Michelle Loubon

Past a por­trait of Queen Eliz­a­beth II and Prince Phillip-T&T roy­al­ty/Project Run­away 2011 win­ner- Anya Ay­oung Chee-was cel­e­brat­ing her fash­ion line To­ba­go Love. The press con­fer­ence for the daugh­ter-of-the soil took place at Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel, St Ann's, on No­vem­ber 12. The night be­longed to Bel­mont-born son-of-the-soil Elsworth James, CEO of In­ter­na­tion­al Caribbean Busi­ness Fair (ICBF). The venue was Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, Tu­na­puna. Seiz­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty, James launched his CD Hid­den Par­adise-ded­i­cat­ed to To­ba­go. Among those present were Min­is­ter of To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin. Join­ing James, were the To­ba­go/Rox­bor­ough Folk Per­form­ers.

Swing­ing their hips, as sweet songs flowed from their lips, they cre­at­ed what James de­scribed as "a colour­ful and hap­py mo­ment. "They were tru­ly a de­light from To­ba­go. It was the high­light of the Ex­po." Even James showed he could tan­go with a bit of the heel-and-toe. He gave the com­mand, "Draw the bow, Mr Fid­dler." The au­di­ence lapped it up. Hid­den Par­adise's lyrics apt­ly cap­tured the ge­og­ra­phy of To­ba­go-nam­ing pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tions like Ply­mouth's Mys­tery Tomb, Buc­coo Reef and Ar­gyle Wa­ter­fall. James said he al­ways loved To­ba­go since his wife Mar­garet was born in De­laford. He paid trib­ute to her as "the en­gine," and "my spine." Mar­garet James is ICBF op­er­a­tions and mar­ket­ing man­ag­er. She said: "We worked hard. Af­ter 32 years with her, Mar­garet is a cham­pi­on. She is a work­horse. She is a moth­er, a wife and a car­ing per­son. She is the main rea­son To­ba­go is so spe­cial to me."

He paid trib­ute to Al­leyne-Top­pin by pre­sent­ing her with Hid­den Par­adise. She thanked her for sup­port­ing him "through his tri­als in the cul­ture/busi­ness in­dus­try". James said: "She has al­ways been a true friend to us. We ap­pre­ci­ate her. She's a gem." A de­part­ment-All Things To­ba­go-had set up shop. As ex­pect­ed, it car­ried Sylvia's Foods with the fa­mous cur­ried crabs and dumplings.

Cul­tur­al mix at Ex­po

Be­fore debonair James mount­ed the stage, guests and prospec­tive buy­ers were en­ter­tained by a cadre of singers. Among the bat­tery of per­form­ers were Twig­gy, Shaq, Broth­er Re­sis­tance, Valenti­no, Bri­an Lon­don, Crazy and Gyp­sy. The Sun­day parang lime was a fit­ting pre­cur­sor to the Christ­mas sea­son. While the fo­cus was on shop­ping, James said: "I asked my en­ter­tain­ers to gimme a bligh. I gave all the artistes an hon­o­rar­i­um in ap­pre­ci­a­tion for what they were do­ing for me. They were de­serv­ing."

Pi­o­neer Pro­mo­tions

James built up a for­mi­da­ble rep­u­ta­tion as a pro­mot­er ex­tra­or­di­naire in the Caribbean and North Amer­i­can di­as­po­ra. Re­flect­ing on 27 years of dili­gence and dis­ap­point­ments, James said: "I have gone through the pains and suf­fer­ing in mar­ket­ing and pro­mot­ing the cul­ture." Pat­ting him­self on the back, James laid claim for be­ing a trail­blaz­er in pi­o­neer­ing. From his Toron­to, Cana­da base he was able to suc­cess­ful­ly mar­ket events on shows like Sal­ly Jesse and Jer­ry Springer.

Dip­ping in­to his funds, James said: "I spent about CDS $2,250 on ads. I was able to mar­ket the shows and that is how peo­ple got to know what artistes like Stal­in looked like. They were not just hear­ing them. They go to (know them) by face." He has worked with artistes like Machel Mon­tano, Bun­ji, KMC, Iw­er George and Ajala (Kei­th Suther­land). "I broke out a lot of artistes in Cana­da. I have worked with Dil-E-Nadan and Triveni. I have worked with the late Anand Yankaran, Roar­ing Li­on and Kitch. I have worked with David Rud­der, Aja­mu and Swal­low (An­tigua)."

About Elsworth James

Pri­or to his ven­ture in­to the busi­ness as­pect of cul­ture, James sang gospel at Gospel Hall, in his na­tive Bel­mont. In 1968, he start­ed to sing with the group Suc­ces­sion. James said: "I won the Pop Gear (at Scar­let Ibis, St Au­gus­tine) with my cousin Jer­ry James. They called me the lo­cal Ot­tis Red­ding. I liked his songs like Dock on The Bay." The de­sire to sing ca­lyp­so was la­tent. In 1973, he burst in­to the ca­lyp­so are­na with Dis Is Ca­lyp­so. "The mu­sic stayed on the charts for 16 weeks. It ig­nit­ed a spark for ca­lyp­so," he said. In 1979, he made his de­but in a ca­lyp­so tent King­dom of the Wiz­ards (be­came Spek­taku­la Fo­rum) with cousin Jer­ry. In 1983, he made it to the Di­manche Gras fi­nals.

James said: "They dis­qual­i­fied me. They said I was a pop singer. I sang Pan From Heav­en, Sum­mer Fes­ti­val and Save We Cul­ture." A tsuna­mi was un­leashed with Afeisha-a trib­ute to his daugh­ter (June 14, 1983). Up­on clos­er in­tro­spec­tion, the song ad­dressed so­cial is­sues like fa­thers who aban­don preg­nant moth­ers and chil­dren. James said: "Afeisha was huge...a na­tion­al song. Pas­tors and priests were us­ing its lyrics. "Wit­ness­ing the birth of Afeisha what make me re­alise/What is a true fa­ther. That video was the most played on any tele­vi­sion sta­tion. A num­ber of chil­dren were called Afeisha. We had a chil­dren's bou­tique. When she turned one, we gave a free out­fit to any­one born on that day. We gave out about 200 out­fits." He be­lieves Afeisha was di­vine­ly in­spired. "That name came to me in a dream (daugh­ter of the day)."

At the CD launch, he paused to pay trib­ute to her for giv­ing him "the germ of an idea to host the Ex­po". Al­though he adores his Afeisha, James said he loves his chil­dren equal­ly-Kwame, Ka­reem, Adri­an, Ani­ka and Sher­ry-Ann. Af­ter the hype of Afeisha, he packed up his fam­i­ly and moved to Flori­da, USA. He was among the pi­o­neers of the first Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val in 1985. In 1986, he moved to Toron­to, Cana­da. While liv­ing in North Amer­i­ca, James' ap­petite for cul­ture nev­er waned. The self-ex­plana­to­ry Cook Up show was born.

He said: "It was the first show on the Tamil Ra­dio Sta­tion. It was the most pop­u­lar show. I brought so many dif­fer­ent eth­niti­cies. I in­ter­viewed Jay-Z. I had Kanye West along with many oth­er Caribbean stars. Ian D' Goose would join me on a Sat­ur­day for three hours." The Cook Up Show is now burn­ing up the air­waves-Wack Ra­dio-which he dubbed The Peo­ple's Sta­tion. He added: "It was the ra­dio sta­tion I used to lis­ten to in Toron­to. Ken­ny Phillips and I go back a long way. It's one of the flag­ship pro­grammes. Wack Ra­dio is 'cul­ture crazy'. It is the on­ly ra­dio sta­tion that plays to­tal lo­cal. They have the great­est lis­ten­er­ship all in Eu­rope. We are af­fil­i­at­ed to Caribbean coun­tries like St Lu­cia."