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Scholar”
Finley Jeffrey
Scholar was born into a family of composers and singers, his father being one of the most celebrated Chantuelles of the Short Knee mass and his elder brother being no slouch either. In fact, Scholar’ s composing career began just as his father’ s. At the age of nine, he was the Chantuelle of his own Short Knee band and together with his brother, wrote all the chants.
At the age of ten he began writing calypsos for junior artists but never mustered the courage to brace the stage himself. At the age of sixteen, a failed attempt to join the Black Roots Calypso Tent left him believing that he was simply no good and as a show of exasperation mingled with disappointment, he burnt his notebook which contained every song that he had composed to that point.
His lucky break would come in February 1993, when he registered for the Independence Calypso Competition. In those days calypsonians taped their songs on a cassette and submitted it. Being a teacher at Mac Donald College at the time, he taped the song one afternoon after school in one of the Form rooms. Thinking that he was no good, and not wanting anyone to know that this was him, he decided not to write his name on the cassette.
The brand name of notebook that he had written the calypso in was SCHOLAR and so he wrote that on the cassette and submitted it. He completely forgot what he had written on the cassette and not expecting to be selected he did not bother. Two weeks later when the finalists were called and Scholar was named as one of them he did not know that it was him. Luckily the person who dropped off the cassette remembered. That was where the name came from.