Trinidad and To­ba­go is the “Land of Ca­lyp­so”, the birth­place of the art form, as far back as the late 1800s (Gros Jean). We have heard the of­ten-used state­ment “By ca­lyp­so our sto­ries are told”, more so in Oc­to­ber which was of­fi­cial­ly de­clared Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month in 2002.

The theme of this year’s cel­e­bra­tions is “Ca­lyp­so: Mu­sic to Ed­u­cate, Em­pow­er and Em­brace our space in the world.”

Ca­lyp­so unites us as a so­ci­ety on many lev­els, as do so­ca, chut­ney so­ca, so­ca parang and rap­so, recog­nised art­ forms spawned by the orig­i­nal ca­lyp­so genre. Many have con­trib­uted to the de­vel­op­ment of the art ­form…writ­ers, mu­si­cians, pro­duc­ers, pro­mot­ers and, of course, the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, many of whom are im­mor­talised through their works.

In this the sec­ond of five in the se­ries, we look at snip­pets of the con­scious lyrics of some in­struc­tive ca­lyp­soes, ‘Mu­sic to Ed­u­cate, Em­pow­er and Em­brace our space in the world.’

PROGRESS, King Austin, 1980 (Wins­ford "Jok­er" Devine's com­po­si­tion):

To­day when I look around in the world, what do i see…

It is plain to see uni­ver­sal­ly this land is not boun­ti­ful as it was

Sim­ply be­cause in its quest for suc­cess

Noth­ing stands in man's way

Old rivers run dry, soon the birds wouldn't fly

The moun­tains will be no longer be high

And when I re­al­ly think of it

I does won­der why, oh why

I see char­i­ty de­plored, equal rights to­tal­ly ig­nored

Wis­dom and in­ge­nu­ity work­ing in ac­cord, sim­ply to af­ford

Such in­ven­tions as to­tal nu­clear war­fare and en­vi­ron­men­tal war­fare

And I won­der now, where do we go from here…

Time is run­ning out as we eat and drink species at the brink of be­ing ex­tinct

And I think no one can de­ny that the price of progress is high, re­al high

I've al­ready seen this world have come di­vid­ed be­tween race, colour, creed

and class

And some of the things the scrip­ture pre­dict truth­ful­ly come to pass

Soil that wouldn't bear

Chil­dren mak­ing chil­dren to be a part of this grow­ing mass

And I ask, if this is progress, how long will it last?

JA­HA­JI BHAI, Broth­er Mar­vin, 1995. Uni­ty mes­sage that politi­cians and the pop­u­la­tion at large will do well to learn from (in spite of the ca­lyp­so’s gen­er­al­i­sa­tion that ex­cludes oth­er promi­nent eth­nic­i­ties such as the Orig­i­nal Peo­ples, Chi­nese, Por­tuguese, An­glo, Mid­dle East­ern).

I am the seed of meh fa­ther

He is the seed of meh grand­fa­ther

Who is the seed of Bahut Ajah [great grand­fa­ther]

He came from Cal­cut­ta

Ah stick and ah bag on he shoul­der

He tur­ban and he kapra

So I am part seed of In­dia

The in­den­ture­ship and the slav­ery

Bind to­geth­er two races in uni­ty

Achcha dosti (good friend)

There was no more Moth­er Africa

No more Moth­er In­dia, just Moth­er Tri­ni

Jan­mab­hoo­mi (my home)

My Bahut Ajah plant­ed sug­ar­cane

Down in the Ca­roni plain

So Ram­lo­gan, Bas­deo, Prakash and I

Is Ja­ha­ji Bhai

Broth­er­hood of the boat, Ja­ha­ji Bhai

Broth­er­hood of the boat, Ja­ha­ji Bhai

I would be ah dis­grace to Al­lah

If I choose race, creed or colour

Bahut Ajah had to make that jour­ney

For I to have Zindagee [life]

So it is ah great priv­i­lege

To have such unique her­itage

Fifty per­cent Africa, fifty per­cent In­dia

RE­AL UNI­TY, Machel and Dru­patee, 1999/2000 (an­oth­er ca­lyp­so on na­tion­al uni­ty):

Well this one is about unit­ing a na­tion!

Why can't we all get along?

Why we fuss and fight?

Tonight we got to unite

Mis­ter Machel and Dru­patee

Wah yuh say?

Aap jaisa koi meri zinda­gi main aaye to baat ban jaye…

Hear me now! Say...

Noth­ing wrong with win­ing on a In­di­an girl

Noth­ing wrong with win­ing on a Chi­nee girl

Noth­ing wrong with win­ing on a African girl

Noth­ing wrong with win­ing on a Syr­i­an girl

Is huge uni­ty

Hear mih sto­ry...

Me eat­ing mih cur­ry from Har­ry­lal

Me in­vite him out to piece ah pelau

Leh we take a lit­tle jump in the bac­cha­nal

Take a chook and a wine in the Car­ni­val

------ and he eat­ing dumpling and dahl

Cur­ry crab, fry rice from de Chi­nee gyal

Now we take a trip down to the Port of Spain

Make a lit­tle stop by the Tex­tile King

Pret­ty in we cos­tume with plen­ty se­quin

'Cause yuh know we love we jump­ing, jump­ing

And that is re­al uni­ty [huge uni­ty].

Watch me now! Say!

Every creed and race, we jump­ing as one

Every creed and race could jump in a band

Love on an­oth­er, unite the na­tion

Prime min­is­ter, all politi­cian

Pres­i­dent, po­lice and al­so -------

Unite the na­tion, unite the na­tion!

----- mov­ing like ah big fam­i­ly

And that is re­al uni­ty [huge uni­ty].

--------- we jump­ing up in a band

Every sin­gle man and every woman

Arawak, Carib, Amerindi­an

Unite the na­tion, unite the na­tion,

Unite the na­tion, unite the na­tion!

Aap jaisa koi meri zinda­gi main aaye to baat ban jaye

Unite the na­tion, unite the na­tion!

Ahaan baat ban jaye…

Every­body hug up to­geth­er as one to­geth­er

And love yuh sis­ter and love yuh broth­er

We got to unite the na­tion, unite the na­tion!

Nass­er Khan is the au­thor of the book: He­roes, Pi­o­neers & Role Mod­els of Trinidad & To­ba­go, which is avail­able as a free down­load at www.sa­faripub­li­ca­tions.com/firstc­i­t­i­zen­stt/he­roe­spro­filestt/.