Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Young voic­es, big con­fi­dence, and plen­ty ca­lyp­so swag­ger filled the Radis­son Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day as the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch se­mi-fi­nal struck all the right notes.

From the mo­ment the cur­tains went up, the venue buzzed with youth­ful en­er­gy. On stage, young per­form­ers con­fi­dent­ly grabbed the mi­cro­phone, de­liv­er­ing sharp lyrics and an­i­mat­ed per­for­mances well be­yond their years. Back­stage, it was a dif­fer­ent kind of rhythm- ner­vous laugh­ter, last-minute re­hearsals, qui­et hum­ming, and men­tors of­fer­ing fi­nal words of en­cour­age­ment as com­peti­tors wait­ed for their turn to shine.

The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­ga­ni­za­tion (TU­CO) event fea­tured 30 young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans drawn from pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools across the coun­try, all vy­ing for a cov­et­ed place in the fi­nals. With on­ly 15 spots avail­able, the com­pe­ti­tion was fierce but friend­ly, as 21 par­tic­i­pants from Trinidad and nine from To­ba­go each brought their own style, sto­ries, and stage pres­ence.

Hov­er­ing over the se­mi-fi­nals was the chal­lenge of de­thron­ing reign­ing Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch Xhaiden Dar­ius, a feat every young per­former clear­ly had in mind as they stepped in­to the spot­light.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Tho­ra Best, for­mer chair­per­son of the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Com­mit­tee, de­scribed the com­pe­ti­tion as far more than just a singing con­test, hail­ing it as a proven in­cu­ba­tor for tal­ent over the last half-cen­tu­ry.

“I have seen shy, with­drawn chil­dren change for the bet­ter, be­come con­fi­dent, self-as­sertive young peo­ple,” Best said. “And the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Com­mit­tee has be­come very proud of what we have wit­nessed. “This art­form, it is not just about singing Ca­lyp­so, be­cause not all of us can get on a stage and com­mand the au­di­ence and so on. So we are proud of what has hap­pened over these 50 years.”

Among the hope­fuls was 13-year-old Kacique Wil­son, a stu­dent of Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, who said Ca­lyp­so has played a ma­jor role in shap­ing who he is to­day.

Calm but fo­cused, Wil­son shared his op­ti­mism about ad­vanc­ing to the fi­nals, cred­it­ing the art­form for help­ing him de­vel­op con­fi­dence, dis­ci­pline, and a strong sense of “iden­ti­ty”, which hap­pened to be the ti­tle of his song.

“We are los­ing our iden­ti­ty, cul­tur­al her­itage and what not. It was re­al­ly to open the eyes of the pub­lic and say ‘hey, we are los­ing what we have built over the years, we are los­ing it’.”

Wil­son al­so car­ries a proud lega­cy, he is the grand­son of four-time Ca­lyp­so Monarch We­st­on “Cro Cro” Rawl­ins. But yes­ter­day, he made it clear he was carv­ing his own path, one verse at a time.