In the his­to­ry of mu­sic, there have been com­po­si­tions that are clas­sics. Re­gard­less of ori­gin, these pieces have en­dured be­cause of their pop­u­lar­i­ty and their abil­i­ty to ap­pease the ear of the lis­ten­er time and time again. Time­less­ness, then, is one char­ac­ter­is­tic of the clas­sics.We have many kaisoes that could meet the stan­dards of a clas­sic. We have had sev­er­al kaiso­ni­ans who have met those stan­dards but the Mighty Shad­ow stands way above the rest.

No oth­er kaison­ian is as orig­i­nal as Shad­ow. No one else has the in­tel­lec­tu­al ca­pac­i­ty to take com­plex sub­jects like mu­sic, self-es­teem, pover­ty, and in­spi­ra­tion and present them in such lis­ten­er-friend­ly modes. Who else is so pro­lif­ic in com­po­si­tions and al­ways ap­pears to be com­fort­able with the chang­ing en­vi­ron­ment? Shad­ow has not fad­ed over the years; in fact, he seems to be al­ways ris­ing. He is the icon of Kaisodom.

Con­sid­er some of his clas­sics:-

Bass­man: Every mu­si­cal ge­nius can tell you about a spir­it with­in them that in­spires their mu­sic. Shad­ow calls his Farell from Hell. Shad­ow, of course, was on­ly re­flect­ing on his mu­si­cal ge­nius. This song sig­nalled the ap­pear­ance of a bright new star in the kaiso world.

Pover­ty is Hell: UWI so­cial sci­en­tists who want to un­der­stand pover­ty should study this song. If you are now or ever were poor, you would be able to iden­ti­fy with the gut-wrench­ing con­di­tions that he has so del­i­cate­ly put in­to song. It al­so mo­ti­vates you to be­come your broth­ers' keep­er. Hid­den in the song is a poignant cry for help on be­half of the poor.

Every­body is Some­body: Every psy­chol­o­gist or coun­sel­lor should have this as their theme. Ob­vi­ous­ly, some­one who writes such a song has med­i­tat­ed deeply and has a great love for hu­man­i­ty. This kaiso is one of the few that has been in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised in a film, Lean on Me, star­ring Mor­gan Free­man.

But the clas­sic of the clas­sics has to be Din­go­lay. This must be the great­est kaiso ever writ­ten in the his­to­ry of kaiso! Could any­one else take the com­plex sub­ject of mu­sic and present it so beau­ti­ful­ly? The rhythm is so in­fec­tious that even old ladies and small ba­bies would find it hard not to dance. Is there an­oth­er kaiso so melo­di­ous? Can any­one else match the pow­er­ful lyrics: Mu­sic got no friend, no en­e­my?

If kaiso were to be ap­pre­ci­at­ed by the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, then Shad­ow will be the on­ly kaison­ian (ex­cept maybe Rud­der) to win a No­bel Prize.Thank you, Mr Win­ston Bai­ley, for your most beau­ti­ful kaisoes. I'm so glad that you didn't give up kaiso to plant peas in To­ba­go. It is so dis­heart­en­ing that, de­spite the prophet that you are, you haven't been ap­pro­pri­ate­ly recog­nised in your own land.

Patrick Jadoo