KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Tas­sa As­so­ci­a­tion Dr Vi­jay Ram­lal-Rai is dis­put­ing claims by Hum­ming­bird Medal re­cip­i­ent Lenny Ku­mar that the tas­sa drum is not a T&T in­ven­tion. He ar­gues that it is more lo­cal than the steel­pan.

Ku­mar, founder of NGC Trinidad & To­ba­go Sweet Tas­sa, said the tas­sa orig­i­nat­ed in In­dia and evolved in T&T. His com­ment fol­lowed calls by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the tas­sa to be de­clared a na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

Ram­lal-Rai said the Tas­sa As­so­ci­a­tion has been lob­by­ing for the tas­sa drum to be­come a na­tion­al in­stru­ment for about 22 years, and has writ­ten let­ters and met with past min­is­ters of cul­ture and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. He said the As­so­ci­a­tion is not at war with any­one over which in­stru­ment re­ceived na­tion­al procla­ma­tion and be­lieves that both should get recog­ni­tion.

“I want to tell you very clear­ly that the As­so­ci­a­tion stands firm­ly that the steel­pan in­stru­ment is the first na­tion­al in­stru­ment,” he said.

Ram­lal-Rai said the As­so­ci­a­tion pro­vid­ed doc­u­ments and even en­gaged the High Com­mis­sion of In­dia in the past to de­ter­mine if they could find tas­sa drums in the coun­try. He said it could not, and the Com­mis­sion even sent a lo­cal tas­sa band, First Cit­i­zens Drag­on Boys, to In­dia to share the rudi­ments of tas­sa.

“First and fore­most, it (tas­sa) is an in­stru­ment made 100 per cent of lo­cal ma­te­ri­als—100 per cent, in­clud­ing the peo­ple play­ing it. We feel it is al­so used sev­en days a week. Every day of the week, tas­sa in­stru­ments are used for births, deaths, cel­e­bra­tions, protests, re­li­gious and non-re­li­gious,” Ram­lal-Rai said.

He ex­plained that a tas­sa band com­pris­es four play­ers, bass, tas­sa and brass, and the As­so­ci­a­tion could not find that com­bi­na­tion of in­stru­ments form­ing a tas­sa band in In­dia. 

He fur­ther ar­gued that when in­den­tured labour­ers came to T&T, they did not come with a tas­sa drum but on­ly the mem­o­ry of it. They even­tu­al­ly found ar­ti­cles, arte­facts and ma­te­ri­als to recre­ate the drum. He said the tas­sa drum is the on­ly in­stru­ment they know sin­gu­lar­ly made here with lo­cal ma­te­ri­als.

“It is more of a na­tion­al in­stru­ment in its truest for­ma­tion than any oth­er in­stru­ment be­cause I just com­pared pan with us on­ly be­cause the steel drum was nev­er made in Trinidad. We tuned it in­to an in­stru­ment,” he said.

“It was dis­card­ed drums be­cause of slav­ery, what hap­pened, and we know the his­to­ry.”

Ram­lal-Rai added that the As­so­ci­a­tion wants both tas­sa and steel­pan recog­nised but with a pref­er­ence for the lat­ter as Africans came to T&T be­fore In­di­ans. He said there must be recog­ni­tion of that and that the steel­pan is an acoustic in­stru­ment that plays melodies like a pi­ano. He said this gives it an ad­van­tage over the tas­sa drum, which plays rhyth­mic mu­sic.