The mood at Kaiso House's opening on Monday night wasn't somber or restrained. The boys and girls went at it vigorously enough, and the audience was appropriately, if politely, raucous when required, but overall the event lacked a certain zing, or sting, of previous years.
As expected, the government was underfoot for most of the night: Life Sport, Seetahal murder, oil spills, Point Fortin highway, and even the Kublalsingh diet (aka the "hunger fast") got trampled, but one got the distinct impression that the combatants were battle weary. This was most evident in the usually reliably queasy Karene Asche's appearance in a choir gown, tiara, and belting out a gospelly number, Every Knee Shall Bow, which named no names, or made no crude racial references. Even the crowd was not as thirsty for hot-sauce as in previous years–surprising at any time but especially in an election year.
Following the politics, the smut was sallow–Brown Boy's Captain Rowley vs Penny hung on one verb: "lick", as in "so-and-so lick-up so-and-so", up and down in Oropouche, and environs. Lady Aisha's Plus-Size Lover seemed familiar and tame, and Snakey's Cyar Rhyme was a simple statement of fact–hearing those lyrics, I didn't want him to.
What could the matter be with calypso? It's almost as if it's suddenly dawned on calypsonians that they aren't telling anyone anything they don't already know, and the people they're cussing (the government) aren't listening and don't care. A realisation might be dawning that the whole enterprise is more Sisyphean than Promethean. Or it might be PTSD.
Existential dilemmas notwithstanding a few bright sparks raged against the dying of the light. Allan Welch, whose Soil Technician got a fair amount of attention last year, fired the first live round of the with his Confused Global Warming. As the planet is heating up, all we hear about in Trinidad is things going cold, like the former fiery politicians who have gone decidedly cool, as have the trails of various scandals–like the Seetahal murder investigation, Life Sport, and Calder Hart. Clever, but too thin and light for these tense, heavy times which really require gallows humour, which no one seems to have the chops for.
Black Sage was less subtle on the same theme with Banditism–"we could write new chapters in the bandit book. The highest office of the land have crook", from maxi-drivers ripping off passengers, gang leaders getting contracts, a programme called "life sport" which should be called "death sport", even "this constitution reform is a nice way to steal ah election". But all this in a tone more plaintive than polemical, not to mention yawn, already seen and heard.
Chucky and Mr Shak brought the energy, but could not trigger explosions. Shak's trademark forcefulness has not waned. Unfortunately, and I have to say, through no fault of his own, he sang much the same song he did last year, only with different lyrics. Instead of Bois and a stickfighter get-up, this year, Shak, armed with a machine gun and a black leather coat and gloves, sang, "music is my weapon. I'm a kaiso hitman", but he hit all the same notes. It's not his fault since nothing has really changed since last year: the scandals have different faces, but they're the same in content and form.
A sharper, subtler sortie came from Chucky, whose The Rose changed the angle, screaming the "PP dead", but not the PM, since "corruption rife and it burning the nose but the PM come out smelling like a rose." Staying on the PP, Bunny B went outside of Trinidad with Multi Crisis, asking the Prime Minister, apropos of her statement at the UN about ISIS, "You have the Ramlogan/Anil/Rambachan crisis right here. Why you going and tackle Isis over there?" Not only that, he said, the PP also had the "two most notorious racist who say all Muslim must perish".
He did name said racists, but libel laws being what they are, they can't be named here.
Mudada tempered his usual understated key with a despairing Nobody Ent See; a long steups at the communities where "if you want to see tyre burnin' just say police comin,'" but when bandits kill someone, "nobody ent see". The same self-attenuation was true of Duane O'Connor who shifted his gaze with Stand Strong, noting that trade union strikes were old hat, having been displaced by the new, re-designed hunger strike. The striker merely sits outside the PM's office, then "eat a bake and shark in Maracas Bay then go home and come back the next day". O'Connor wrestles with elaborate long lines, having so much to say, but economy (four-foot lines) and wit would have said more.
The indispensable race issue was also subject to the diminuendo of the proceedings. Gary Cordner, in his reality, in the middle of the romping over the sex tape, Room 201, Seetahal, and so forth, managed to get in: "when I see land distribution on the plantation, I see none for the African and Mousi, mousa and bhowji living off the treasury."
A counterpoint was provided by the current Minister of Community Development, Winston Peters, aka Gypsy, with his Black Man You Crazy, a kind of a later canto to Little Black Boy. Leaving childish subjects and looking at the big people, says Gypsy: "What to tell black people again I don't know. Somehow black people don't like black people at all...The black man's destiny is to be the black man's enemy".
At that point someone shouted, "You singing bout youself!" And indeed Gypsy mentioned himself in his encore, when he eulogised Allyson Demas, deposed head of the NCC, supposedly axed because she was "black". Well, he would know, being in the Cabinet and all.
Of the show itself, Tommy Joseph held down the fort with his usual tongue-depressor wit, but the management needs improvement. It was about an hour too long; if you start by 8, the crowd should be walking out by 12, if you want the audience to actually enjoy it and not suffer through the last hour. And of the audience sneaking out it's worth noting that the last half of the show contained some of the strongest performances. Genelle Bharat's Chords, which included a steelpan segment, and Spicy's The Advice deserve better placement which they could get if the first five singers were cut, which they should be, along with Tommy's assistant MC, who should be reminded that being funny is a requirement for the job, not optional.