Madzart finds voice, claims Calyspo crown

With Raeon “Madzart” Primus’s win in the 2024 national calypso competition, he is now in the history books as the first local artiste to have won all song competitions associated with Vincymas.

Primus snatched the Calypso monarch title with his “Contours” song on Sunday July 7, 2024, during the Dimanche Gras show where he dethroned the 2023 winner, Lornette “Fyah Empress” Nedd. Nedd placed fourth with “Hypocrites and Crooks”.

The Upstage Calypso Tent member became only the second performer to achieve the feat of winning all their country’s singing competitions, the other being Trinidad and Tobago’s (T&T) Machel Montano. In February, Montano became the first person to win the Young Kings, Road March, Soca Monarch, and Calypso Monarch titles in T&T.

Primus won the Ragga Soca crown in 2001 with “Poor people song”, and again in 2009 with “Is me friend”. He won the Soca Monarch crown in 2003 with “Motorcade”, and was Road March King in 2010 with “King Road”.

However, the 2024 Calypso King said his win could not be celebrated with much lustre as his heart is with the people whose lives were upended by Hurricane Beryl.

“I really feel no different. The fact that the hurricane had my head feeling messed up,” Primus told SEARCHLIGHT during an interview, while also revealing that his voice left him hours before the competition as he was working to help victims of the hurricane.

“I know the song was good enough to win, but I was very worried. I had no voice. I lost my voice Friday night and I didn’t get to rehearse. I couldn’t talk hours before the performance,” Primus revealed, adding that he almost called the organisers to tell them he was opting out of the competition.

He said he contacted one of his mentors, Carlton “CP” Hall, and got some advice on how to proceed; he got his voice back and was able to perform, taking the EC$30,000 prize money and the crown.

“I went into it to be the first person to win all four,” the new calypso king said.

His song pokes at various issues affecting the country, some of them political. Primus said he conceptualized the song while working in his garden.

“I was looking at the topography and decided to write a song about it. I started writing October last year, and Sunday night I was still writing.

“There was a whole new verse and refurbished verses, and I sang some verses in the preliminary that I never sang again,” the performer said of the evolution of his winning piece.

“As calypsonians, our job is to highlight political and social issues. Calypso is hard work…I am already looking for ideas for next year…” .

Primus has concluded that calypso is more creative than Soca because you have to find a way to highlight issues without getting a lawsuit.

The Fountain resident who has been involved with carnival since 1999 also said he knew who his competition was, and the first person he let hear his song was the second-place winner Elvis “Abijah” Abbey of On Tour Calypso Tent who did “Dem Pirates”. He pushed Abbey into second place by a single point.

Primus’s song was arranged by Joshua Lewis and Andrez Bascombe, and looked over by Bassy Alexander.

“I picked the winners from start. I said nobody can’t out sing Fyah Empress,” said Primus, who has his own studio called ‘The Church’.

Robert “Patches” King of On Tour, with “The kingdom must come down”, placed third in the Calypso competition.