Sto­ry and pic­tures by

In­nis Fran­cis

Heav­en “Snakey” Charles rhetor­i­cal­ly asked the ques­tion in the song, What You Need again Trin­ba­go?—at the fi­nal of the Di­a­mond Ju­bilee In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so Monarch, 60 years of In­de­pen­dence, and earned the monarch ti­tle.

The com­pe­ti­tion or­gan­ised by Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion and the Gov­ern­ment of T&T was held at the Grand Stand of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on Sun­day and left the en­ter­tain­er $200,000 rich­er.

Karene Asche performs her calypso, Forever Diamond.

INNIS FRANCIS

Pa­trons breathed a sigh of re­lief fol­lowed by an up­roar for Charles’ vic­to­ry. With tears in his eyes as the re­sults was an­nounced; Charles who per­formed in the ninth po­si­tion was hoist­ed in the air by his fans and sup­port­ers.

Bethany “Trinity” Lightbourne performs Trinbago We Believe.

INNIS FRANCIS

Charles said he penned the song him­self and placed much em­pha­sis on the love for the peo­ple and coun­try.

He said he had been singing pro­fes­sion­al­ly for the past 26 years and was nev­er lucky un­til now. 

Victoria “Queen Victoria” Cooper-Rahim and dancers sing Hold On Gyal.

INNIS FRANCIS

The Cara­pichaima man said his first or­der is to re­build a fam­i­ly home that was de­stroyed by fire in Jan­u­ary.

He de­clared: “I wish my moth­er was here to­day to see this. My win­ning to­day is an ex­pres­sion of God and how re­al God is. In the in­cep­tion, I kneel and I ask God to help me to write a song that the peo­ple would love; and that the lyrics and melody would be on point.

Aaron Duncan placed second with Luv Meh Country Bad.

INNIS FRANCIS

“Be­cause our house has been gut­ted by fire in Jan­u­ary and mom passed away.

“I want­ed to make a mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion to pur­chas­ing ma­te­ri­als be­cause most of the fam­i­ly mem­bers are builders and mon­ey is few. This is the first thing I would do, that was my main mo­ti­va­tion be­hind en­ter­ing.”

Terri Lyons performs Calypso.

INNIS FRANCIS

Con­sid­ered a dark horse in the race, Charles’ grand open­ing por­trayed his ar­rival on a riv­er boat, clad in a white sailor’s out­fit with gold trim­mings and sup­port­ed by back­up dancers.

From the be­gin­ning of his set, Charles was a hit with the au­di­ence and ush­ers tried fever­ish­ly to con­tain his friends and fam­i­ly from block­ing guests. 

MC John Benoit said the com­pe­ti­tion’s points scheme was de­signed to al­low each ca­lyp­son­ian to earn 40 points for lyrics, 30 for mu­sic, ten for pre­sen­ta­tion, and, 20 for orig­i­nal­i­ty, a to­tal of 100 points. 

Morel “King Luta” Peters sings his calypso, Celebrate With Pride.

INNIS FRANCIS

Charles said: “This is the biggest thing I ever win. I won Par­ty-Time in 1996 with Cu­pid. I am ac­cus­tomed to the dif­fer­ent end of the stick. I am ac­cus­tomed to ad­vi­so­ry and pain and things not go­ing 100 per cent my way. So I leave every­thing in God’s hands and I ask God to take charge; God did. This is a true tes­ta­ment of God work­ing.

“Next, I would be con­tin­u­ing to write, to bring mu­sic, and try not to be away from the light be­cause I would be bring­ing re­al mes­sages and mu­sic un­der the um­brel­la of Almighty God.”

Rod­er­ick “Chucky” Gor­don cap­tured the ti­tle in the last com­pe­ti­tion in 2012 with the song Bear with Me. 

Brian London performs his calypso A Small Price to Pay.

INNIS FRANCIS

The fi­nal re­sults saw Aaron Dun­can and Karene As­che in sec­ond and their places re­spec­tive­ly. 

Benoit al­so an­nounced that part spon­sor bmo­bile would pro­vide the top three win­ners with free ser­vice for one year.