The biggest event on the Car­ni­val cal­en­dar for to­day, the se­mi-fi­nals of the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion, will see 40 artistes fac­ing their tough­est au­di­ence of the sea­son in the quest for one of ca­lyp­so’s most cov­et­ed ti­tles.

Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, can be an acid test, par­tic­u­lar­ly for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans mak­ing it to that round of the com­pe­ti­tion for the first time. Fail­ure to im­press that de­mand­ing crowd in­evitably re­sults in the toi­let pa­per treat­ment, a ges­ture more dis­com­fit­ing than boos and jeers, even for ex­pe­ri­enced per­form­ers.

But be­yond the low points, the sig­nif­i­cance of Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta, not on­ly in the his­to­ry of ca­lyp­so but as the event that sig­nals the start of a home stretch to Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, should not be lost on the com­peti­tors hop­ing for the chance to go up against reign­ing Monarch Machel Mon­tano in the fi­nals on Di­manche Gras night.

Just by par­tic­i­pat­ing, they are keep­ing alive a tra­di­tion that start­ed 114 years ago as a singing con­test for “the most orig­i­nal song on a lo­cal top­ic.”

They are al­so fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of the first-ever Ca­lyp­so King, Growl­ing Tiger (Neville Mar­cano), who was crowned in 1939 with his of­fer­ing “Labour Sit­u­a­tion in Trinidad.”

Apart from at­tempt­ing to un­seat Mon­tano — a record-break­ing per­former who is the first artiste to cap­ture the Young Kings, Road March, So­ca and Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tles — this year’s se­mi-fi­nal­ists have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate their his­to­ry in the com­pe­ti­tion. Some al­ready have.

Lani K (Jalani Ko­jo), the first ca­lyp­son­ian on stage this af­ter­noon in his first ap­pear­ance in the se­mi-fi­nals, is mak­ing his­to­ry by com­pet­ing against his moth­er Twig­gy (Ann Marie Parks-Ko­jo), a vet­er­an of the art form. They are the first moth­er and son to ad­vance to this stage in the com­pe­ti­tion.

They are part of a di­verse field of com­peti­tors that al­so in­cludes Yung Bred­da (Ak­e­nathon Lewis), who has one of the biggest so­ca hits of the 2025 Car­ni­val sea­son, The Great­est Bend Over but is try­ing ca­lyp­so for the first time.

Re­cent­ly crowned Young King Squeezy Rankin (An­tho­ny La Fleur), who has al­so been mak­ing waves with his so­cial com­men­tary, Jus­tice, is al­so in the line-up, along with sev­en for­mer ti­tle hold­ers, Du­ane Ta’Zyah O’Con­nor, Helon Fran­cis, Karene As­che, Kurt Allen, Morel Pe­ters, Rod­er­ick Gor­don, and Ter­ri Lyons.

Each will seek to em­u­late this coun­try’s most suc­cess­ful ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, Spar­row (Slinger Fran­cis­co) and Chalk­dust (Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool), who have won the ti­tle eight and nine times re­spec­tive­ly. They can al­so set their sights on Duke’s (Kelvin Pope) un­bro­ken record of win­ning the ti­tle over four con­sec­u­tive years.

Tak­ing part in the com­pe­ti­tion al­so pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to forge new paths, as Ca­lyp­so Rose (Lin­da Mc­Cartha Mon­i­ca Sandy-Lewis) did in 1976 when her his­toric win in the com­pe­ti­tion forced the ti­tle to be changed from Ca­lyp­so King to the gen­der-neu­tral Ca­lyp­so Monarch.

Growl­ing Tiger, who died in 1993, lived long enough to see the art form evolve as the ca­lyp­so ti­tle passed along to oth­er bards over the decades. It is now with­in reach of a new gen­er­a­tion of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, the mod­ern-day gri­ots who will take the art form for­ward.

Af­ter the dust clears from Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta, there will be a chance to glimpse in­to the fu­ture of the mu­sic on Mon­day, when 15 young­sters go up against the reign­ing Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch, Nata­ki Thomp­son, at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Long live ca­lyp­so!