By Francine Buchner

TORONTO:
Macomere Fifi walked away with the title of the 2012 “Kaiso 365” Calypso Monarch for the fifth time in the annual competition organized by the Organization of Calypso Performing Artistes (OCPA).

She won the calypso monarch title in 1998, 1999, 2008 and 2010 and this year took home a cash prize of over $5,334.00, a 50” LED Colour TV and will travel to London, U.K for the 2013 Notting Hill Carnival, as part of an exchange programme with the Association of British Cal ypsonians (ABC).

She also won in the categories of best composition on a local topic, best arrangement and the people’s choice award. The powerful and articulate Macomere Fifi, a.k.a. Eulith Tara Woods, sang “Tell Me Why” about the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida and “Never Again,” a tribute to women who endure injustice and pay the ultimate sacrifice that their religion and culture imposed upon them.

Coming on stage in the first half covered in the hijab and later unveiling underneath an East Indian sari, the calypso monarch sang about the disturbing honour killings.

Coming in second place was the reigning monarch, Bryan Thornhill, a.k.a., Structure, whose song, “What’s Your Contribution,” took the audience on a journey from the senseless killings in Toronto with Tori Stafford to Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica celebrating 50 years of Independence, back to the Toronto-Jamaican community with the recent shootings at a Toronto block party and ending in Montreal with the mailing of body parts in the brutal Montreal murder of an international Chinese student, thus demonstrating his ability to keep current by making last minute adjustments to his lyrics.

His second song, “The Ship Wreck” was a hilarious take on the recent, Italian Costa Concordia cruise shipwreck with actors playing out what really happened, or not.

Third place went to Dennis James who also won the categories of best vocal rendition, best melody and most humorous calypso. An angry-looking Dennis James took the stage and sang “We Have to Make a Change” and sang a lighter, fun and playful song, “Now, I Am Sixty-Five,” which talked about not letting the pains of getting older slow him down and about feeling alive.

Then he got graphic as he talked about sex and maintained his angry persona. Calypso Web, a.k.a., Hamilton Alexander came in fourth, Michael “Beginner” Moore, fifth; Joel Davis, also known as “Connector.”

Connector was sixth; Michael “Redman” Thomas, seventh; Pan Man Pat came in eighth, and ninth place went to The Crooner, Bill Newman.

The winners were announced by Colin Benjamin, president of OCPA. francine Buchner photos Macromere Fifi wins the Kaiso 365: She is crowned Calypso Monarch Queen 2013 at the finals held in Toronto on July 28 inside the Chinese Cultural Centre.