One day, I’ll be a blogger with timely posts. However, that’s a goal, which means I’m nowhere near that status yet. Which is why, my dear readers, I am posting about the November 30 Battle Quiz between the Alliance Françaises of Jamaica and Trinidad five days later.
Anybody reading this who attended the quiz knows that it was a night of laughter and triumph. But I’m jumping ahead of myself. The topic for the night was music, so we had to answer 30 questions after listening to clips from soca, reggae, dancehall, zouk and some French music. And naturally, what battle would be complete without epic, suspenseful music to set the tone for the evening?
Admittedly, it started out rocky for the Jamaican team, with Trinidad in the lead during the first 6 questions. Followed by bouncing back and forth for the next 3 questions. This brings me to the honourable mention of the night. If we remember the Apéro and the Jamaican team’s hypeman, then we should’ve expected the AFJ Director to bring the energy. I’m glad to say he did not disappoint. Larry Lamartinière did in fact show up with a Jamaican flag to wave in support of his country. May I remind you from my last post that he’s Jamaican on the inside. He brought his Flag Man Energy to the match. And as much as I want to make fun of him for it, even I have to admit that it probably worked. By question 15 (out of 30) Jamaica was in the lead. In fact, said Flag Man Energy was firing on all cylinders that night because even I was doing better. At one point during the quiz, I had a 4-answer winning streak. Overall, I came in 9th place, a huge improvement from my 16th place at the Apéro. Which means that statistically, my victory is coming (at least, I hope that’s how statistics work).
Regardless of how Caribbean you think you are, unless you were extremely lucky, nobody could get every answer of that quiz. Some answers were pretty obvious depending on the country you’re from, your general knowledge of music and if you have working eyes (some of the answers were literally right in front of us). However, Larry raised an excellent point. We can’t know all of the answers. But the secondary purpose of the quiz (behind trying to win and having fun doing it) was to expose us to music that’s out there. Music that some of us may have never heard of otherwise. Therefore, once you’ve recovered from the high of victory or the initial ass-kicking, you walk away with a playlist as either your bonus or consolation prize.
The Flag Man Energy did its job because Jamaica came in 1st and 3rd place, the winner taking home 16,919 points. And there is only one thing I can say to conclude this post. See you at the semi-finals Trinidad.
