NCF CEO Rules Out Two-Song Format and Semi-Finals for Pic O De Crop Competition

The National Cultural Foundation (NCF) will not be going back to the two-song format nor the semi-finals of the premier competition, the Pic O De Crop.

Chief executive officer Carol Roberts, in an exclusive interview with this newspaper, said there were different elements at play with this decision.

“The content leaves much to be desired. With regard to social commentary, tent managers have had writers’ workshops. We, too, have had writers’ workshops and I say publicly that the uptake of them has been less than satisfactory. So you can’t be surprised that you get what you get on the night.”

Reflecting on August 2, the night of the Finals at the National Botanical Gardens in Waterford, St Michael, she said: “The technical stuff notwithstanding, there was much work to be done.

“All the talk about what is fitting for the 50th and what is not fitting for the 50th, look at the Pic O De Crop content . . . there’s work to be done. A whole year of topics – politics, world situations, little things at home, all the rest . . . . Look at the content on Finals night.”

Roberts said there needed to be solid reasons for a two-song competition and even a semi-final to be brought back into the Crop Over calendar.

“What will be the reason for going back to the semi-finals and a two-song final? All we will have is just more of that undesirable content. I’m using my words very guardedly.

“If the issue is the quality of the songs – and I’ve heard so-called experts on the Fireworks programme positing this – if the issue is the quality of the songs . . . and what you’re doing right now is taking the best 18. So, if you bring back the semi-finals, all you will end up with – and the best 18 is sub-par – all you will end up with would be more sub-par songs.”

President of the Barbados Association of Creatives and Artistes, Sean Carter, said members wanted a return of the semi-finals.

“The one-song format is widely accepted but calypsonians are calling for a semi-final because they think the quality of the Finals will improve if it is held. They’re of the view that some people don’t have the experience and can’t handle the big leap from the tent to the Finals’ stage.

“There are definitely still calls for the semi-finals but not for the two-song competition, as most of the guys are satisfied with the one-song format,” he said.

The NCF decided on a one-song competition in 2019 [won by Classic with One Song].

Roberts said putting two songs back on stage would be a waste of NCF funds.

“It is not enough to just spend more money to adjudicate more among a pool of talent that requires work. In 2019 it was costing us $400 000, so it’s probably costing exponentially more to showcase talent that has not had any treatment. The issue is the quality.

“Again, not a situation that is solved by throwing money at it. Increasing the price money won’t help. Increasing the subvention to tents won’t help. We need to be sitting down and doing the work. I don’t want to use the term training . . . but developmental work, inspirational work, has to be done,” she said candidly.

However, Roberts said that what constituted good music was up to the listener.

“Music is highly, highly subjective. I look at songs that have the ability or lack the ability – if it’s calypso, social commentary – to capture your imagination, paint a picture, tell you about a moment or time in history, recall a situation while entertaining me and making me laugh and just marvel at things like arrangement and the beautiful use of language.

“I think of soca music as being able to just make me move, make me smile – happy music – leave a hook line in my head I just can’t get rid of . . . and that the combination of the melody and the words are so beautifully simple, but yet resonate with me over time that they are equally the embodiment of who I am as a Caribbean person.

“I see traditional calypso as my story – either my story as in what I lived through this year, my story as it is taking me back to yesteryear, my story in terms of values or concerns or controversies that affected me in my region.”

Therefore, going outside of Barbados with Crop Over music means needing proper songs, she stressed.

“My concern is the fact that we talk about wanting to export our music, but yet we are still, to my mind, a little too mired in parochial things. So post-Crop Over, where you’re looking for songs that you can export, then the list shortens significantly and that’s where more work needs to be done.

“We’ve done some work coming out of not having the Soca Monarch competition, where we committed that we were going to work with artistes and we’ve done that and we’ve got a decent crop of songs, but you can’t stop there. There’s more work to be done.”

Roberts said all had to come to the table and work needed to be done at the NCF, across the sector, among the stakeholders, some of the parallel agencies and partnering agencies as well.