Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Dance­hall su­per­star Bee­nie Man has apol­o­gised for any mis­un­der­stand­ing caused by his com­ments about the ori­gins of Caribbean Car­ni­val, in­sist­ing that he was speak­ing from his per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence of the cel­e­bra­tions in Ja­maica.

The Gram­my-win­ning artiste, whose re­al name is Moses An­tho­ny Davis, is­sued a video state­ment af­ter spark­ing de­bate with claims that Ja­maica’s Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions pre­dat­ed those of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In the video, Bee­nie Man sought to clar­i­fy his re­marks, ex­plain­ing that he was re­fer­ring specif­i­cal­ly to the style of Car­ni­val he grew up ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in Ja­maica and the con­tri­bu­tion of leg­endary Ja­maican mu­si­cian By­ron Lee.

“I was just on­ly speak­ing about my ex­pe­ri­ence with Car­ni­val in Ja­maica and the role that By­ron Lee played in our Car­ni­val,” he said.

Bee­nie Man cred­it­ed Lee with in­tro­duc­ing the large mu­sic trucks, road march­es and street cel­e­bra­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with Ja­maica’s Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties.

“When it comes to our bash­ment and our type of Car­ni­val that we love, all it was brought to us by By­ron Lee,” he said.

He stressed, how­ev­er, that his com­ments were not in­tend­ed to di­min­ish Trinidad or cause of­fence, de­clar­ing that he had no ha­tred to­wards Tri­nis and loved them.

“I could nev­er ever come and steal away noth­ing from Trinidad. I don’t speak with Trinidad with hate. I love Trinidad,” he said.

He al­so ap­pealed to those who may have mis­un­der­stood his orig­i­nal com­ments not to in­ter­pret them as an at­tack on T&T’s Car­ni­val.

“If some­body would get me wrong, please don’t get me wrong,” he said, adding that Car­ni­val had ex­ist­ed long be­fore the cel­e­bra­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with Lee’s con­tri­bu­tion to Ja­maica’s en­ter­tain­ment scene.

The con­tro­ver­sy fol­lowed an in­ter­view dur­ing which Bee­nie Man as­sert­ed that Ja­maica start­ed Car­ni­val be­fore T&T.

“Over­all, trust me, due to By­ron Lee,” he said, while re­fer­ring to the mu­si­cian’s in­flu­ence on the Ja­maican cel­e­bra­tions.

He al­so sug­gest­ed that Lee’s con­tri­bu­tion dat­ed back ap­prox­i­mate­ly 60 years. The com­ments prompt­ed re­newed dis­cus­sion about the his­to­ry of Car­ni­val across the Caribbean, par­tic­u­lar­ly the dis­tinc­tion be­tween the ori­gins of the tra­di­tion­al fes­ti­val and the de­vel­op­ment of its mod­ern mu­si­cal and road-based cel­e­bra­tions.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val has deep his­tor­i­cal roots in the is­land’s colo­nial past, with tra­di­tions shaped by African cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion, eman­ci­pa­tion and the evo­lu­tion of mas­quer­ade, ca­lyp­so and steel­pan.

Lee, who died in 2008, was a ma­jor fig­ure in Caribbean mu­sic and helped pop­u­larise Ja­maican Car­ni­val through his mu­sic and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the cel­e­bra­tions.

Bee­nie Man end­ed his clar­i­fi­ca­tion with a mes­sage of love and re­spect, say­ing he hoped his ex­pla­na­tion would pre­vent fur­ther mis­un­der­stand­ing.