Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

The youngest per­former to grace the Grand Stand Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah (QPS), Port-of-Spain stage in yes­ter­day’s 2025 Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch says he is on a mis­sion to save the art form.

And eight-year-old Xhaiden Dar­ius, of Savonet­ta Pri­ma­ry School, is well on his way to achiev­ing this goal, af­ter he bet­tered 14 oth­er much old­er stu­dents with his song Ca­lyp­so Will Sur­vive to take the ti­tle.

“At my age, be­tween me and you, and no mat­ter what they say is true, I want all of them to know I would nev­er stop singing ca­lyp­so...and I will take a page or two from Broth­er Mar­vin and Su­per Blue,” Dar­ius sang dur­ing his per­for­mance.

Two of the top three spots went to young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans from To­ba­go. Last year’s third-place win­ner, 16-year-old Ko­quice David­son, of Bish­op’s High School (To­ba­go), was sec­ond with her ren­di­tion of My Plight. De­fend­ing cham­pi­on, 15-year-old Nata­ki Thomp­son, of Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary School, earned the third spot with Cry­ing Na­tion.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, Xhaiden’s moth­er, Tamieka Dar­ius, who is a for­mer NWAC Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen (2023), said two years ago her son fell in love with ca­lyp­so icon Ald­wyn “Lord Kitch­en­er” Roberts and his song Bee’s Melody.

“So, he de­cid­ed to do some re­search on who is this per­son who sang this nice song and then he got to find out that he was born on the same day (April 18) as Kitch­en­er,” she said.

The se­nior Dar­ius said af­ter learn­ing about Lord Kitch­en­er, her son did a trib­ute for his 100th birth­day cel­e­bra­tion and the au­di­ence com­pared him to the greats like Kitch­en­er and Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co.

She ex­plained that Xhaiden likes that style of ca­lyp­so and that was why he start­ed his per­for­mance yes­ter­day play­ing a cu­a­tro.

“When we were prepar­ing for this com­pe­ti­tion, he was like ‘mom­my, I have to find some part of this song to play this cu­a­tro’ he said, be­cause long-time ca­lyp­so­ni­ans used to play and sing,” she said, adding she was hap­py to see her son’s hard work was not in vain.

How­ev­er, Xhaiden ad­mit­ted the com­pe­ti­tion was “very stiff” and he was sur­prised he won.

“When they called Ko­quice, I was the on­ly per­son left, so I know I was go­ing to win, I was very hap­py...Oth­er peo­ple had very good per­for­mances, so I did not know,” Xhaiden said.

The eight-year-old, whose song was writ­ten by Morel “King Lu­ta” Pe­ters, said he en­joys do­ing trib­utes to old ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, as it’s the one way he plans on keep­ing the art form alive.

Both David­son and Thomp­son al­so said ca­lyp­so was their pas­sion and they were hap­py they could place in the top three again. They en­cour­aged young peo­ple to find their pas­sion.

“Be­lieve in your­self, take that leap, just try be­cause in the end it might work out,” David­son said af­ter­wards.

Re­sults:

1) Xhaiden Dar­ius, Savonet­ta Pri­ma­ry School - Ca­lyp­so Will Sur­vive

2)Ko­quice David­son, Bish­op’s High School, To­ba­go - My Plight

3) Nata­ki Thomp­son, Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary School - Cry­ing Na­tion

4)Tsa­iann Burke, Holy Faith Con­vent, Cou­va- Land of the Mas­quer­ade

5) Clo­rysa Gill, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies - Born For This

6) Jari­ah Nel­son, St James Sec­ondary School - Be­lieve In Yuh Self

7) Ray­lan Green, St An­then­ian Pre-Sec­ondary School - True Pa­tri­ot

8) Alae­ja Gould-Fer­gus­son, Bish­op Anstey High School - Fix Yuh Front Page

9) Jime­cya Bur­nett, New But­ler As­so­ciate Col­lege - Know Your Worth