A Trini education in carnival part 2


The day before carnival is called Dimanche Gras and all the major costumes come up for show on stage and the calypso finals take place for Calypso monarch.

The costumes are HUGE and every designer worth their salt are represented here, while every other designer is either in the audience taking notes or glued to the TV at home.

The entire event, as the whole of carnival, is televised. Carnival is actually on TV all day. And the whole country, those who are not AT carnival are watching it at home.

Bliss.

Not sure who won costumes but the Calypso monarch this year was a singer called Chalkdust, who sang a great song called My Hart and I, which was laced with wit and lambasted the government. It was hilarious and a real crowd-pleaser, he had the whole crowd singing "DOOOOON'T TOUCH MY HART! Mr ROWLEY, DON'T TOUCH MY HART"

Hart and Rowley are both government figures.

This win takes Chalkdust level on Calypso Monarch wins with the legendary Mighty Sparrow and I read in the papers the next day that he said he would step down to pay tribute to Sparrow. Sparrow apparently wants none of that. Only time will tell but I will be in the crowd next year and I hope that Chalkie is performing.

A full review of Chalkie's win and a run down of what the song means can be found here and you can see some of Chalkie's calypso's on youtube.

One of my favourites is "One for the Savannah"



A great example of Calypso overtly putting across a political message to the people would be Kurt Allen's "Sit down for the Anthem"



Another day in Trini another lesson in Carnival.

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