Manning feeling the kaiso heat

Keith Rowley is taking centre stage in Trinidad and Tobago this Carnival season with his former boss, Prime Minister Patrick Manning feeling the heat. They are the principal characters in the lyrics of the nation's top calypsonians.

After years of escaping their biting lyrics Manning is now hearing a different tune. And it's all because he kicked out one of his own. At least four calypsonians this year are gunning for Manning over his firing of Rowley.

Former Calypso Monarch Anthony “Allrounder” Hendrickson's hit is titled, “What you fire me for?” and Joanne “Tigress” Rowley is singing “You eh See Wajang Yet”, a reference to the term Manning used when he fired Rowley.

The calypso monarch for 1994 and 2006, Morel “Luta” Peters, is a big hit with “Dogbite” and “Mr Boom Boom”, both anti-Manning songs.

Allrounder is drawing the best reviews and getting encores as he takes on Manning over the Rowley affair.

“You named me the rottweiler, but now say I have no behaviour.
They tell me you building big hotel
And now you want to leave me in the kennel.

“Everybody asking the question, ‘What you fire me for?’
Anywhere I pass in the nation, ‘what you fire me for?

“You don’t want me to sing about Udecott,
You alone want to get all of the cut.

“When we was opposing, the man was so nice;
Now he dictating, with his friend’s advice.”

Allrounder's message to PM Manning is:

“Help your children first.
You have children all around, send something for them.
When you give them a helping hand,
then they will call you Father of the Nation.”

Former national ex-tempo champ Phillip “Black Sage” Murray, is going after Manning for his affluent lifestyle. “Good Leadership” advises Manning to:

“Eat what we does eat, join us in the street
Come down in the trenches,
you’ll perform much better. I
f you can only see how we suffering.”

Veteran calypsonian Brother Valentino implores Manning’ to:
“Wake up fast and open your eyes”.

Last year the artistes were after former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday who took a battering all through his years in and out office.

Sugar Aloes won the 2008 Calypso Monarch title and a half a million dollars in prize money with his mocking rendition of Panday's emotional "Look in the Mirror" speech on election night 2007 when he blamed COP Leader Winston Dookeran for causing the opposition defeat.