AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

When the sweet strings of a cu­a­tro ring out, fol­lowed by the deep bass of the bass box and the fa­mil­iar shake-shake of mara­cas, there is no mis­tak­ing the sig­nal. Add the beloved lyrics of ‘Sereno, Sereno’ or ‘Ale­gría, Ale­gría’, and it could on­ly mean one thing—parang is here! And right along­side it comes Sep­tem­ber: Parang His­to­ry Month.

Parang’s vi­brant pres­ence in T&T dates back to the 19th cen­tu­ry, with some link­ing its ori­gin to Venezue­lan mi­grants who came to work on co­coa plan­ta­tions. Oth­ers trace it even ear­li­er to the era of Span­ish coloni­sa­tion, which laid the foun­da­tion for a cul­tur­al fu­sion of Eu­ro­pean string in­stru­ments and Chris­t­ian teach­ings in song. Re­gard­less of its pre­cise roots, parang has firm­ly ce­ment­ed it­self as part of this coun­try’s na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, wo­ven tight­ly in­to our cul­tur­al fab­ric.

One body that works tire­less­ly to steer and pre­serve the art form is the Na­tion­al Parang As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (NPATT), start­ed 55 years ago, with pi­o­neer par­ran­dero Paul Castil­lo and oth­ers lead­ing the way.

To­day, parang star Ali­cia Jag­gasar serves as NPATT pres­i­dent. She points to the as­so­ci­a­tion’s 55-year mile­stone as a tes­ta­ment to its steady hand in sus­tain­ing the genre, ground­ed in her firm be­lief that “parang is who we are” and the ‘gen­uine love’ it re­ceives from Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.

“That’s the first thing. The love for parang. The art form it­self. It is the mu­sic that ac­tu­al­ly plays in every sin­gle home at Christ­mas time. From gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, you’re sure that you can hear parang mu­sic. Just as you will hear Christ­mas car­ols, you’ll go any­where and hear it,” Jag­gasar said.

“You’d find that a lot of our icons would have passed and their chil­dren and their chil­dren’s chil­dren kept it go­ing. That’s why I had a lot of bands by the name of ‘Lara Broth­ers’, or ‘La Fa­mil­ias’ or ‘Ami­gos.’ You al­ways find that kind of name at­tached to parang groups, which says it’s not just about com­ing to­geth­er; it’s about com­mu­ni­ty and fam­i­ly.”

Parang, Jag­gasar notes, isn’t re­served on­ly for the Christ­mas sea­son when we light up our trees, pour the ponche de crème and bake the juici­est hams.

But she ad­mits that the genre needs some ‘more re­spect.’

“You would al­ways find peo­ple who be­lieve that parang is still about drink­ing rum and throw­ing your­self down and that kind of thing. They will not look at the mes­sage that is with parang. At Christ­mas time, we are car­ollers us­ing our parang mu­sic, where we will sing about the an­nounce­ment and the birth of Je­sus Christ,” Jag­gas­sar ex­plained.

“But al­so, parang is a year-round thing. You would al­ways hear peo­ple talk about parang for if you’re hav­ing a chris­ten­ing, if you’re hav­ing a wake, if you’re hav­ing a birth­day, Re­pub­lic Day, In­de­pen­dence, any hol­i­day, you can check the archives and you would see parang mu­sic that rep­re­sents these hol­i­days. But some­times, we have a lot of cel­e­bra­tions to­day where parang is not in­clud­ed.”

Parang His­to­ry Month

Giv­en parang’s promi­nent place in lo­cal cul­ture, many felt its his­to­ry shouldn’t be­long sole­ly to the par­ran­deros, but to the en­tire na­tion. First launched in 2018, Parang His­to­ry Month by the as­so­ci­a­tion runs through Sep­tem­ber to ed­u­cate, en­light­en, and cel­e­brate the art form’s deep roots.

Sep­tem­ber serves as the per­fect cur­tain-rais­er be­fore the of­fi­cial parang sea­son kicks off in Oc­to­ber. It of­fers a warm, fes­tive taste of his­to­ry and flavour long be­fore the mu­sic car­ries all the way to ‘Lewah’ in Jan­u­ary.

For NPATT pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Joanne Brig­gs, this pe­ri­od is cru­cial for ho­n­our­ing the leg­ends of the past.

“For ex­am­ple, you might know Daisy [Voisin], but do you know any­thing about Hen­ry Pereira? Do you know about Lara Broth­ers? Even though peo­ple know those names, some­times the his­to­ry or their back­ground were a lit­tle like, not so cor­rect,” Brig­gs said.

And the theme for Parang His­to­ry Month 2026 is “¡Va­mos a cel­e­brar!”, marked by a se­ries of events through­out the month, lead­ing in­to the na­tion­al parang sea­son, filled with per­for­mances and com­pe­ti­tions.

As a par­ran­dero her­self, Brig­gs sees mu­si­cians as dy­nam­ic “mes­sen­gers of good news.” But what gives her the great­est hope for the fu­ture mes­sen­gers and par­ran­deros is the in­fec­tious en­thu­si­asm of the youth. Young tal­ent shines bright every year in the Ju­nior Parang Fes­ti­val, and past stu­dents fre­quent­ly keep the tra­di­tion alive by form­ing en­dur­ing groups like Los Sonidos (from Bish­op Anstey High School and Trin­i­ty Col­lege East) and Vo­ces de Prome­sa (from Fa­ti­ma Col­lege and St. Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School).

Parang lega­cy

But when­ev­er parang is men­tioned, one leg­endary name tow­ers above the rest: the undis­put­ed Queen of Parang, Daisy Voisin.

Jag­gasar notes that the ti­tle re­mains right­ful­ly hers, im­mor­talised by her mag­net­ic, elec­tri­fy­ing stage pres­ence and sheer ‘ef­fer­ves­cence’. That mag­ic lives on years af­ter her pass­ing in 1991, pre­served in cher­ished mem­o­ries and vin­tage video clips.

“She was able to hold a bou­quet in her hand and hold up a skirt with the mic in her hand and still sing and still dance. I think that is what gen­er­at­ed that en­er­gy. She had a spir­it that re­al­ly en­gaged you on stage,” Jag­gasar said.

While mod­ern per­form­ers have tak­en singing in Span­ish to new tech­ni­cal heights, Jag­gasar em­pha­sis­es that gen­uine parang al­ways stems from pure heart.

“It has two hur­dles. You love parang and you love the Span­ish lan­guage. Be­cause when you get in, it be­comes so in­fec­tious that you don’t want to leave.”

Look­ing ahead, NPATT dreams of tak­ing parang far be­yond our shores, shar­ing its in­fec­tious rhythm with the re­gion and the wider world, with hopes of one day bring­ing its fes­tive warmth straight to Times Square in New York.

And as Parang His­to­ry Month un­folds, this vi­brant ta­pes­try of mem­o­ry, melody, and cul­tur­al pride serves as a soul­ful re­minder that parang isn’t just a sea­son­al song, but T&T’s liv­ing lan­guage of love, faith and fam­i­ly.