Part 1 of 4

Nass­er Khan

At our na­tion’s re­cent 2018 Re­pub­lic Day Awards cer­e­mo­ny the fol­low­ing ca­lyp­so­ni­ans (so­bri­quets on­ly showed) were recog­nised for their con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion-build­ing through the ca­lyp­so art­form: Ex­plain­er, El­la An­dall, Ex­plain­er, Fun­ny, and Com­pos­er.

Over the years, since 1969, when na­tion­al awards were first in­tro­duced, many ca­lyp­so­ni­ans have re­ceived such awards: Spar­row, Kitch­en­er, Duke, At­ti­la the Hun, Pre­tender, Ca­lyp­so Rose, Chalk­dust, Roar­ing Li­on, Ter­ror, Stal­in, Wins­ford De Vine/com­pos­er, Melody, Broth­er Re­sis­tance, David Rud­der, Shad­ow, Denyse Plum­mer, Valenti­no, Com­pos­er, Su­pe­ri­or, All Rounder, Nel­son, Bun­ji Gar­lin.

T&T is the "Land of Ca­lyp­so", the month of Oc­to­ber of­fi­cial­ly be­ing de­clared "Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month" in 2002. We have heard the of­ten-used state­ment, "By ca­lyp­so our sto­ries are told." Ca­lyp­soes, through their po­et­ic lyrics and rhythms, cap­ture a lot of our his­to­ry by telling our sto­ries in song, like no his­to­ry book can. This spe­cial month fo­cus­es on ex­hi­b­it­ing and ed­u­cat­ing the pub­lic through a full cal­en­dar of events (see Tu­co's Face­book page). Cour­tesy First Cit­i­zens this se­ries will fo­cus on some of the ca­lyp­soes that have doc­u­ment­ed sig­nif­i­cant events in our his­to­ry.

Ac­cord­ing to The Mighty Duke, ca­lyp­so is an ‘ed­i­to­r­i­al in song’ while The Lord Be­gin­ner said ‘when I sing about a crick­et match, you didn’t have to read the news­pa­pers again’. Of course, the lat­ter is fa­mous for his im­mor­tal 1950 ca­lyp­so “Vic­to­ry Test Match” (al­so known as Crick­et Love­ly Crick­et) which her­ald­ed our re­gion­al team’s his­toric vic­to­ry over Eng­land at Lord’s.

Here are a few ‘sto­ry telling’ ca­lyp­soes:

1933: Graf Zep­pelin, At­tila the Hun. About the day when the leg­endary air­ship, the Graf Zep­pelin, flew over Trinidad.

One Sun­day morn­ing I chanced to hear

A rum­bling and a tum­bling in the at­mos­phere

I ran to stare, peo­ple were flock­ing every­where

Ges­tic­u­lat­ing and gaz­ing and point­ing in the air

It was the Graf Zep­pelin which had come to pay a vis­it to Trinidad...

1950: Vic­to­ry Test Match (Crick­et Love­ly Crick­et), Lord Be­gin­ner. West In­dies de­feat Eng­land at Lord's crick­et ground.

Crick­et love­ly Crick­et

At Lord's where I saw it

Yard­ley tried his best

But God­dard won the test

They gave the crowd plen­ty fun

Sec­ond Test and West In­dies won

Cho­rus:

With those two lit­tle pals of mine

Ra­mad­hin and Valen­tine...

1962: Fed­er­a­tion, Mighty Spar­row. Crit­i­cism of Ja­maica for the fail­ure of at­tempts at Caribbean in­te­gra­tion/fed­er­a­tion.

Peo­ple want to know why Ja­maica run from the Fed­er­a­tion

Well, they want to know why Ja­maica run away from the Fed­er­a­tion

Ja­maica have a right to speak she mind, that is my opin­ion

And if you be­lieve in de­moc­ra­cy, you'll agree with me...

1985: Vis­it of His Ho­li­ness Pope John II, Roar­ing Li­on.

The vis­it of His Ho­li­ness will ever be

In­deli­bly writ­ten in our mem­o­ry

For His vis­it will most cer­tain­ly

Her­ald a new epoch in our his­to­ry

So flash the news around, by telegram and ra­dio

He has vis­it­ed, the Land of Ca­lyp­so

Let it be known, we're proud and glad

To wel­come Pope John to Trinidad…

This se­ries is cour­tesy First Cit­i­zens

Nass­er Khan has au­thored “He­roes, Pi­o­neers & Role Mod­els of Trinidad & To­ba­go”, avail­able as a free down­load at http://www.sa­faripub­li­ca­tions.com/firstc­i­t­i­zen­stt/he­roe­spro­filestt/. In it are fea­tured our pi­o­neer­ing ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in the chap­ter Cul­ture and the Arts. He al­so au­thored “His­to­ry of West In­dies Crick­et through Ca­lyp­soes”…doc­u­ment­ing the lyrics of over 200 crick­et-themed ca­lyp­soes from 1926 on­wards. He has al­so writ­ten many news­pa­per and mag­a­zine ar­ti­cles on ca­lyp­so, mas, and steel­pan.

Email nkhantt@gmail.com