Nass­er Khan

Through­out Oc­to­ber the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co)) will pay trib­ute to the late Broth­er Re­sis­tance (Lu­ta­lo Masi­ma) who was their pres­i­dent at the time of his un­time­ly pass­ing ear­li­er this year, with the theme for this year’s ob­ser­vance, De Bell Reigns. Oc­to­ber was de­clared Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month in 2002.

The beau­ty and bril­liance of the ca­lyp­so art form are un­matched, of­ten re­ferred to as the voice of the peo­ple. It is de­scribed as “an ed­i­to­r­i­al in song” (Mighty Duke), “By ca­lyp­soes, our sto­ries are told, with this rhythm to touch the soul” (Mighty Sniper) and ac­cord­ing to David Rud­der “lyrics to make a politi­cian cringe”. Many ca­lyp­soes have been writ­ten and sung over the years that doc­u­ment mo­ments in T&T’s his­to­ry like no text­book can.

Ac­cord­ing to pro­fes­sor of lit­er­a­ture and ca­lyp­so scribe Gor­don Rohlehr: “It is pos­si­ble to un­der­stand any giv­en era in the Caribbean by study­ing ca­lyp­so.”

The late Broth­er Re­sis­tance once said: “Ca­lyp­so cel­e­brates and analy­ses life and the way we live it.”

For ex­am­ple, at­tempts at Fed­er­a­tion and Caribbean uni­ty and in­te­gra­tion have been an elu­sive dream of our re­gion. The top­i­cal rel­e­vance of West In­di­an in­te­gra­tion and fed­er­a­tion have been the sub­ject of many ca­lyp­sos be­fore, dur­ing and since the ac­tu­al Fed­er­a­tion which last­ed from 1958-1962:

° Fed­er­a­tion—The Mighty Spar­row

° Ex­pe­dite Fed­er­a­tion (1933)—Atil­la the Hun

° Ad­vice to West In­di­ans (1939)—The Growl­ing Tiger

° Mon­tego Bay Con­fer­ence (1947/8)—Atil­la the Hun

In the 1950s:

° Fed­er­a­tion—Lord Be­gin­ner

° Fed­er­a­tion—The Roar­ing Li­on

° Fed­er­a­tion—King Fight­er

° What’s Fed­er­a­tion—Small Is­land Pride

° Trinidad Have Fed­er­a­tion Al­ready—Atil­la the Hun

° We All Is One or Fed­er­a­tion—The Mighty Spar­row

° Fed­er­at­ed Is­lands—Bomber

° Ref­er­en­dum’ (1961/62)—Lord Laro

° Cry of the West In­dies (1968)—Young Killer

° Caribbean In­te­gra­tion (1977)—Ex­plain­er

° Caribbean Uni­ty (1979)—Black Stal­in

° One Caribbean (1994)—David Rud­der

The late Roar­ing Li­on (Rafael de Leon) sang to wel­come Pope John Paul II on his his­toric vis­it to T&T in Feb­ru­ary 1985. It was record­ed as a 12 inch sin­gle and the ca­lyp­son­ian pre­sent­ed a copy of it to the Pope af­ter singing it to him and re­ceiv­ing a pa­pal bless­ing.

Hase­ly Craw­ford’s amaz­ing feat at the Mon­tre­al Olympics in 1976, cap­tur­ing T&T’s first gold medal, re­sult­ed in at least five ca­lyp­soes by Lord Kitch­en­er, The Mighty Spar­row, Mae­stro, Broth­er Mu­da­da and Strik­er.

The tri­al and con­vic­tion of Ab­dul Ma­lik and oth­ers for the mur­ders in Ari­ma of Eng­lish woman Gail Ann Ben­son and Trinida­di­an Joseph Sker­ritt in­spired One to Hang from the Al­bum “We walk 100 Miles” in 1973 by Lord Kitch­en­er, as well as Stan­ley Ab­bott from the al­bum “Tourist in Trinidad”, 1974.

Tax­es it is said are as in­evitable as death and in T&T we cer­tain­ly have our share of them. Not to be left out, the voice of the peo­ple has been trans­mit­ted via the so­cial and po­lit­i­cal ca­lyp­soes of the day to the ex­tent that the Mighty Spar­row’s PAYE (Pay As You Earn) of 1958 cap­tured the Road March ti­tle in that year. In the 1980’s the Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) was in­tro­duced by the ANR Robin­son-led gov­ern­ment with Win­ston ‘Gyp­sy’ Pe­ters, belt­ing out his ca­lyp­so No VAT. Then in 2010, T&T was faced with the prop­er­ty tax, and again the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ voic­es were raised with ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Ti­gress, Lu­ta and Kurt Allen do­ing just that. La­dy Ti­gress de­vot­ed her en­tire ca­lyp­so, Don’t Touch Mih Ca­ca­da, to the con­tro­ver­sial prop­er­ty tax.

With the threat of the glob­al­ly ram­pant COVID-19 virus, Car­ni­val was can­celled this year. Back in 1972 the threat of a po­lio out­break led to Car­ni­val be­ing post­poned from Feb­ru­ary to May and Ebo­la posed a threat but Car­ni­val pre­vailed in 2015. When Car­ni­val was even­tu­al­ly staged lat­er in 1972, the rains came and vir­tu­al­ly ru­ined the pa­rade. This was vivid­ly cap­tured by Lord Kitch­en­er in his 1973 Road March, Rain­o­ra­ma.

By ca­lyp­so in­deed our sto­ries are told!

—Nass­er Khan is the au­thor of the book: “He­roes, Pi­o­neers & Role Mod­els of Trinidad & To­ba­go”, which is avail­able as a free down­load at http://epub.sa­faripub­li­ca­tions.com/pro­files/. In it, many of our pi­o­neer­ing ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are fea­tured. His oth­er pub­li­ca­tions in­clude “His­to­ry of West In­dies Crick­et Through Ca­lyp­soes” and “Cel­e­brat­ing Trinidad & To­ba­go’s Cul­ture and the Arts”, the lat­ter chock-filled with ca­lyp­so-re­lat­ed in­for­ma­tion.