Dr Danielle Brown, subject of the New York Emmy-nominated music documentary short Parang, says she is pleased by the positive responses to the film both from Trinidad and Tobago and the US.
Brown is an artist, scholar, and entrepreneur. She earned a doctorate in music from New York University with a concentration in ethnomusicology and specialisation in the music of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Soundtrack of life
In an e-mail interview with Newsday, she explained the Caribbean is in her blood.
"I grew up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, in a community of people mostly from the English-speaking Caribbean, Haiti, and Panama and their descendants. My parents are from Trinidad, so I grew up eating Trini food (roti, stew chicken, callaloo, etcetera). I grew up hearing Trinbagonian proverbs and folk tales (my dad was the best at scaring the pants off of us with stories of jumbies and the supernatural). Musically, I heard a lot of calypso, soca, reggae, and dancehall playing in the neighbourhood."
Brown said on reflection she was growing up at a time when a lot of music that remains popular today was in its infancy – hip hop, soca, and dancehall.
"These musics make up the soundtrack of my life. I don’t know if I thought too much about the music at that time, but I was learning a lot by listening, and they were all musics that I could identify with, musics that reflected me and my experiences."
Parang opens with Brown performing Golpe by TT parang group La Divina Pastora, which was shot at the 2018 Brooklyn Folk Festival, and during a discussion of Trinidad's diversity.
"Outside of TT people are not always aware of our diversity both with respect to people and music. Parang is an artform that is not as well-known as say calypso and pan. Parang was also the subject of my dissertation research, and so I like to pay homage to the artform that is just as much a part of my cultural heritage as calypso and steelpan.
"Like many, I admire Daisy (Voisin) and her body of work. I love Golpe in particular because of the bravado expressed in the lyrics. Here’s a song where Daisy, a woman, is singing in a tradition that was once male-dominated and where men would verbally brag and show off. And in the text, Daisy shows that she can do the same; she can hold her own. She can brag and show off just like the best of them. Don’t mind she’s a woman. She sings that she’s 'braver than a bull, more agile than a deer.' I love it. I’m from New York where we love a bit of 'trash talking.' (laughs). When I sing that song, I add my own verse to sort of big-up myself in that same tradition. To capture a little bit of that fiery spirit."
She began her set at the Brooklyn Folk Festival with the spiritual Wade in the Water and then Portrait of Trinidad (by Mighty Bomber), "a song my mother would sing often and that has special meaning to me."
During Parang there is also a scene of Brown performing Sparrow's classic Jean and Dinah.
"I like to say that my mother has a Sparrow song for every occasion. Jean and Dinah was one that my
