Culture Matters

DARA E HEALY

Mih great-great-grandmother then said to me

Bomber, darling, "The best things in life are free."

So I hire a truck and went down by Courts

Looking for the best things of every sort

I pick up a computer, well, how you mean?

Radio, video, stereo, TV, washing machine

And when the store manager confronted me

I say, "Partners, the best things in life are free."

But they call the police and lock up mih tail

And they give me some free years in the Royal Jail.

Oh mih lord-o! I wanna fall! Sing it out, girls!

- Mighty Bomber, Proverbs

IN 1921, when Railway Douglas put up a bamboo tent to host calypso performances, he could not have known how this simple act would influence the calypso history of our nation. Charging a penny to patrons, the kaiso tent provided a space to showcase music that would impact the world.

From Atilla the Hun to Tiger, Pretender and Lord Executor, calypsonians of the 1930s set the standard for calypso commentary. They were part of an early movement of resistance to colonial attempts to silence calypso defiance.

However, the passage and subsequent amendment of laws like the Theatres and Dance Hall Ordinance did not stop calypsonians such as Pharaoh from singing The Governor Tall, Tall, Tall in 1948. In the late 1940s, Commissioner of Police Muller attempted to frustrate Atilla as a tent manager by issuing performance licences on a daily basis, rather than for the season.

Always defiant, it is said that amidst consistent attacks on calypso, one night Atilla extemporised, 'There are police spies sitting around/Taking shorthand notes of my song/But I can tell them independently/That they can tell their masters for me/Never mind what measures are employed/Kaiso is art and cannot be destroyed/And centuries to come I'd have them know/People will still be singing kaiso.'

These qualities of resistance and resilience are the foundation on which the practitioners of the art form who transitioned this year built their own craft. Calypsonian Bomber with his unbelievable wit and extempo flair. Explainer with his sensitivity and genuine love for his homeland as demonstrated in the lyrical song Lorraine. Kenny J who effortlessly straddled different musical genres. And Black Stalin who had an enduring belief in the ordinary people of TT and the Caribbean to determine their own path. This conviction shone through in Black Man Feeling to Party, where he returned dignity to black love and the reputation of black men.

I believe that for them, Carnival was their 'dynamic centre of energy,' to borrow a phrase from Gordon Rohlehr. But if Carnival gave these calypso giants energy, then soca was the fuel of life for another remarkable artist. Blaxx consistently inspire