Carnival is here again and in a few days, St. Vincent and the Grenadines premier cultural festival will climax, with the parade of extravagantly decrated floats and costrumes; the best of Vincy music in a Street Party; that will take place in the main city, the capital: Kingstown.
But there are still many aspects of the carnival, yet to come. Over the years, the judging of the verious aspects of the culture, has been highly controversial, none more controversial than the Judging of the Calypso final. There is always the seven days, island wide debate, over the person who was crown king and why another person who was more deserving of the crown was not given the crown.
However, as of late, the Calypso championship was not given out base on the merits of old or base on the category stipulated in the rules. But the students of Calypso knows before hand, key persons, who are going to make the finals and who is going to be crowned the Champion. Last year I wrote an article; long before the Calypso finale, where I predicted who was going to win the Monarchy, I evaluated the song, showed the deficiencies in the song structure, phasing, impropper used of words, terrible messaging; poor story telling etc. And like I said, the probably worse song in the competition won the monarch.
This year, the table is stocked some what differently. In that the field is stocked with many worthy contendors for the Monarchy; however, the signs of another political champion is set to take place.
Our cultural celebration has degenerated into a competition, where the Prime Minister: Ralph E. Gonsalves promises a 'sure victory' to particular supporters of his, in the different art form, then he uses, the influence the office of Prime Minister office, to ensure the pendulum of victory swings in favor of his chosen ones. There are more to it, however, this is the long and short of the matter.
For many years Monique, a Vincentians who resides in Trinidad and Tobago was the choose one. When Monique became a Christian and stop sing; Gonsalves had to replaced her. So valuable was Monique, that PM Gonsalves had to get two talent to replace her in the persons of Zangie and Fya Empress. Replacing Monique was a big job not necessarily for the best but the most willing. Now the question is, where does this leaves long time Ralph Gonsalves supporters: Shunelle, one of the best calypsonian in the Caribbean. I guess Shunelle is Billy button; even with the female Monarch under her belt; Shunell cannot and will not be satisfied with the second price.
Unfortunately, the treating has already began and the plan to ensure none of the outsider accidentally wins the crown is in placed. For some reason, unknown to me, in this technologically advance world, none of the media house carried the Calypso Simifinals live on social media. However, my investigative mind were still able to uncover the working of dishonesty.
The Searchlight News Paper, in their efforts to keep their readers up dated, while keeping PM Gonsalves happy, recorded the performance and place some 60 seconds clips of the performance on their social media accounts. The first thing, I realized was, the vocal volume on the performance of the Vibrating Skates and the man age two of the biggest government critics were bearly audiable. You can hear words but It took a great deal of concentration to identify the words and understand the messages. Immidiately, you know these songs and the vocalists were rendered unjudgable. A judge cannot adjudicate on the evidence he or she cannot or did not hear.
It must be important to note, this was my observation from the video that was posted by the Searchlight News Paper on their social media page; a vidoe that was captured open mike. This means the sound that was captured on this video was what the Judges and the audience would have heard in the the artist presentation. What was most interesting, is someone who made an audio line-video of the man age song, posted the video of Age Fantastic Friday (semifinals) performance on YouTube hours after his proformance. It was interesting that on that video; age performance was well mixed. This led me to consider something I have never considered before. That is the power of the song enjuineer.
Always remember, no one can teach another how to hear songs and words, the average person has the ability to balance out music for the enjoyment of others, however the average person didn't know who to operate a mixing board.
So a degree in sound engineering is basically, history in sound and the history sound mixing technology; the objective to achieved in mixing sounds, an understanding and the mastering of the instruments involved; especially, the mixing board. The average person, don't have an idea what these digital mixing board is capable of.
The mixing board can be considered a magic board. Because that is what a good mix man is: A magician. A mix master can mix the same music, send that music out of his system to 7 different sources simultaneously, the Mix Master can send one out, without vocals, another on two second time delay, another with vocals only etc. ect. ect.! Therefore a sound engineer is nothing special, but he is one who understands the intrigual working of the equipment, of his trade.
That explains why there were two video recording available of The Man Age one performance, and the vocals on the same song were at two different volume level. It shows that: Ralph Gonsalves has already corrupt the process. He has, already put the mechanism into place to steal the Calypso crown for one his appointee. We all know that The Man Age, Patches, Skates and Abby-Jah the other are not a part of Gonsalves in-crowd.
There is an interesting phenomenon in this year's show. Over the years, the two of Ralph
Gonsalves chosen for the crown don't normally compete against each other. I speak of no other than Fya Empress and The Man Zangie. Over the years when one is in the competition the other stays out base on some silly reason.
This year we will know who pleases Ralph Gonsalves the most. We will know this base on who wins the championship. Does the Empress brings more pleasure to Gonsalves or does the man Zangie.
Although it is expected that the trend will continue and either Fya Empress or Zangie will win, this year's competition; the stars are aligned and fortold the story of Robert "Patches" King is going to take home this years title. However, this will not be easy. Although King is a solid performer, with a beautiful masculine voice, he has his job cut out for him.
The plan to keep patches from assending the throne and walking away with Calypso's most coveted price; is already in placed. They plan to use the sound engineer to make Patches King look like he cannot cut it. The plan is to feed King, his music via the monitors a nanosecond behind the band, while they streams the band in regular time through the big speakers, which will make patches look like; Sunblaze, who had too much to drink moments before his big perfermance.
It is a absolute shame, to see, there are people who will rather have a victory handed to them by dishonest means, Rather than to work hard and actually, prove that you are good enough to win on your own. All it takes is for you to be better than the other members of the cast for five minutes.
If for that five minutes you were better than everyone else victory will be yours.
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