Terri, my dear

ON THIS Monday, one week after most of us swept up Carnival 2020 as a memory – good or bad – I celebrate you, our newly crowned calypso queen, Terri Lyons, who pulled me kicking and screaming from the Carnival torpor that has defined my life for the last 16 Carnival seasons. You are truly a powerful calypso queen, Lyons, because your performance of Obeah and Meghan My Dear at Dimanche Gras captures the essence of calypso tradition in a most admirable way.

I am so far removed from the calypso world that I once covered in entertainment features. For the most part, I try not to even think about calypso anymore. Covering calypso and calypsonians had been my life and a good part of my livelihood and although I often grumbled at the cutthroat and petty spirit that defined the business, I probably would have put up with it all for those glorious moments that occasionally surfaced: David Rudder’s Bahia Gyul and Gypsy’s Sinking Ship; SuperBlue’s Get Something and Wave and Andre Tanker and Maximus Dan’s Ben Lion, to name a few.

Unfortunately an unexplainable neurological issue that left me experiencing debilitating migraines with aura any time I heard loud noise forced me out of the calypso arena. Suddenly, I had to reinvent myself as a journalist and put calypso behind me. But every once in a while – like this year – something yanks me back to those wonderful memories that captured calypso tradition.

Like perfectly crafted essays, your calypsoes Obeah and Meghan My Dear tell stories with powerful themes about love, jealousy, prejudice and independence. Without music, they could serve as a model for well-crafted school essays.

I watched your performance on YouTube and felt the undeniable pull of a thread stretching back to Growling Tiger, Pretender, Roaring Lion, Beginner – all of those calypsonians who believed that crafting a calypso was like building a house. There must be a solid foundation to support the structure.

With poise and confidence your strong, commanding voice pulled so many of the threads of calypso tradition together and in the process paid homage to a whole lineage of calypso greats – Spoiler, Sparrow, Trinidad Rio, Funny and more – who believed in the power to deliver powerful social and political messages through humour.

Good humour has been sorely lacking in calypso for some time, but Obeah with its message about greed, envy and jealousy covered it all in one fell swoop – the greedy woman coveting another man’s husband to politicians who get away with crime while holding the small man accountable. You defied the odds and won with two humorous calypsoes conjuring up apparitions of Spoiler.

Your calypsoes look deceptively simple but they are cleverly constructed. You proved calypso is bravado alive and well. You had a weapon stronger than blue soap. On that stage you had your father, SuperBlue, as fitting prop and reminder of your own regal calypso lineage.

You have a presence on stage, and you used it to pull off a titillating calypso, Meghan My Dear. Again you alluded to calypso history, turning your offering into a satire on Sparrow’s Congo Man. Your commentary on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle abdicating their royal roles conjures up images of bygone days when calypsonians commented on world events.

Meghan My Dear captures the wry, sexual innuendos that have been the backbone of calypso rebellion against slavery and colonialism. Fighting social convention has always been a powerful weapon and Trinidadians found a way to do that through sexual innuendos in calypso.

Through humour you lash out at racism and colonialism, promoting a sense of family and chivalry lost in this turbulent society and you accomplish this in an understated manner.

You sing how Harry gave up his money and “kick away his throne,” a powerful statement of pursuing personal values and happiness over an anachronistic obligation. You make people like me, who quite enjoy the royals, think about the purpose of monarchy and remember its checkered past in history. Harry comes off not as a pathetic white privileged royal who has changed places with Sparrow’s Congo Man but as a chivalrous, independent-thinking individual protecting his wife.

“Go Harry,” you sing, cheering him on as you dismiss William as a brother “who can’t relate because he is married to Kate.”

With two solid calypsoes you demonstrated the power of calypso with its social messages, humour and double entendre and reminded us of the importance of history and tradition. Your performance reminded us in these troubled times of the power of women.

To you, our queen, I curtsy.