DAVID CUFFY

La­dy Africa (Leslie-Ann Bris­tow) is the 2012 Ex­tem­po Monarch. The first fe­male in the his­to­ry of the com­pe­ti­tion to se­cure the ti­tle, La­dy Africa used her vast ex­pe­ri­ence to out­shine new­com­er to the genre, Bri­an Lon­don, in the fi­nal round of the con­test, staged as an el­e­ment of Kaiso­ra­ma at the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, last Thurs­day night, and take home the $100,000 prize.

One of the few fe­males to em­brace ex­tem­po singing, and the on­ly one who has stuck with it, La­dy Africa start­ed com­pet­ing in 1989 and has been a fi­nal­ist in every year, save 1990 and 2004. She has been first run­ner-up on three oc­ca­sions. Eight fi­nal­ists faced the ad­ju­di­ca­tion pan­el in round one, from which four - My­ron B, Lin­go, Lon­don and La­dy Africa - ad­vanced to round two in which My­ron B and Lin­go had to ex­tem­po­rise on the top­ic The Lord Nel­son, while Africa and Lon­don's tri­umphant top­ic was I Am A Bac­cha­nal­ist.

There was no top­ic in the fi­nal round, so each com­peti­tor had to come up with hard-hit­ting orig­i­nal vers­es to win the ap­proval of the judg­ing pan­el that in­clud­ed Di­ane Mar­shall-Holdip, Valar­ie Mod­este, Melvin Charles, Lloyd Gellineau, Raul Her­cules, Nicole Poy­er and Sheila Warn­er. For his sec­ond plac­ing, Lon­don earned $70,000. In the po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary cat­e­go­ry, Kurt Allen placed first with the com­po­si­tion Long Live Ca­lyp­so to win the $25,000 prize. Sec­ond was Heather McIn­tosh do­ing The Ad­jec­tive, while third place went to Bun­ny B (Neville Brown) for Po­lit­i­cal Light­ning.

Reign­ing Young King Du­ane O'Con­nor took the so­cial com­men­tary cat­e­go­ry ti­tle and the $25,000 prize with his win­ning se­lec­tion The Hunt Is On. Kurt Allen placed sec­ond singing When Will It End, leav­ing the vet­er­an Chalk­dust (Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool) to fill third spot do­ing How's Dat. Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co), host of the pro­gramme, made spe­cial pre­sen­ta­tions to mu­si­cian Clarence Cur­van and ca­lyp­son­ian Lord Nel­son (Robert Nel­son) for their con­tri­bu­tions to the ca­lyp­so art form over the years.

Mak­ing guest ap­pear­ances on the play­bill were 2012 Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch Aaron Dun­can, Pow­er (Son­ny Fran­cois), Trinidad Rio (Daniel Brown), Singing Francine (Francine Ed­wards), pan­nist Earl Brooks, Su­perBlue (Austin Lyons), and the North West Laven­tille Cul­tur­al Move­ment. Mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment was pro­vid­ed by Kel­ly Green & Har­mo­ny, and show hosts were Wen­dell Eti­enne and Ar­lene Alex­is.