Young voic­es, big con­fi­dence, and plen­ty ca­lyp­so swag­ger filled the Radis­son Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day as the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch se­mi-fi­nal struck all the right notes.

From the mo­ment the cur­tains went up, the venue buzzed with youth­ful en­er­gy. On stage, young per­form­ers con­fi­dent­ly grabbed the mi­cro­phone, de­liv­er­ing sharp lyrics and an­i­mat­ed per­for­mances well be­yond their years. Back­stage, it was a dif­fer­ent kind of rhythm- ner­vous laugh­ter, last-minute re­hearsals, qui­et hum­ming, and men­tors of­fer­ing fi­nal words of en­cour­age­ment as com­peti­tors wait­ed for their turn to shine.

The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­ga­ni­za­tion (TU­CO) event fea­tured 30 young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans drawn from pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools across the coun­try, all vy­ing for a cov­et­ed place in the fi­nals. With on­ly 15 spots avail­able, the com­pe­ti­tion was fierce but friend­ly, as 21 par­tic­i­pants from Trinidad and nine from To­ba­go each brought their own style, sto­ries, and stage pres­ence.