Over the years, Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta, the semi­fi­nals of the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, has be­come a rite of pas­sage for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who mea­sure their suc­cess or fail­ure not on­ly by earn­ing a spot in Di­manche Gras, but by sur­viv­ing the acid test of the “toi­let pa­per posse” at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do.

It was there that the late Denyse Plum­mer was mer­ci­less­ly pelt­ed in her first ap­pear­ance in the com­pe­ti­tion and Su­perblue sent the crowds in­to a fren­zy and launched years of wav­ing songs when he per­formed Get Some­thing and Wave.

How­ev­er, sig­na­ture mo­ments at Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta are in­creas­ing­ly rare and the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s (TU­CO) choice of theme for 2024, Reignite the Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic, needs to be made a re­al­i­ty.

To­day’s com­pe­ti­tion of­fers some faint hope of re­vival for the mu­sic with its di­verse line-up of 40 semi­fi­nal­ists vy­ing for ten spots in the fi­nal on Car­ni­val Sun­day.

Af­ter dom­i­nat­ing the so­ca stage for decades, Machel Mon­tano has re­turned to his ca­lyp­so roots, gen­er­at­ing al­most as much buzz as he did in 1986 when, at age 11, he be­came the youngest fi­nal­ist to make it to the Big Yard with Too Young To So­ca.

There is a great deal of in­ter­est in Mi­cal Te­ja (Mi­cal Williams), who has been dom­i­nat­ing the air­waves with his pa­tri­ot­ic Car­ni­val hit, DNA. It is not very of­ten that par­ty songs are in­clud­ed in the mix of songs mak­ing the cut at this stage in the com­pe­ti­tion.

Al­so of note is the in­creased rep­re­sen­ta­tion from To­ba­go, with six ca­lyp­so­ni­ans —Alex Gift, Cas­ton Cu­pid, Nicole Thomas, Wendy Gar­rick, Shami­ka De­noon and Giselle Fras­er-Wash­ing­ton — hop­ing to join reign­ing To­ba­go Monarch Dil­lon Thomas, an au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­er for the fi­nal.

Al­though most of the at­ten­tion will be on the semi­fi­nal­ists, this edi­tion of Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta is al­so an acid test for TU­CO.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion has come up with a very am­bi­tious theme this year but has large­ly failed, through­out most of its ex­is­tence, to reignite the art form.

Apart from so­ca and its oth­er mu­si­cal off­shoots, ca­lyp­so has been strug­gling with steadi­ly de­clin­ing air­play, poor record sales and dwin­dling at­ten­dance at tents.

Reignit­ing T&T’s in­dige­nous mu­sic will re­quire much more ef­fort and sig­nif­i­cant­ly greater lev­els of in­vest­ment, in­clud­ing more year-round shows and ca­lyp­so-themed ac­tiv­i­ties, more sus­tained mar­ket­ing and con­sid­er­ably more de­vel­op­ment and train­ing than cur­rent­ly oc­curs.

As guardians of the art form, Ains­ley King and the oth­er mem­bers of the cur­rent TU­CO ex­ec­u­tive need to take some time out­side this in­tense com­pe­ti­tion pe­ri­od to re­flect on the his­to­ry and lega­cy they are charged with safe­guard­ing.

They should not treat light­ly the con­cerns that are raised every year about the qual­i­ty of the com­pe­ti­tions and ca­lyp­so tent of­fer­ings.

Crowds flock to Skin­ner Park every year for Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta, main­ly for the all-day lime and the open-air pic­nic at­mos­phere. The con­tes­tants, for the most part, pro­vide a mu­si­cal back­drop for that decades-long tra­di­tion.

Al­though the venue is ex­pect­ed to be packed, there is con­sid­er­able room for im­prove­ment in the pro­duc­tion of every stage of the com­pe­ti­tion.

If TU­CO is se­ri­ous about reignit­ing ca­lyp­so, the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive will have to re­dou­ble its ef­forts and em­bark on some ma­jor post-Car­ni­val up­grades.

The in­ter­est group should seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty now, 113 years af­ter the first ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion was staged by Ju­bilee Es­tab­lish­ment, to breathe new life in­to the art form.