AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are tra­di­tion­al­ly known for be­ing pro­lif­ic and firm in their de­liv­ery. But Ham­mond “Slick” Bruce be­lieves com­e­dy is the ve­hi­cle that will make his mes­sag­ing stand out in every com­pe­ti­tion that he is in. Even if it is a se­ri­ous is­sue that he is tack­ling, he presents it in a light-heart­ed comedic way.

Bruce has gained pop­u­lar­i­ty this Car­ni­val sea­son for his song, Trinidad is Not A Re­al Place. This is a term Trin­bag­o­ni­ans coined, as part of their re­sponse to some of our unimag­in­able news head­lines and crazy dai­ly hap­pen­ings.

His mu­sic video was post­ed on­line at the start of 2024 and quick­ly went vi­ral across var­i­ous so­cial me­dia plat­forms, prov­ing that his com­men­tary res­onat­ed with many.

“I didn’t ex­pect it to go so vi­ral so quick­ly. Ap­par­ent­ly, peo­ple like the is­sues and the top­ics that are touched on and how I bring them across in a light-heart­ed comedic way. And from the first day, I got like ten thou­sand views in two hours,” Bruce told Guardian Me­dia.

The song is loaded with ono­matopoeia and oth­er fig­u­ra­tive de­vices, as Bruce comed­ical­ly show­cas­es the poor and prob­lem­at­ic con­di­tions Trin­bag­o­ni­ans have to en­dure.

“For ex­am­ple, I spoke about the con­di­tions of the road es­pe­cial­ly since they like to charge mo­torists for things like de­fec­tive lights and bent tyres, wheels and in­spec­tion stick­ers. But when you dri­ving on the road, you drop in a pot­hole ‘blop blop’ and that’s it,” Bruce said. “The oth­er is­sue is, some­times you get wa­ter on­ly twice a week. When you do get it, it com­ing out brown like mau­by. So it was so easy for the lyrics to come out on pen and pa­per.”

Bruce said he be­came en­am­oured with the art form at a very young age, af­ter wit­ness­ing Lord Kitch­en­er per­form on stage. Soon af­ter, his moth­er be­gan sup­port­ing his dream to sing ca­lyp­so, sign­ing him up for al­most every school so­ca and ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion.

Bruce’s love for mu­sic can be seen, not on­ly through his work that re­flects oth­er gen­res of mu­sic but through his tal­ent. Ac­cord­ing to Bruce, he sees the val­ue in in­vest­ing in his craft. He paid for on­line cours­es to learn how to pro­duce his mu­sic at his home stu­dio, adding to his skills of be­ing a mu­si­cian and a com­pos­er.

He al­so acts as video­g­ra­ph­er and ed­i­tor and is owed all the cred­it for the vi­ral mu­sic video.

In his pro­fes­sion­al life, Bruce con­tin­ues to sing in ca­lyp­so tents and take part in com­pe­ti­tions. De­spite most times ex­it­ing on­ly as a fi­nal­ist, Bruce said he en­joys be­ing a favourite by many for his unique style and be­lieves there is a place for com­e­dy in ca­lyp­so.

“When you go in the ca­lyp­so tent, peo­ple love to hear a lit­tle bac­cha­nal. They want to laugh at some­thing. It is whole week peo­ple work­ing, they have the stress of life all the time. So when you go and sit down in a ca­lyp­so tent, or you put on a song, you want some­thing light­heart­ed to lift you. Trinidad Is Not A Re­al Place proves it. Es­pe­cial­ly with the younger gen­er­a­tion.”

Af­ter plac­ing fourth at this year’s Young Kings com­pe­ti­tion, Bruce was ob­served by many to be a must-watch at Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta 2024. De­spite not mov­ing for­ward to Di­manche Gras af­ter his comedic and en­ter­tain­ing per­for­mance, Bruce said he was much more pleased with the num­ber of eyes di­rect­ed at ca­lyp­so this par­tic­u­lar year.

“You see, we have all kinds of top artistes com­ing in now, as it has no so­ca monarch, every­body in the ca­lyp­so, I love it. It leaves room for this in­dus­try to grow and will bring more eyes and at­ten­tion to make the cul­ture grow.”

Bruce said his on­ly wish was for the art form to progress to at­tract more eyes and not re­ly on­ly on pop­u­lar fig­ures.

“Ca­lyp­so has be­come stag­nant. We on­ly fo­cus­ing on one spe­cif­ic thing which is com­pe­ti­tion and we not fo­cus­ing on the peo­ple. Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and writ­ers on­ly writ­ing songs with one straight for­mu­la where they think on­ly about what the judges like, and we need to change. We don’t need to change the mu­sic, we just need to adapt.”