Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Sen­a­tors yes­ter­day re­flect­ed on the last­ing im­pact of Dr Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co, re­mem­ber­ing the ca­lyp­son­ian as an artist who used mu­sic not on­ly to en­ter­tain, but to com­ment on pol­i­tics and so­ci­ety.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment, the sen­a­tors re­called their favourite Spar­row songs and the im­pact his mu­sic had on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al land­scape.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj de­scribed Spar­row’s pass­ing as a tremen­dous loss and re­called one of his favourite songs, Con­go Man.

“That’s a tremen­dous loss; I have al­ways been a big, big fan. I al­ways liked Con­go Man,” Ma­haraj said.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­garet Rose al­so fo­cused on Spar­row’s con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try’s mu­sic and cul­ture, de­scrib­ing his in­flu­ence as ex­tend­ing be­yond en­ter­tain­ment.

“A huge loss for us, a huge loss for us, an icon that trans­formed our mu­si­cal land­scape, our cul­tur­al land­scape, but he is with us,” Rose said.

For Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der, Spar­row’s abil­i­ty to turn po­lit­i­cal events and con­flicts in­to com­men­tary through ca­lyp­so was par­tic­u­lar­ly mem­o­rable.

“There was a song that I used to play on my videos, Take Your Steel Beam and Go. That was a po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary; if you lis­ten the words of that song, it was when he de­cid­ed to sup­port the (Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion) ONR and end­ed up in se­ri­ous con­flict with PNM and that is what they was telling him, Take Your Steel Beam and Go...the words of that song, well ex­e­cut­ed,” Alexan­der said.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor San­jiv Bood­hu sim­i­lar­ly point­ed to Spar­row’s po­lit­i­cal songs, not­ing the ca­lyp­son­ian’s abil­i­ty to com­bine so­cial com­men­tary with en­ter­tain­ment.

“The Mighty Spar­row sang po­lit­i­cal songs, even about the PNM and he has found the unique way to blend so­cial com­men­tary with en­ter­tain­ment which is not al­to­geth­er unique but less fre­quent with oth­er ca­lyp­so­ni­ans,” Bood­hu said.

The re­flec­tions high­light­ed the range of Spar­row’s con­tri­bu­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go, from songs that en­ter­tained au­di­ences to those that com­ment­ed on pol­i­tics and so­ci­ety.

For the Sen­a­tors, his mu­sic re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant part of the coun­try’s cul­tur­al land­scape, with songs that con­tin­ue to res­onate across gen­er­a­tions.