Vibrating Scakes grabs calypso crown

On a night when the crown could have gone to any of the eleven competing calypsonians at Dimanche Gras, a quick recovery might have given the edge to this country’s new calypso monarch.{{more}}

While singing the chorus of his second song ‘Building Bridges’, Kenneth “The Vibrating Scakes” Alleyne accidentally dropped the microphone during one of his routine hand-to-hand tosses.



With the reflex action of a young Chinese acrobat, the veteran calypsonian, celebrating over 30 years as an exponent of the art form, dived to the floor and recovered the microphone without missing a beat, jumped to his feet, and continued singing as if nothing had happened.

The four-time winner of the coveted crown held off former monarch Poorsah (left), and newcomer Bomani (below right) to second and third place respectively, and saw last year’s winner I-pa being relegated to the number six spot.



The fourth spot was taken by former king ‘De Man Age’ (below left), newcomer Skarpyon was fifth, with the other spots being rounded out by Brother Ebony, Abijah, Lexi, Groovy D and I Come.

In the first round, the new king performed a powerful piece called ‘The Challenge’ where he challenged listeners to fight male underachievement and promote male empowerment.

In an ironic twist, Scakes in his ‘Sunday night verse’ questioned the promotion of two young male artistes, by a ‘Carnival Development Corporation (CDC) advisor’.



Second placed Poorsah offered two powerful renditions: ‘Fighting’ and ‘Wey Do Dem’ and Bomani came strong with ‘Bitter Lies’ and ‘Cultural Defender’.

Other strong renditions came from Brother Ebony (Tony), I-pa (Sad Situation) and Skarpyon (Concerns) to name a few.

Patrons at Sunday’s show, although they had mixed responses to the results, all agreed that the level of calypso was very high, the best they had heard in years.