Gillian Moore

As­ten "Guid­ance" Isaac won the 21st edi­tion of the Na­tion­al Youth Ac­tion Com­mit­tee's Stars of To­mor­row Ca­lyp­so Com­pe­ti­tion, held on Sun­day evening at Strand Cin­e­ma, Dun­don­ald Street, Port-of-Spain. The show fea­tured some promis­ing kaiso tal­ent and a fine stan­dard of per­for­mances across the board. With mu­sic pro­vid­ed by Earl Knight and Ser­vices Brass, the con­test fea­tured par­tic­i­pants be­tween 19 and 30 years old. Host Phae­dra Pierre in­tro­duced the 12 com­peti­tors in a tight show be­fore a fair-sized au­di­ence. Af­ter a guest ap­pear­ance by Hamidul­lah, who sang his new song, Noth­ing, Mau­ri Kekere Hall ap­peared as the first com­peti­tor, singing Unite the Cul­tures. Kekere showed his ver­sa­til­i­ty, mov­ing away from the fast-paced so­ca mode of pre­vi­ous years. With some en­er­getic danc­ing flour­ish­es and a gen­er­al­ly good pre­sen­ta­tion, he sang a one love mes­sage of cul­tur­al democ­ra­cy.

Cindy Al­leyne fol­lowed with her time­ly song, The Dream. She de­scribed a dream vis­i­ta­tion from Hait­ian Rev­o­lu­tion icon Tou­s­saint L'Ou­ver­ture, urg­ing the lib­er­a­tion strug­gle to con­tin­ue. With tune­ful vo­cals and good stage pres­ence, she closed her pre­sen­ta­tion by ask­ing the au­di­ence to stand and pledge to help Haiti's cause. Dalanie Baynes was next, singing Bat­tered Women. She graph­i­cal­ly por­trayed a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence vic­tim nurs­ing in­juries and sang the fa­mil­iar sto­ry of abuse with well-craft­ed lyrics, in a soul­ful, emo­tion­al per­for­mance. Guid­ance fol­lowed, with Wound­ed Na­tion, a ca­lyp­so on the woes fac­ing the coun­try, like crime, cor­rup­tion and hope­less­ness. He even sang a verse in Span­ish, as a "wound­ed T&T" writhed and crawled on the floor. His pow­er­ful de­liv­ery was rem­i­nis­cent of Tam­bu Her­bert and Shel­don Black­man, and was well re­ceived.

Sher­ma Ed­wards' Solve the Prob­lem dealt with the dis­par­i­ty be­tween the grand vi­sions of some politi­cians and the dai­ly re­al­i­ties faced by cit­i­zens. Dressed to the nines, Kwe­si Jef­fers end­ed the first half in a big way with Cli­mate Change. With dancers clad in white and back-up singers in bril­liant red, he sang on the mis­ery wrought by man's de­struc­tion of nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment. Mil­i­tant drums added stri­den­cy to the song's mes­sage. Af­ter a 15-minute break, Vic­to­ria Coop­er re-start­ed the show, singing Pain. She used her sweet voice to urge young peo­ple in trou­ble to put their faith in the Almighty. Zion, Ja­son Gar­raway, then sang his song, Re­al Rea­son for Crime, tak­ing on so­cial in­jus­tice and in­equal­i­ty as the caus­es of crim­i­nal­i­ty.

Phil "Philman" Brown's This Life, with its dance­hall-in­flect­ed rhythm, urged black youth to put a halt to vi­o­lence among them­selves. Next, Na­hee­lah "Nef­ta" Ko­jo sang Back to de Roots, a tem­po-dri­ven kaiso with a black pow­er theme. Con­gas, djem­be drum and per­cus­sion lent en­er­gy as she danced, her vi­brant voice rous­ing spir­its. Wen­dell Goodridge–Speshie–sang Bas­deo Man­ning and Patrick Pan­day, in which he de­scribed the break­down in lo­cal pol­i­tics and what he felt was the mean­ing­less­ness of our in­de­pen­dence. Anil "De Niro" James brought things to a close, singing Wa­jang Be­hav­iour. He donned a Car­ni­val cos­tume to per­form the boun­cy so­ca tune, invit­ing women to "get on bad" and en­joy the mu­sic.

?Re­sults:

1. 1st As­ton 'Guid­ance' Isaac – Wound­ed Na­tion

2. 2nd Kwe­si Jef­fers – Cli­mate Change

3. 3rd Na­hee­lah 'Nef­ta' Ko­jo – Back to d Roots

4. 4th Wen­dell 'Speshie' Goodridge – Bas­deo Man­ning and Patrick Pan­day

5. 5th Mau­ri 'Kekere' Hall – Unite the Cul­tures

6. 6th Vic­to­ria Coop­er–Pain

7. 7th Anil 'De Niro' James and Cindy Al­leyne (tie)

LEFT: ?Kwe­si Jef­fers

CEN­TRE: ?Mau­ri "Kekere" Hall

RIGHT:? Anil "De Niro" James

LEFT: ?As­ten "Guid­ance" Isaac

CEN­TRE: ?Cindy Al­leyne

RIGHT: ?Na­hee­lah "Nef­ta" Ko­jo