Who the hell is TC?

Ask that question in Barbados and everyone will know you’re a tourist. There, TC lords over her own special place on the local music scene. She is a household name and everyone has an opinion on her.

She’s constantly gossiped about, yet, while some small actions of hers become huge controversies, there’s always a small contingent that adores her consistently.

This year, TC, whose real name is Terencia Linette Coward Thompson (“No,” she tells All Woman, “Im not married I just use both my parents’ names,”) was the only woman to make the finals of the annual Pic O’ De Crop Song competition. The song competition is one of the main events in Barbados’ annual Crop Over festival. It generates interest, excitement, comments and criticism and this year was no different.

At last week’s Crop Over Carnival, however, a remarkable series of twists and shifts dropped TC in the middle of a controversy that she admits worked wonderfully in her favour. After the semi-final round of the competition, one of the eight finalists was disqualified, opening a gap for TC, the next highest scoring entrant and the only woman of the 25 semifinalists.

“Yes, man, this is her year, I think they will give her. Its many years she been entering y’know,” the waitress at the Silver Rock Hotel in Barbados told All Woman two nights before the competition. It turns out that this woman is a TC fan, and in her view, TC should have won the competition years ago. But she did not.

“It was because of her outfit,” said the waitress with mock seriousness. That year, even with Kim, the song that went on to be a huge chart buster, TC left the stage without a title, in one of the judges’ more controversial decisions that year.

“Plus,” the waitress added, “she’s a woman,” as if that fact would legitimise the explanation.

Being a woman in the male-dominated soca world is little more than a challenge for TC, who, with admirable resilience, has entered the competition eight times without winning a title.

“Being the only woman in a competition is not easy,” she explains. “In situations like that I always want to make sure that I give 110% because you always have someone saying, the women should have their competition separate from the men, but I don’t want that. Basically, I’m here to say, I can play with these boys.”

The ‘problem’ is that TC is The One That Doesn’t Fit, the artiste that makes really good music — but you can’t easily put her into any one category — she’s not into the wine up, wuk up, jump up thing. She’s more of the old school social commentary calypso – very conscious, passionate and powerful. She has been performing and recording calypso professionally for a little more than ten years, and has carved her niche, not just on the Barbados kaiso (calypso) scene, but in the soca world in general.

In Jamaica, TC is best known for the question — “Who the hell is Kim?”

From carnival time in 2000 straight back round to this year, 2003, even hard core dancehall fans were asking each other — “Who the hell is Kim?”

Even TC herself admits that that famous line has contributed to Kim being her biggest commercial hit to date. The song created shockwaves and we are still hearing ripples of it on local stations like Fame FM.

But there’s much more to TC than Kim.

“I have songs that have done well, but none as well as Kim,” she says with a smile. “Even so, I consider myself to be multi-faceted. Social commentary was what I did first, before I entered the party. I do ballads, and earlier this year I performed with Dionne Warwick in Divas in Concert, so there are so many sides to TC. I don’t ever want to pin myself.”

This Pic O’ De Crop, TC was at her finest, and catapaulted herself from the end of the pack straight into second place with two spirited performances at the finals. Her first song, Dem got me Vex was a chilling reproach of the war in Iraq, replete with a pyrotechnic simulation of the bombing and gunfire, while the second, I Can’t Take That, poked fun at the organisers of the festival, the judges and TC herself while decrying the failings of the Bajan government and society.

But as the screaming mob cheered the winner of the competition, veteran Calypsonian Red Plastic Bag, TC felt no loss, since for her, just being included this time around was a triumph.

“When I was named in second place on Friday, I said Thank God. I was so happy, because a week ago I was not a finalist. And a week before that, I was in a hospital bed with a drip in my hand, very, very ill – they almost had to operate on me – but I just told myself, today I’m here, and I’m going to make the most of it. This was my second chance to redeem myself, so I said, I can’t let this go, so I gave it my everything,” she said.

During our interview, TC is calm and composed, even though she’s just completed another stunning performance, this time at the festival’s Cohoblopot (Sunday before last), which is, as the name implies, a pot pourri of the season’s best costumes, songs and performances. On stage, two of Barbados’ hottest male acts are busy ‘wukkin up’ with a young woman who it seems appeared with the sole purpose of having the two wine up on her. Being as she calls herself, the “penultimate diplomat”, TC refuses to comment on their behaviour in particular, reserving her comments for the state of calypso in general.

“I think we Calypsonians have to present ourselves in a more professional manner, women as well, because many of us leave a lot to be desired, and very little to the imagination. More is not always best, because we can tone it down just a little,” she tells All Woman.

Some women in the business, she explained, feel compelled to fit into the ‘winer girl’ category, but not TC.

“No, I never went there,” she says pensively.

“I think that’s one of the reasons I’m not one of the most popular female performers in Barbados,” she admits with a laugh.

“You can present yourself and have a good time and people will enjoy you without your having to go there. That’s my opinion, I firmly believe that and I will stick by it.”

TC, who says her favourite Jamaican food is stew peas with pigtail and claims to cook ‘a mean ackee and saltfish’ was raised with 6 other siblings by a single mother in a government housing scheme in the Deacon’s Farm neighbourhood of Bridgetown, a rough area by any standard. Despite this, she says, good old fashioned values instilled from a young age guided and still channel her actions, even as a big woman.

“I was raised in a household without a father, and one thing my mother always said to us is that we may not have much, but we must always have pride. I’ve got nieces and nephews, I don’t want them to turn on the television and see me doing anything that is questionable. I want to be able to say to them, if I see them doing anything that is questionable, ‘you shouldn’t do that’ and not get a from them as a response, ‘well you do it’. That is really paramount and important to me.”

In any event, she adds, the only way to counter negativity is with positive messages and examples, and so, TC does what she does to encourage other women to forge their own path in the entertainment business.

“The way a lot of us portray ourselves, honestly, we don’t give anyone any encouragement to want to be a part of this thing. So I can understand parents for instance, telling their sons and daughters they need to find a job or a ‘real’ career.”

When she was starting, she says, she told her mother she wanted to be a calypsonian, but instead of receiving the usual support and encouragement, the reaction was less than ideal.

“She asked me if I was mad, she said, this isn’t what I sent you to school for! She was very disappointed, and it was only when things started to happen that she realized that I made the choice that suited me best,” TC recalled.

And now, TC does her thing, with pride, according to her rules, and while that may not win her prizes, she is still optimistic.

“I’m not stopping! I’ll be back next year, bigger, and better!” she says adamantly.

Her fans, too, are holding out for her name to be called as Pic O’ De Crop monarch.

Back at the Silver Rock, the waitress doesn’t seem fazed in the least by the judges’ decision to overlook the sole female finalist, but she too, is hopeful for the future.

“Next year, maybe next year. But I still love TC, and I know she’ll come again, she has to. They need a woman there, but when it’s her time, it will feel better than anything in the world because she’s had to wait this long,” she says.

Until next year, TC will be doing what she does best, making music than means something. But before that, some much-needed R&R is in order, and where do Bajan Calypsonians go for holiday?

“Hedonism III of course! It’s my favourite place to stay in Jamaica…”