Shalleike overcomes her ‘beef’

HERE’s a 2020 vision — Shalleike Hazell as National Calypso Monarch. Save for her height and age, Shalleike could have found a place right among this year’s Dimanche Gras finalists Chalkdust, Cro Cro and Singing Sandra. The eight-year-old’s outstanding performance of Larry Harewood’s “Barking Beef” earned her the 2005 Junior Calypso Monarch title. Like a seasoned calypsonian she had the footwork in perfect timing, and antics all her own. This was the same little girl, who at age four expressed her dislike for singing calypso. She is asthmatic and had developed a cough during her rendition at the NYAC Pioneers competition, much to her annoyance.

That was the past and now she is having fun, singing picong in song and making the adults laugh. She came back from fifth place last year to take the crown in only her second year at the competition. The polite and well-spoken youngster did not even know she won the competition until her sister, 2004 title-holder Sheynnene, drew it to her attention. Shalleike said: “I thought that they forgot my name and I told Sheynnene. But I feel very excited and proud.” The results were called in the order of last to first. At home they call her “the calypso child,” her father Stedman said. “She likes calypso and soca. Long time, when she was a baby, she used to come over in our bed in the night and we would feel the bed moving. It was Shalleike jumping up and down, in the bed, waving a rag to some soca song on the radio.”

She has been an eager spectator, for many years, at numerous calypso events in which each of her sisters (Shenilee, Steychelle and Sheynnene) participated. According to her mother Michelle, Shalleike is a keen observer and as a result of “being around her sisters and seeing them and other calypsonians too, practising and rehearsing,” she has learned a lot. So the grunting and barking that accompanied the words, were all Shalleike’s idea. “She said ‘mummy, yuh know I could give a lil bark, and then a lil growling for that part.’ And the footwork, that’s her style,” Michelle said. “Shalleike sang in first place and came first. And it’s funny because she didn’t want to sing in the no one spot and before the competition she came to me and said: “Mummy, I’m going and practise ‘cause I want to set the pace for them,” Michelle laughed.

Shalleike is also this year’s Eastern Credit Union Junior Monarch. One of the top students in her class (Standard Three) at Melville Memorial AC School, Belmont, Shalleike said preparing for the calypso competition “was not hard,” despite receiving a verse mere days before the big day. There was no need to stay up late hours in the night learning her lines because Shalleike’s a quick learner and is very receptive. She said garlic and vinegar was her mother’s concoction used to preserve her voice for the competition. “I like the Chinese part,” she said when questioned about her calypso.

While she expressed her fondness for singing humourous social commentary, she also liked listening to soca and her favourites for this year were Shurwayne Winchester’s “Dead or Alive” and Destra’s “Seasons Yours.” During her Carnival week off from school Shalleike spent her days “doing chores, playing and watching TV shows like Lizzie McGuire, That’s So Raven and The Proud Family.”