RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Un­der the blis­ter­ing mid­day sun at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, ca­lyp­so lovers sent a clear and de­fi­ant mes­sage yes­ter­day that pi­cong, po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary and fear­less so­cial crit­i­cism were the lifeblood of the art form, say­ing any at­tempt to si­lence them is an at­tack on free­dom of ex­pres­sion.

Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta kicked off around 2 pm, and hun­dreds of kaiso lovers came in­to the park, not just with cool­ers, hats, and fold­ing chairs, but some al­so with plac­ards con­demn­ing what they called at­tacks on the art form.

Among them were mem­bers of the St Mar­garet’s posse who danced with their plac­ards, which read: “How come Kurt Allen out? How come Queen Vic­to­ria out?”

Their stance came af­ter the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) is­sued an un­usu­al pub­lic state­ment dis­tanc­ing it­self from pol­i­tics and re­ject­ing claims that Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta is be­ing used as a po­lit­i­cal plat­form.

While the re­lease did not ad­dress the rea­son for the state­ment, it seemed to be a re­sponse to com­plaints from sev­er­al ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and mem­bers of the pub­lic about the judg­ing cri­te­ria used to se­lect the semi­fi­nal­ists.

The crit­i­cism came af­ter sev­er­al top bards did not get the judges’ nod for the semis, with some ar­gu­ing it may be due to an ap­par­ent po­lit­i­cal bias on the part of the judges and TU­CO.

Yes­ter­day, the leader of the St Mar­garet’s posse, Clyde Charles, said they were con­cerned that ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who dared to sing about politi­cians were kicked out of the com­pe­ti­tion.

“Lots of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans have been left out of Fi­es­ta—Queen Vic­to­ria, Shak—good songs were left out. We want to know why. I think it’s be­cause they’re singing po­lit­i­cal, but they’re singing facts—what’s hap­pen­ing in the coun­try. The ca­lyp­son­ian is the voice of the peo­ple, and you can­not stop them,” he added.

In­grid Cole of the No Be­hav­ior group from Ari­ma East said the is­sue went be­yond ca­lyp­so.

“We have no free­dom of speech,” she said.

“First, they take out po­lit­i­cal kaiso, so we can’t say how we feel about any­body. This is our Tri­ni thing.”

Her friend, who flew in from Den­ver, Col­orado, claimed there was grow­ing elit­ism at Fi­es­ta.

“Why are they putting up a whole set of ta­bles in front of the stage. We the com­mon­ers have to hus­tle for space. And now all the pi­cong and po­lit­i­cal mu­sic—why we tak­ing it away? We are ac­cus­tomed to pi­cong. I’m not hap­py with what I see here to­day.”

Vet­er­an ca­lyp­so or­gan­is­er Neil Be­har­rysingh, part of a 50-strong Tu­na­puna and Point Fortin crew, said he dis­agreed that kaiso was un­der at­tack, in­sist­ing ca­lyp­so would sur­vive.

“Change oc­curs every year,” he said, not­ing the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion man­ages Fi­es­ta as it sees fit. “Kaiso will nev­er die.” He dis­agreed that judg­ing de­ci­sions sur­round­ing po­lit­i­cal kaiso threat­ened to wa­ter down a tra­di­tion that has, for gen­er­a­tions, held lead­ers ac­count­able and re­flect­ed the strug­gles of or­di­nary peo­ple.

How­ev­er, Cur­tis Meade of Car­ni­val Chasers, who led a group of near­ly 200 sup­port­ers from Mon Re­pos and oth­er parts of the coun­try to Skin­ner Park, said that while per­form­ers were tech­ni­cal­ly free to sing what they want­ed, the judg­ing cri­te­ria sent a dif­fer­ent mes­sage.

“Since I was a lit­tle boy, Chalk­dust, Er­ic, Cham­bers—they used to call names. Rob­bie Dri­ver can’t dri­ve, Man­ning and all kin­da thing,” he said. “So why can’t sing now? They walk­ing on eggshells.”

De­spite the con­tro­ver­sy, pol­i­tics and so­cial com­men­tary still rang out from the stage. Per­form­ers tack­led ex­tor­tion, gun vi­o­lence, hypocrisy, cor­rup­tion and lead­er­ship fail­ures. Songs like Du­ane O’Con­nor’s “Alexan­der Yuh Great,” An­tho­ny “Squeezy Rankin” La Fleur “Rat Race,” and Sean “Ifa” Singh’s “Pup­pet Mas­ter” drew loud re­ac­tions, prov­ing that the ap­petite for kaiso re­mained strong.

The semi­fi­nals fea­tured 40 per­form­ers—a blend of sea­soned vet­er­ans and ris­ing voic­es—all vy­ing for just 11 spots in the Di­manche Gras on Car­ni­val Sun­day at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. There, they will face de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Helon Fran­cis for the Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle.