In­nis Fran­cis

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Kaiso Showkase of­fi­cial­ly launched the 2024 ca­lyp­so sea­son with their tent open­ing at Palm’s Club, San Fer­nan­do, last Fri­day.

Many of the ca­lyp­soes sung on the night at­tempt­ed to change the cur­rent nar­ra­tive of the so­ci­ety and gen­er­at­ed a som­bre mood with­in the venue.

Pa­trons lis­tened keen­ly to the lyrics in the com­po­si­tions, many of which grav­i­tat­ed away from at­tack­ing pub­lic fig­ures and in­stead cre­at­ed con­ver­sa­tions on world is­sues.

Lead­ing the way with no­table com­po­si­tions were reign­ing South Ca­lyp­so Monarch Vic­to­ria “Queen Vic­to­ria” Coop­er-Rahim, reign­ing 2023 Ca­lyp­so Queen Tamei­ka Dar­ius, reign­ing Re­pub­lic Bank Monarch Curlis­sa Charles-Mapp, Eu­nice Pe­ters and Ri­val­do Lon­don, among oth­ers.

Fol­low­ing an en­core, Coop­er-Rahim sang The En­e­my and was moved to tears in her piece, which dealt with the so­cial is­sues of every­day Trinidad and To­ba­go.

She told the au­di­ence: “I know al­lyuh come for pol­i­tics, but not to­day. They killing us. We are our own en­e­my.”

Dar­ius al­so paint­ed a pic­ture of the harsh re­al­i­ties of trou­bled Trinidad and To­ba­go in her of­fer­ing ti­tled When will it end.

Lon­don’s Here in T&T al­so high­light­ed all the things hap­pen­ing in coun­try and fo­cused on “the com­mon man” hav­ing in­sights on is­sues but with no sol­id ground to stand on to ad­dress them.

Lon­don said the song rep­re­sents ca­lyp­so­ni­ans talk­ing to every­day cit­i­zens and be­ing the voice for the voice­less, the plat­form on which ca­lyp­so was born.

Pe­ters cap­i­talised on her en­cores with a so­cial com­men­tary ti­tled T&T is a re­al place. From pot­holes to emp­ty promis­es by the lead­ers to Stolen Pro­duc­tion’s se­lec­tion of a Venezue­lan na­tion­al to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go in an in­ter­na­tion­al beau­ty pageant, Pe­ters cov­ered it all.

Mar­sha “La­dy Adana” Charles per­formed Ju­bilee, a so­cial com­men­tary that she said was a spin­off from her re­search the­sis on the rit­u­als of Car­ni­val at UTT, which fo­cused on stick fight­ing.

Charles moved pa­trons to their feet, wav­ing and danc­ing to the rhyth­mic ca­lyp­so.

Some oth­ers whose en­cores prompt­ed ap­pre­cia­tive salu­ta­tions were Ad­de­lon “Ban­jela” Brave­boy’s Sack­cloth and Ash­es; Joshua Re­grel­lo’s We Dey; Lynette Lewis’ Fix Yuh Busi­ness; Ken­ny Phillip’s Mr Phillip; Joanne “Queen Voice” Gib­son’s Repack­age Kaiso; Vic­tor “Mr Mack” Mc Don­ald’s Abor­tion or Not and Ker­ry John’s Hold Meh.

Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans were backed up by the band Ra­zor Sharp and the Kaiso Flames cho­rus singers.

Speak­ing at the event, TU­CO vice pres­i­dent Steve “Ras Kom­man­da” Pas­call thanked pa­trons for sup­port­ing the tal­ent by turn­ing out to the event, not­ing he felt ca­lyp­so was in good hands.

He said: “The way the place is go­ing, you could have stayed at home and watched Net­flix or be on your What­sapp or what­ev­er you choose but you came to the first tent open­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Many say ca­lyp­so is dead, but what is dead is you peo­ple who don’t love ca­lyp­so.”

Un­like pre­vi­ous years, for­mer San Fer­nan­do may­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo and his wife Ka­mala were the on­ly dig­ni­taries in the au­di­ence through­out the first half of the show, which be­gan prompt­ly at 8 pm.

• Con­tin­ues on page 11