Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

From Karene As­che to Du­ane Ta’zyah O’Con­nor, Ca­lyp­so Mon­archs seem to be get­ting younger and younger. It sig­nals a par­a­digm shift in the in­dus­try.

Ta’zyah, the 20-year-old son of for­mer Ca­lyp­so Monarch Du­ane O’Con­nor, was crowned the TU­CO Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch in 2023. In 2011, at 27, As­che won the ti­tle and the art form’s record-break­ing $2 mil­lion first prize. This year, Nao­mi Sin­nette was crowned Ca­lyp­so Queen at 20.

In an art form that some peo­ple feel is dy­ing, these young peo­ple have emerged as the faces of mod­ern ca­lyp­so mu­sic. In a con­ver­sa­tion with the Sun­day Guardian last week, Ta’zyah O’Con­nor said: “Ca­lyp­so is my first love. The telling of a sto­ry in ca­lyp­so, I think it’s far dif­fer­ent from any oth­er genre and I think that cap­ti­vat­ed me from a very young age.”

Last year, the young bard won the judges’ hearts with his na­tion-build­ing song, Sing Hal­lelu­jah.

How­ev­er, when asked why more young peo­ple might not be in­ter­est­ed in ca­lyp­so mu­sic as op­posed to oth­er gen­res such as dance hall, reg­gae and so­ca, he replied: “A lot of young peo­ple aren’t very in­ter­est­ed and there’s a rea­son. You can’t be in­ter­est­ed in some­thing you’re not ex­posed to.”

He re­called how, af­ter win­ning the ti­tle last year and sub­se­quent­ly be­ing in­vit­ed to Kaiso House Ca­lyp­so Tent, he in­vit­ed his friends who fussed and called ca­lyp­so shows “long and bor­ing.” They did go to the tent to sup­port him and were so in­trigued by what they ex­pe­ri­enced they went back again with him this year.

“So I don’t think it has any­thing to do with them not be­ing in­ter­est­ed, I think they’re not ex­posed to it,” he said.

How­ev­er, Sin­nette says young peo­ple win­ning the Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle will on­ly help in­spire and raise in­ter­est among oth­er young peo­ple in the art form.

“I feel like Machel Mon­tano some­how in­spired these youths to come for­ward. Al­so, Ta’zyah O’Con­nor win­ning last year and my­self this year, I feel like it helped young peo­ple be­lieve they could suc­ceed in it.”

Sin­nette says Mon­tano’s re­turn to ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion this year and sub­se­quent crown­ing was a piv­otal mo­ment for the in­dus­try.

“I would say that was a great achieve­ment by Machel. I think it was a good idea for him to re­turn to ca­lyp­so and en­cour­age peo­ple to look at ca­lyp­so,” she added.

Al­though he has al­ready won the ti­tle, Ta’zyah O’Con­nor still con­sid­ers him­self some­one who is now en­ter­ing the in­dus­try and ad­mits the con­tent of mod­ern ca­lyp­so mu­sic is chang­ing from yes­ter­year.

He added: “I think the mu­sic now dif­fers from pre­vi­ous years not on­ly with the mu­si­cal­i­ty of it but the lyrics that we sing now. Be­fore, you could hear John­ny King and Baron and the Mighty Spar­row sing on se­ri­ous top­ics but there were al­so songs that had a par­ty as­pect to them that you could lis­ten to in the par­ty.

“Now, we are kind of do­ing away with the po­lit­i­cal ca­lyp­sos and the se­ri­ous songs, we’re more fo­cused on na­tion-build­ing and a tad bit of so­cial com­men­tary as op­posed to be­fore when a po­lit­i­cal ca­lyp­so jams you.”

How­ev­er, it’s more than just the lyrics that are evolv­ing. Ta’zyah O’Con­nor said mod­ern ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are al­so in­flu­enced by oth­er gen­res of mu­sic and in­cor­po­rate them in­to their songs.

He ex­plained: “Our style is dif­fer­ent from the style of the old­er ones or the more sea­soned ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. Our style is a bit more mod­ern so when you lis­ten to some of my ca­lyp­sos or oth­er young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans you might hear a dif­fer­ence in the mu­sic. Some­times we try to mix in a lit­tle Latin, a sam­ba style, some­times you hear a ca­lyp­so and it sounds a lit­tle reg­gae-ish. It’s all about giv­ing a lit­tle dif­fer­ence and pulling a dif­fer­ent crowd in­to ca­lyp­so.”

Sin­nette agrees. She said young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans add a lev­el of “vi­bran­cy and more mean­ing” to the mu­sic and in the age of so­cial me­dia this gen­er­a­tion can take the art form back to the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

“We are able to mar­ket our­selves bet­ter be­cause we have apps like In­sta­gram, Face­book and Twit­ter which al­low us to mar­ket our­selves more. I think ca­lyp­so can be more in­ter­na­tion­al­ly seen with so­cial me­dia plat­forms. Our gen­er­a­tion is def­i­nite­ly able to take ca­lyp­so far,” she said.

Sin­nette was in­spired to join the art form while watch­ing her aunt, Alana Sin­nette, per­form. She was on­ly eight years old then but it made a last­ing im­pres­sion on her.

Some don’t see a bright fu­ture for ca­lyp­so mu­sic but Sin­nette sees it dif­fer­ent­ly. She said young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans must stay dis­ci­plined and true to the art while be­ing con­sis­tent to en­sure they don’t fal­ter on the stage.

Ta’zyah O’Con­nor added: “I think the fu­ture of ca­lyp­so is rather bright be­cause ca­lyp­so has been around for many years. I’m pret­ty sure 60 years ago they said ca­lyp­so was dy­ing and 60 years have passed and it still hasn’t died.

“If there are young peo­ple like my­self and all the oth­ers that are still car­ry­ing the man­tle I don’t think it’s go­ing to die any­time soon. The on­ly way for ca­lyp­so to keep go­ing is for the au­di­ence to keep sup­port­ing it, the shows, the tents, we can’t do any­thing with­out sup­port.”

De­spite scep­ti­cism from an au­di­ence that is hard­ened to tra­di­tion­al ca­lyp­so mu­sic, the young singers are ready to en­gage with them while ush­er­ing in a new era of mu­sic and a new gen­er­a­tion of lis­ten­ers.