Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ed­u­cate them­selves on the his­to­ry of ca­lyp­so.

She made the com­ment yes­ter­day as she ad­dressed the con­tin­u­ing con­tro­ver­sy over the au­dio trou­ble which ca­lyp­son­ian Helon Fran­cis en­coun­tered dur­ing the Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal on Sun­day and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse to pub­lic crit­i­cism of TTT over the sit­u­a­tion.

Most of Fran­cis’s ren­di­tion of Don’t For­get was not heard on the sta­tion due to au­dio prob­lems. TTT apol­o­gised to lis­ten­ers to the show, say­ing the sit­u­a­tion was due to tech­ni­cal is­sues. How­ev­er, Fran­cis is un­con­vinced about what hap­pened to him, with the pub­lic al­so sug­gest­ing it was cen­sor­ship sanc­tioned by the Gov­ern­ment, which Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Nicholas Mor­ris has de­nied.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, as she played with Massy All Stars, Beck­les said ca­lyp­so has al­ways been part of the cul­ture of the coun­try and an in­te­gral part of Car­ni­val.

She dis­missed the rea­sons giv­en by TTT for the tech­ni­cal is­sues that led to Fran­cis’ mi­cro­phone be­ing mut­ed mid­way through his per­for­mance of Doh For­get.

“When you look at what hap­pened with the semi­fi­nals, that so many of the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who sang songs in the tra­di­tion­al pi­cong style, that all of them did not qual­i­fy, that’s rather strange. So, I wasn’t sur­prised,” Beck­les said of the mishap.

She added: “I sug­gest they ed­u­cate them­selves on what calyspo is. It is about free­dom of ex­pres­sion. It is a re­flec­tion of what is go­ing on in the so­ci­ety and it has noth­ing to do with be­ing PNM. It has to do with calysponi­ans re­flect­ing what is hap­pen­ing in the coun­try. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this Gov­ern­ment does not want a true re­flec­tion of what is go­ing on in the coun­try. They can­not han­dle what it is kaiso stands for.”

She de­nied that ca­lyp­soes are pro-Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, with ca­lyp­so­ni­ans choos­ing to speak out against gov­ern­ment is­sues most­ly when the PNM is not in of­fice.

“I don’t know that that is true. The point about it is if you are at­tend­ing semi­fi­nals in the park, they have, in truth and in fact, in terms of their re­sponse to what is go­ing on in the coun­try, every gov­ern­ment, tra­di­tion­al­ly, ca­lyp­so would re­flect what is go­ing on.”

She re­called for­mer prime min­is­ter and PNM leader George Cham­bers be­ing ridiculed in ca­lyp­so, as there are many ca­lyp­soes against the PNM.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in a post late Mon­day in re­sponse to pub­lic crit­i­cism over Fran­cis’ ex­pe­ri­ence, said, “...No one has to cen­sor ca­lyp­so be­cause over the years, po­lit­i­cal stooges mas­querad­ing as ca­lyp­so­ni­ans cen­sored ca­lyp­so them­selves by alien­at­ing the ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion with their hate­ful di­a­tribes.

“So­ca fetes are sold out by the thou­sands every day from Jan­u­ary to car­ni­val Tues­day but a ca­lyp­so tent can’t even sell 100 tick­ets on its best night. That’s be­cause the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens have moved on from that type of di­vi­sive­ness and neg­a­tiv­i­ty....”

The PM laud­ed 2026 Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ter­ri Ly­on’s ca­lyp­so Bless­ings and Yung Bred­da’s The Mes­sen­ger, say­ing they had saved the Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion. Hours ear­li­er yes­ter­day, in a state­ment on Face­book, Beck­les said the Prime Min­is­ter’s lat­est so­cial me­dia re­marks re­flect­ed “a trou­bling lack of re­straint and judge­ment” and de­scribed them as an “un­hinged and des­per­ate out­burst.”

Beck­les took is­sue with the Prime Min­is­ter’s ref­er­ence to ca­lyp­soes as “hate­ful di­a­tribes” and ca­lyp­so­ni­ans as “po­lit­i­cal stooges,” say­ing such com­ments were of­fen­sive and in­sen­si­tive. She ar­gued that ca­lyp­so has deep his­tor­i­cal roots tied to the ex­pe­ri­ence of en­slaved Africans un­der colo­nial rule and has long served as a ve­hi­cle for so­cial com­men­tary.

Cit­ing records at the Na­tion­al Archives, Beck­les said the term “ca­lyp­so” is de­rived from the West African word “kaiso,” mean­ing to ex­press one­self or make a point. She not­ed that the ca­lyp­son­ian’s role mir­rors that of the African gri­ot, a sto­ry­teller who tra­di­tion­al­ly spoke truth to pow­er.

Beck­les said the sit­u­a­tion sur­round­ing Car­ni­val 2026 re­quired ur­gent con­sul­ta­tion with stake­hold­ers in ca­lyp­so, cul­ture and fes­ti­vals. She main­tained that mat­ters in­volv­ing cul­tur­al preser­va­tion, com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and free­dom of speech de­mand­ed di­a­logue and re­spect.

“To di­min­ish cul­ture is to mis­un­der­stand his­to­ry it­self,” Beck­les said, adding that the na­tion’s her­itage could not be erased.