The 2018 Calypso Monarch Finals promise to be the best in about 20 years. This is so although the judges only got about 70% of the selections correct. The mix will be excellent, not simply in terms of musical variety and lyrical content and style and pace but also in terms of personalities—gender (there are five ladies among the 16 finalists) and age.
There really is a good chance that this year’s Finals could hit the reset button and serve up for the genre a generous helping of the younger generation of fans.
Photo: Aaron “Voice” St Louis, who copped two successive Soca Monarch titles, has thrown his hat in the ring for the Calypso Monarch crown in 2018.
But first a word about the missing 30%. To leave out young Ronaldo London makes no sense; his “Tomorrow,” if you will excuse the pun, is not just about the future of calypso but also about where the art form is today.
Omitting Cro and Tammico Moore (Spicey) merely reinforces the perception of political bias in calypso. If you take a stance against the PNM, it seems, your chances of making it to the Big Yard immediately take a nosedive.
The issue, however, is more complex than its seems; perhaps the crowd will allow you to be anti-PNM without your going so far as to be pro-UNC. On Saturday, singing a song entitled “Belated” which is critical of some members of the current PNM Administration, Cro Cro won the privately organised and sponsored “People’s Choice” competition. The judges, not in tune with popular sentiment, didn’t find the four-time monarch good enough on this occasion to make the top 16.
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