Sun­day’s de­but of CNC3’s “D Bess Pan” marked a night of firsts.

Not on­ly was this 90-minute spe­cial the first of its kind, but saw the first con­tes­tant to be crowned the cham­pi­on of “D Bess Pan”.

Pro­duc­er Robert Du­mas and his team scoured the world.

They searched high, low (and the in­ter­net), all to reach this very mo­ment: D Bess Pan fi­nal stage.

Five pan­nists—Jamel Cadet, Ty­ee­sha Alexan­der, Kel­ly Matthews, Shaquille Forbes and Em­manuel Joseph—all proved they had the “pizazz” be­ing sought. It was clear to see that star qual­i­ty, tal­ent, en­thu­si­asm and am­bi­tion shined bright­ly through each con­tes­tant, but on­ly one would walk away as the win­ner in the three-round bat­tle.

Hosts Ma­jor Pen­ny and Shevonne Metivi­er were per­fect choic­es for this spe­cial event as they meshed well to­geth­er and cap­tured the essence of what pan is all about. They en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly walked with the au­di­ence while re­main­ing fo­cused on the five fi­nal­ists.

In round one, the gift­ed five faced off and played a song of their choice to wow the in­cred­i­ble pan­el of judges: Du­vonne Stew­art, a pan arranger who made pan his­to­ry in 2019 when he copped the Panora­ma Triple Crown, lead­ing BP Rene­gades and Pan El­ders to vic­to­ry, Mar­cus Ash—a sea­soned vet­er­an in the Steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty, the cur­rent ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer on the board of Pan Trin­ba­go, and the mu­sic di­rec­tor of the sil­ver stars steel or­ches­tra, and Gerelle Forbes—an es­tab­lished all-rounder who de­vel­oped a life ca­reer in Me­dia and En­ter­tain­ment. She al­so found­ed STHENIC22, a pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny fo­cused on retelling the sto­ries of Caribbean cul­ture.

With judges of the high­est cal­i­bre, the con­tes­tants had to go for the kill each time and these five pan­nists did not dis­ap­point!

Five would soon be­come three. Two pan­nists would be elim­i­nat­ed. The pres­sure was on. The air was tense and the judges made their call. We said good­bye to Jamel Cadet and Kel­ly Matthews. Ty­ee­sha Alexan­der, Shaquille Forbes and Em­manuel Joseph ad­vanced to Round Two.

Com­pe­ti­tion heats up

Each of the cho­sen three con­tes­tants had to pick a num­ber from 1-3 out of Pen­ny’s Fe­do­ra. The num­bers in the head­wear rep­re­sent­ed three songs that were vot­ed on by the na­tion: “Don’t stop Car­ni­val” by Olatun­ji, “God is a Tri­ni” by Swap­pi, and “Ca­lyp­so” by Ter­ri Lyons.

Alexan­der chose num­ber one, God is a Tri­ni, Joseph chose num­ber two, Don’t stop Car­ni­val and Forbes chose Ca­lyp­so.

The sec­ond round al­so host­ed sur­prise celebri­ty guests. Olatun­ji, Swap­pi and Ter­ri Lyons all made spe­cial ap­pear­ances along­side this round’s fi­nal­ists. The artistes then spent an hour coach­ing and en­cour­ag­ing the cho­sen three to do their best ren­di­tion of the song, re­sult­ing in some tru­ly mem­o­rable per­for­mances.

Al­though the sur­pris­es celebri­ty guests were big news, the biggest news of the night was Du­vonne Stew­art head­ing to the stage and pre­sent­ing his Steel­pan ren­di­tion of “Ca­lyp­so” by Ter­ri Lyons.

The per­for­mances most peo­ple were look­ing for­ward to were the one in which the two fi­nal­ists went head to head and com­pet­ed for “D Bess Pan” crown. So, three be­came two. as Joseph was elim­i­nat­ed. Alexan­der and Forbes ad­vanced to the third round.

In round three, both fi­nal­ists had to com­pete in a Beat Per Minute “Pan Off.” DJ JJ took to the ones and twos to play Farmer Nap­py’s “Back­yard Jam” as the fi­nal song se­lect­ed by Du­vonne Stew­art who al­so con­trolled the tem­po­, in­creas­ing the beat every 30 sec­onds, while the pan­nists tried to keep up.

Luck was on Ty­ee­sha Alexan­der’s side as she chose the stick to per­form af­ter her com­peti­tor, Shaquille Forbes.

With the per­for­mances de­cid­ed, Shaquille Forbes took the stage, wow­ing every­one in the room. He matched the beat and got to a strik­ing 135 bpm. D Bess Pan” ti­tle was in sight.

Af­ter that amaz­ing per­for­mance, the ques­tion on every­one’s mind was, “can Ty­ee­sha beat that?”

Ty­ee­sha Alexan­der took the stage and was de­ter­mined to win. She start­ed off strong and did her best to keep up with the beat. Every­one was stunned at how well she was do­ing, un­til dis­as­ter struck. We don’t know what hap­pened but Ty­ee­sha start­ed los­ing the beat. She couldn’t keep up, which meant she couldn’t pass Shaquille’s in­cred­i­ble 135 BPM score.

The judges couldn’t wait for her to catch up any longer. But, just as they were about to make the call and elim­i­nate her, the pan spir­it found its way in­side Ty­ee­sha’s heart. It took con­trol of her pan sticks and beat the chrome, matched the rhythm, found the melody and passed Shaquille’s score! Every­one in the build­ing was on their feet!

Just when we thought Ty­ee­sha was down for the count, the beat per minute sky­rock­et­ed to an as­tound­ing 150!

The pierc­ing screams of ex­cite­ment could be heard for miles around! The on­ly fe­male con­tes­tant – Ty­ee­sha Alexan­der be­came the first ever cham­pi­on of “D Bess Pan” with a whop­ping 150 bpm!

She re­ceived the Top Prize – an op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with su­per pro­duc­er Travis world and a lap­top and Sony sound sys­tem cour­tesy Stan­dard!

The run­ner up didn’t go home emp­ty-hand­ed. Shaquille Forbes re­ceived a tele­vi­sion and large ham­per cour­tesy S&S Per­sad. But that’s not all! Each fi­nal­ist and judge were giv­en ham­pers and prizes cour­tesy Carib, KFC, Sub­way, Cam­pari and AM­CO.

Af­ter an ex­hil­a­rat­ing night, Ter­ri Lyons closed the show with an amaz­ing per­for­mance of her hit song – “Can’t Take My Joy.” That brought us to the end of a breath­tak­ing show.

We got five Pan­nists and three star-stud­ded judges to­geth­er and cel­e­brat­ed our mu­sic, our melody, our cul­ture, our pan – in a nev­er be­fore seen spe­cial – ex­clu­sive­ly on CNC3.