In­nis Fran­cis

in­nis_fran­cis@ya­hoo.com

Five for­mer ca­lyp­so mon­archs from a field of 11 are in the race for a chance to de­throne 2019 win­ner Ronal­do Lon­don at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on Feb­ru­ary 20.

The semi­fi­nal was held at Guar­cara Park, Point-a-Pierre on Sat­ur­day of which 40 ca­lyp­so­ni­ans com­pet­ed for a chance at the cov­et­ed ti­tle.

From as earl as 1 pm the com­pe­ti­tion be­gan at the new venue and saw ca­lyp­so en­thu­si­ast trick­ling in with their groups with cool­er, bags, ta­bles and chairs to hear “kaiso kaiso.”

The com­pe­ti­tion, dat­ing back to 1939 when Growl­ing Tiger won the com­pe­ti­tion with his ren­di­tion of Trade Union, have grown and has be­come one of the much an­tic­i­pat­ed events for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and fans alike dur­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val sea­son.

De­spite the mi­nor hic­cups ear­ly on in the show, en­trants to the com­pe­ti­tion seemed rar­ing to hit the stage with song.

Some ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, with props, aimed to cap­ture the top­ic of song took a lit­tle longer than oth­ers, while some missed the mark due to the or­gan­is­ers tech­ni­cal prob­lems and felt cheat­ed of a chance to de­liv­er ef­fec­tive­ly.

This was ev­i­dent for Tamei­ka Dar­ius who said while she was wait­ing to go on stage she re­quest­ed four mi­cro­phones to ac­com­pa­ny her per­for­mance. She said even when it was set up they were switched off dur­ing her pre­sen­ta­tion.

Dar­ius’ Long Be­fore J’ou­vert po­lit­i­cal in­fused pre­sen­ta­tion did not earn her a place in­to the fi­nals even af­ter the chal­lenges were rec­ti­fied and she sang.

The Point Fortin en­ter­tain­er said she was not hap­py by the out­come and will con­sid­er her op­tions go­ing for­ward.

No­table ab­sent from the com­pe­ti­tion was the hard-hit­ting ren­di­tions of po­lit­i­cal is­sues as was the norm in the past.

Most of the en­trants in­to this year’s fi­nals songs ral­lied around so­cial is­sues rel­a­tive to a mod­ern so­ci­ety.

It was ob­vi­ous with the usu­al crew stage side that apart from not set­tling in at the venue the songs was not what they went to hear.

Some made men­tion of their dis­ap­point­ment for the lack of strong lyri­cal con­tent.

How­ev­er, as pa­trons cheered and re­quest en­cores for whom they found en­ter­tain­ing even fell short of a spot in­to the fi­nals.

As the evening pro­ceed­ings drew near­er the end guest per­for­mances by Na­dia Bat­son, Skin­ny Ban­ton, Scrunter and Blaxx and the All Stars seemed to wet pa­trons ap­petites as they dance and found even­tu­al mer­ri­ment.

This year’s en­trants in­to the fi­nals con­sist of Bri­an Lon­don (Boo)

Du­ane O’Con­nor - (Not in Here)

Heather Mc In­tosh-Si­mon - (Claude)

Hol­lis (Chalk­dust) Liv­er­pool – (Mur­der Fren­zy)

Karene As­che – (Win­ners Nev­er Quit)

Kurt Allen - (Jus­tice)

Michelle Hen­ry – (The Guest List)

Ron­dell Don­awa –(We So Cold)

So­nia (Singing So­nia) Fran­cis – (Wel­come to Chi­na­town)

Ter­ri Lyons –(Meghan My Dear)

Win­ston (Gyp­sy) Pe­ters – (Way of the World)

Rook­ie to the com­pe­ti­tion Aaron Dun­can, who sang, Why are We Here is in re­serve.

We­st­on (Cro Cro) Rawl­ins – We Go­ing and Vote was the Peo­ple’s Choice but did not make a place in the fi­nals.