Calypso Fiesta only road to the Big Yard

THE EDITOR: Could you imagine a calypsonian qualifying for the Calypso Monarch final on Dimanche Gras night without performing at Skinner Park in the Calypso Fiesta? Dr Hollis Liverpool, aka Chalkdust, immortalised in song the experience of competing in the park for the semifinal as "de acid test." Chalkie sang the refrain, “When Skinner Park say yuh good, yuh good!”

An ace musical arranger once told me that some time in the 1980s, a semi-finalist who was preparing to go on stage to perform at Calypso Fiesta, jumped into his car and drove straight out of Skinner Park just before he was introduced by the MC. By the time Sprangalang was introducing the calypsonian, he was already on the north-bound lane of the Solomon Hochoy Highway, never to return to Skinner Park. That is how intimidating the experience was for him!

You have to be made of a certain kind of stuff to face that Skinner Park crowd, and many calypsonians would have faced their wrath if they didn’t find favour with any competitor.

So, it is totally unfair to all semi-finalists that a calypsonian who won a competition in Tobago months before, under completely different circumstances, in a completely different environment and possibly judged by a different panel of judges, can be automatically ushered into the Calypso Monarch final on Carnival Sunday night.

It is my understanding that this decision was made by the general council of the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organization (TUCO) and was not ratified by the general membership.

I hope this injustice will never be repeated as the only rite of passage to the "Big Yard" is Skinner Park. No Calypso Monarch finalist, with the exception of the defending monarch, should be given an easy ride to the Queen’s Park Savannah on Dimanche Gras night. All finalists must first face "de acid test," because when Skinner Park say yuh good, yuh good!

ROGER "BODYGUARD" MOHAMMED

calypsonian