KEVON FELMINE
Se­nior Re­porter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

“I am a ca­lyp­son­ian. That is who I am. That is what I am.”

This was the quick re­tort from Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters to com­plaints over his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s (TU­CO) 2024 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion.

Some sec­tors of so­ci­ety be­lieve there is a con­flict of in­ter­est is­sue, since Pe­ters is the chair­man of the State body that funds Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers.

Pe­ters qual­i­fied for the fi­nals fol­low­ing his per­for­mance of Un­grate­ful dur­ing the se­mi-fi­nals at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, on Sat­ur­day. He will face reign­ing monarch Du­ane Ta’zyah O’Con­nor, for­mer monarch Karene As­che and for­mer In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Machel Mon­tano at the fi­nals at Di­manche Gras on Car­ni­val Sun­day.

When con­tact­ed on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Pe­ters said the com­plaints were a year­ly rit­u­al since his ap­point­ment as NCC chair­man in 2018. While ini­tial­ly re­luc­tant to re­spond to the com­plaints, Pe­ters said he had par­tic­i­pat­ed in the com­pe­ti­tions for over 38 years be­fore his NCC ap­point­ment. He said he would con­tin­ue to com­pete as long as he was alive, there was ca­lyp­so, and judges se­lect­ed him.

“I am a ca­lyp­son­ian. That is what I am. I am the NCC chair­man. I am chair­man like any oth­er chair­man of any oth­er statu­to­ry board, and every oth­er chair­man does their job. My des­ig­na­tion is ca­lyp­son­ian. That is what I am.

“What­ev­er is avail­able to me as a ca­lyp­son­ian, I will do it be­cause I am a ca­lyp­son­ian. That is what I am, so I am not wor­ried about these peo­ple,” Pe­ters said.

The 1997 Monarch does not be­lieve he will get favour from the judges, say­ing he par­tic­i­pat­ed 30 times be­fore with­out get­ting any ad­van­tage. He said if the com­plaints were valid, it would al­so mean he would be un­able to play the steel­pan if he was a play­er be­cause any band he played with would get favour. It would be the same for play­ing mas, he said.

“Is that what it means? Look! For­get about those peo­ple. I re­al­ly can­not be both­ered, you know. Let peo­ple think what­ev­er they want.”

Pe­ters said he had been a ca­lyp­son­ian since he was four and at age 71, he had no in­ten­tion of stop­ping, as he said he writes good ca­lyp­soes.

Pe­ters said as a TU­CO pres­i­dent, he stood up for Mon­tano to par­tic­i­pate in a ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion many years ago, go­ing against heavy­weights Hol­lis “Chalk­dust” Liv­er­pool and Kelvin “Mighty Duke” Pope. He said he would fight for any­one singing ca­lyp­so to be able to par­tic­i­pate in the com­pe­ti­tion.

“They will have a long time to quar­rel be­cause I am one of the best ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in the world, and chances are, as long as I sing, I might be able to win any com­pe­ti­tion be­cause that is what I do. God gave me the gift of writ­ing a good song, and I am us­ing my gift to the max­i­mum.”

TU­CO vice chair­man Steve “Ras Ko­man­da” Pas­call mean­while, said Pe­ters’ par­tic­i­pa­tion was an in­di­vid­ual choice, as it was open to all na­tion­als.

Pas­call said Pe­ters’ stance was that he was a ca­lyp­son­ian and would nev­er stop per­form­ing, re­gard­less of his po­si­tion. He de­scribed Pe­ters as one of the great­est ca­lyp­so­ni­ans but added there was no rule pro­hibit­ing the NCC chair­man from com­pet­ing.

“Even if you are a sen­a­tor in the Par­lia­ment and want to en­ter, you can. If the Prime Min­is­ter wants to sing, we can­not de­ny him. I be­lieve every man has a right to de­cide his des­tiny, and I re­spect that,” Pas­call said.

He said Pe­ters’ po­si­tion could not in­flu­ence the judges, as they used a rubric to de­ter­mine the points award­ed to each con­tes­tant.

Fel­low fi­nal­ist Bri­an Lon­don al­so said Pe­ters met the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria for the com­pe­ti­tion. He said par­tic­i­pa­tion boiled down to an in­di­vid­ual’s choice, not­ing peo­ple knew Pe­ters was a ca­lyp­son­ian be­fore he be­came NCC chair­man.

Lon­don said Pe­ters re­mains a prac­tis­ing ca­lyp­son­ian, so “who are we to say yea and nay”.