MYRON BRUCE is the first-ever Freestyle Monarch while Brian London won the Extempo Monarch title in the Kaisorama competition on Thursday night at Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain.
Bruce, whose sobriquet is Calypso Nite, gave a scintillating performance filled with wit, improvisation and high energy to beat Akeem "Preedy" Charles, who himself gave a very polished performance of lyrical gymnastics.
London edged NCC chairman Winston "Gypsy" Peters in an extempo war which culminated in both men, each multiple past extempo champs, singing and dancing their way off stage in a brotherly embrace, a gesture heartily applauded by the small but appreciative audience.
The freestyle results in order were Bruce, Charles, Rohan "Fireball" Richards, Heaven "Snakey" Charles, Rayon "Make It Happen" Bernardo, Clint "Blue Magic" Davis and Shakir "Sackie" Harewood.
The extempo results were London, Peters, Bruce, Nyol Manswell, Philip "Black Sage" Murray, Dion Diaz, Elysia "Lady Syntax" Ray, and Joseph "Lingo" Vautor-La Placeliere.
Unlike past years where singers had to deliver a prepared calypso within one of four categories – social commentary, political commentary, humorous and chutney – in this year's freestyle format, each sang on a topic picked from a box, firstly as individual but with the top four then duelling it out in pairs.
They not only had to improvise on the topic, while taking account of their rivals, but also had to match as best as possible their lyrics to the unfolding beat of their backing track, a novel blend of rapso, rap and dancehall flavours.
Charles handled this unusual musicality with great ease and professionalism, yet so too did Bruce who then deftly outpunched him with his lyrical jabs. Bruce outpaced all by the wit and staccato diction of his lyrics and how easily he matched each line into contours of the backing music.
At one stage, Bruce declared he would take no lessons from any man dressed in the pants Charles was sporting and humourously sought to link his rival to a recent video of politician Watson Duke lying in bed.
Other popular topics for the night included singer Nessa Preppy and her band, President-elect Christine Kangaloo, and businessman Inshan Ishmael's lawsuit against calypsonian Weston "Cro Cro" Rawlins.
The freestyle semis saw Bruce edge out Snakey on the topic, Red woman is tears, with Bruce counting his misfortunes at the hands of each of three females, while Snakey in turn teasingly asked Bruce how he'd feel to find a man like Snakey, inside his home.
Snakey seemed to somewhat invoke the late Winston "Shadow" Bailey in his vocals and stage presence.
Likewise, earlier Davis seemed to channel Austin "Super Blue" Lyons in outfit and movement, although some viewers reckoned his conveyance in the basket of a crane was overkill, as were his three moko jumbies, one of whom fell in the drizzle onstage.
In the extempo final, London humorously sought to link the disappearance of steel beams from the Grandstand to a grocery being constructed in Mayaro by Peters,
