As I waited at a traffic light in front of the Hyatt and the Financial Centre (furniture warehouse), I was distracted by a group of Japanese tourists, all of them with hair like a cockatoo, trying to negotiate the long, painted gauntlet without being ground into road kill by our maniacal motorists. They sprinted across the busy intersection in the wake of one taxi driver's expletive vitriol that would make a sailor blush. I marvelled at their excitement in wielding their expensive Canon cameras in wonderment of this soaring skyline, incongruous with this country's global economic standing.
One exposure after the other, I wondered how long they would be allowed to keep these cameras before some eagle-eyed piper spotted them, lifting his matted head up from his morning ablutions in the waterfront fountain. I'd seen others strolling carelessly around the Queen's Park Savannah, in broad daylight no less! Skipping gaily in their wild abandon, absorbing the energising rays of the sun, as if this is some kind of country where you could just walk about freely, exploring the sights and sounds of this strange land. Never one to pee in the punch bowl, I say let them be infused with the full range of the Trini experience! From beating the steel drums in a panyard to catchin' a beating from one of our many youthful welcome wagons.
As I observe these chapsticked, sun lotion-lathered foreigners conducting their reconnaissance missions before the big weekend, I have finally come to accept that this annual festival is a pretty big deal. It does not matter how watered down and culturally vapid it is...us time fighters have to give up the ship; release this tenacious, kung-fu grip on antiquated ideas of what constituted Carnival, when it was pronounced "Carnival." In his time, the Mighty Sparrow was buffeted by strident opposition to what was then condemned as a deleterious revolution in the calypso art form. Sparrow was hitching intensely cerebral yet easily absorbed lyrics to buoyant rhythms that changed the face of calypso for all time.
In this epochal transition, he was rising above the status quo of: Bam! Bam!...baddaddadam!... "well I come to tell you about my sweet country...right here we living in the land of plenty..."
His music was also derided as smut, immoral verse to pervert the weak. Consider the lyrical genius of Sparrow's The Congo Man: "I envy the Congo man,/ I wish it was me I woulda shake he hand,/ He eat until he stomach upset,/ But I? Never eat a white meat yet." Now compare that to contemporary tripe like, "When dem gyal start winin' up,/ I winin' on all dey box!" The public is, however, inured to the insidious influence of the, by now, well established single entendre. Today, Sparrow is revered as the master of the calypso art form, now only abiding concerns of social anthropologists as far as the radio stations are concerned. It is entirely overshadowed by soca, and none of that music bears repeating after Ash Wednesday.
Recently I listened to a radio station playing a sponsored "soca classic: "Moving to the left is de name of de song, movin' to de rite you can never go wrong..." That song was rubbish then and like fine boxed wine, it gets worse with age. Granted, the radio stations are populated with "DJs" who have only recently begun walking upright and have, at best, a tenuous grasp on the English language. Finding a song that would constitute a soca classic before 1995 could very well provoke a brain aneurysm, given that most of them were probably five years old at the time. If you are to seriously offer such a song for consideration it would have to come from SuperBlue, Preacher, or Shadow. Do you remember Shadow's Ease The Tension? Man I get chills just thinking about it!
Still, all is not lost. Having spent hours in traffic, snarled mainly by people leaving work early to collect costumes or to start the pre-all-inclusive lime...lime, I had the great fortune of hearing a track recorded by an artiste called Blaxx. Carnival Jumbie is easily the most lyrically riveting soca tune on air today. He conjures imagery of being assaulted by this malevolent force...the jumbie, while in the throes of Carnival ecstasy. "Boodoop, waddap... boodoop waddap waddap...the only time ah gettin' de feelin' is when ah beatin' de puncheon oi eee oi!" It is absolutely brilliant! One disappointment though. This track is recorded on what the kids are calling a "riddim." This means other soca songs can be heard riding the very same melody used by Blaxx for this very inventive song. So as far as musical originality goes, he gets a zero for that. Well I guess you can't have it all.
Most might be surprised to hear me say this, but I am excited to see the mas return to the Savannah, notwithstanding the egregious offence to aesthetic sensibilities imposed by those two monoliths erected to accommodate the thousands of spectators. What can you do? You can't very well green it up with a giant bamboo pavilion. This is where there will be a concentration of colour, dizzying contrasts in the imagery created by the application of varied materials, shiny bits, gaudy feathers, glitter-dusted skins and Brian McFarlane's bed sheet crew breaking up the pattern of what will essentially be one conglomerated mas band (Brian, I know you will take that in the spirit in which it was intended, or at least the spirit which you think is most appropriate.)
So what if most of the music is an international embarrassment! One must digest the spectacle as a whole and resist the urge to ruminate on the minor details. OK, so Ravi B did something incredibly stupid and patently pre-meditated, but chutney music is on a growth trajectory that cannot be denied. Very soon this artform will take its rightful place alongside soca as some of the most abominable music this country is capable of producing! Nothing, of course, can outshine the majesty of pan! Nothing except, perhaps, a couple recalcitrant DJs and a North Stand chock-a-block with completely indifferent patrons. That, however, has always been the trend though. The Grand Stand is primarily concerned with who is who on the stage and the North Stand is pre-occupied with who is who in the North Stand.
That, folks, is all part of who we are and what Carnival is. The spirit of Carnival will prevail; evolution aside, it continues to express our aspirations as a people, forged in the crucible of experiences as a developing nation. For some, it will always be the two days out of the year when it is perfectly acceptable to get completely blotto wearing nothing but a bikini or quite alright to sleep in a grimy canal without being scooped up by Louis Lee Sing's vagrant hunting party. For most I suspect, even for those who want no part of it, Carnival is an inimitable manifestation of the soul of our people. Have a great Khannival! Be safe out there and ladies...do not accept any offers of "a safe place to pee."