied by Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein, Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo.

Some of the oth­er per­for­mances ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed by the crowd were reign­ing Young King Ronal­do Lon­don, De­von Seale, Kurt Allen, Michael “Sug­ar Aloes” Os­ouna, Du­ane O’Con­nor and Rod­er­ick Gor­don.

Aloes, singing in the sec­ond half of the com­pe­ti­tion, per­formed his en­tire song with his eyes closed as mem­bers of the au­di­ence waved toi­let pa­per. Aloes sang Wha Yuh Say, a trib­ute to Grif­fith.