By Tiffny Rhodius
For Tennicia De Freitas, calypso started out as “something different.” Now, according to the Junior Calypso Monarch, it is love. “I intended to try something different and now I love it,” De Freitas, 18, told Stabroek News in a recent interview, where she admitted that she initially took on calypso singing to challenge herself. “You don’t find young people into calypso like this so I think I will continue and make a difference,” she added.
De Freitas entered her first calypso competition when she was a Third Form student at Christ Church Secondary. Upon noticing that they did not have a participant for the children’s calypso competition, “I spoke to the headmistress who thought it was a good idea and then I came to my manager who said it was a brilliant idea.” She was then moulded by her manager-Kross Kolor Records boss Burchmore Simon. “He said he’s going to train me and work with me and teach me everything that I should know then to enter the competition,” De Freitas explained.
Simon took De Freitas under his wings back in 2005. De Freitas remembers her first encounter with him. She said she was in a singing competition presented by Kross Kolor, competing alongside soca singer Big Red and crooner Ossie O when she was noticed. “When he heard my voice he said ‘young lady you have a wonderful voice and I want to work with you,’” she recalled.
De Freitas was lost for words. Eventually, after meeting with her mother, Simon made an ambitious declaration that has since proven true. “He promised my mom that he would help me be very successful in this business and he took me in as his own daughter since then.” De Freitas said of working with him, “It’s like a dream come through. He is the best manager, father [figure] anybody can ask for…he listens to you and then gives his opinion and that’s what I like about him.”
De Freitas has worked hard. And it has paid off. She was a three time consecutive first place winner not only in Georgetown, but at the National Level. From the children’s competition, she entered the junior calypso competition last year and placed third. This year, her catchy entry, “I don’t want to be born,” landed her the crown.
Speaking about her winning song, De Freitas said that performing the song got to her “I felt every single word of that song,” she explained. The song selection was no random decision, she added, saying it was chosen because it was felt that people would relate to it more. And for the singer, there was a deep connection as well. “Imagine what these young people are going through?” she says, “Who would want to be born in this?”
The song tells of a baby who is due to be born but does not want to come out of his mother’s womb, after seeing the world through her eyes. It says, “Mama I so afraid of tomorrow.” The song addresses issues affecting young people, like teenage pregnancy (“Sixteen and uneducated and mah papa he went away…”), unemployment (“So many graduates from UG but no jobs no future they see…”) and teenage crime (“So many dropout lime on de road…so many want to be like fineman or a kingpin like Roger Khan”) in addition to national issues like race (“Because ya dark de treat me with scorn”) and corruption (“How can a customs man have five cars, a house and a Prado van after he working one year tell me…”).
After winning, De Freitas’ song gained major play on local radio and persons can often be heard singing along to the catchy chorus. “I feel great when people tell me they identify me and say they like the song. It tells me that they feel what I felt when I performed it,” said De Freitas, who is also bemused by the public attention she received after her win. While shopping recently, she was “flocked” by vendors after someone identified her as the calypso winner. She was made to give a live performance of her song.
The wave of success from her recent win at the junior calypso competition is nowhere near cresting as she looks to next year’s competition to defend her title. However, immediately this year is expected to be the busiest for the young songstress. At last week’s Senior Calypso semi-finals in Blairmont, De Freitas debuted ‘Sing Tennicia, Sing,’ which is a collection of all the calypsos she has performed.
Additionally, she is working on stamping her name in the Reggae and R&B genres, while juggling web designing lessons at her “home away from home” Kross Kolor Records. When she is not there, she is flexing her wrists in steel pan music with the Parkside Steel Orchestra, for which she plays double tenor.
Looking ahead, De Freitas is “hoping, planning, wishing” for a scholarship, in order to further her music career.
