Devon Seale is the new TUCO East Zone Calypso Monarch, beating ten of his calypso colleagues and dethroning Errol "Bally" Ballantyne for the title. The competition was held on August 2 at the La Joya Complex in St Joseph before an almost sold out crowd. Bally didn't put up much as of a fight, and was literally dethroned from the first word he attempted to sing. He mumbled through the first two lines and totally forgot the entire second verse of his first song–Do As I Do; a big disappointment for those who were looking forward to a great showing by the reigning monarch.
He eventually walked off the stage, but redeemed himself with his second rendition Cultural Energ'. After the first round, Devon Seale and Sheldon "Nugget" Bullen were head to head, according to judging by the audience and from those listening backstage. Bullen, who has captured a number of calypso Borough titles around the country in previous years, had a few words of advice for the�Peoples Partnership government in his first song We�Will rise.
He admonished the new ministers, and Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissesar in particular, that the country will only rise if they kept the promises given to the citizenry on the recent general election campaign trail. Seale hit straight at the administrators of the competition, when he recommended that the time to change how songs were judged had come. He advised those in authority that judges should be specialists in each criterion, instead of having each judge mark all the contestant on every aspect of their song.
