BC Pires

My name is David Rud­der and I'm a record­ing artist.

I was born in Bel­mont, a metaphor for the whole coun­try. There's a whole area of Bel­mont, Up­per Debe Street, where I spent part of my life, where you'd swear you were in cen­tral Trinidad. Out on the Val­ley Road was African. You go round the Cir­cu­lar and see all these gin­ger­bread, Eu­ro­pean-style hous­es. We had the most steel­bands, all the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, mas­men, all the great foot­ballers. Every­thing that was mag­i­cal about Trinidad was in Bel­mont. I wrote the song Bel­mont try­ing to cap­ture the his­to­ry of the place in six vers­es.�

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I went to Bel­mont Boys' RC and Bel­mont Sec­ondary.

Two things every­body in Trinidad do at some point in their life: "near­ly drown"–they call it that or "drink wa­ter" –or "near­ly get catch" thief­ing man­go.

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I know all the char­ac­ters in (writer Earl Lovelace's nov­el])The Drag­on Can't Dance. They grew up around me. My moth­er was well-re­spect­ed and some of Bel­mont's bad­dest men would help take me to school. Don't mind they just open some­body back down the road: they know my moth­er!

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There were five of us chil­dren. I was the el­dest. I was al­ways the one ex­pect­ed to do some­thing. In a strange way, af­ter 1986, I came like the el­dest of the Trinidad fam­i­ly. You wouldn't be­lieve the amount of peo­ple ex­pect­ing me to make good mu­sic every year, ex­pect­ing me to do all kinds of things. Af­ter a while, you're drained. My great­est line from Trinidad is, "I want to use you for some­thing." They ac­tu­al­ly use the words, "I want to use you"– but like they don't hear them. �I'm work­ing on two al­bums, a live one and one called Ran­dom Notes. I'm tak­ing my time. Nor­mal­ly, every nine months, I put out an al­bum in Trinidad. I have over 25 al­bums. Be­cause I felt I had to please peo­ple and try my best to make them think, feel good, every­thing else, I would "'hus­tle out" the work. Some­times I lis­ten to a piece and there's a lit­tle "coul­da-shoul­da-woul­da." Now, I don't have that wor­ry.

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Trinidad al­ways talk­ing about "give back." You work hard and give-give-give. And then they want to know what are you go­ing to "give back." That is up to me! Some­times I ask, "What have you giv­en?"

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Cana­da is a very neu­tral space. I could al­ways just re­lax and melt in­to my en­vi­ron­ment. Where I live is very much like Bel­mont. It has more roti shops than you could find in Bel­mont.

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Even try­ing to lay low in Cana­da, peo­ple find you. I'm al­ways on CBC. I'm sit on a board of the Arts Coun­cil, too, to de­cide who to give mon­ey to, for arts projects. In a sense, it's like the re­spect you don't find at home.

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Tri­ni to D Bone was writ­ten by Ian Wilt­shire. But, to me, it's a com­pli­ment when some­one us­es your song. That was how they closed off the com­men­tary on the Trinidad v Swe­den match in Ger­many, the com­men­ta­tor say­ing, "Tri­ni to the bo-wan!"

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There's a va­grant who grew up in the era when man used to say 'ten cents' mean­ing ten dol­lars. So he said, "Gim­meh a five cents, nuh!" So I de­lib­er­ate­ly gave him a five-cent piece. He say, "Five dol­lars, boy!" By co­in­ci­dence, when I did the High Mas video, the same man passed across the screen. Every time I see it, I say, "Eh-eh, look Five Dol­lars, boy!"

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I love to read but don't have a favourite au­thor. "Nete­herland" was a great book. I want to meet that guy. He cap­tured the Trinidad men­tal­i­ty amaz­ing­ly.

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I start­ed writ­ing songs when I was around five, six. I'd lis­ten to I Wan­na Hold Your Hand and say, "If was me, I wouldn't write, "Oh yeah, I." I'd write, "Oh yeah, so-and-so." I used to cor­rect the Bea­t­les' songs.

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I might pass down the road and hear some­body say some­thing. "Long­time Band" came from this woman say­ing, "I go­ing and wine like I nev­er chris­ten'".

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I lis­ten to Bob Dy­lan, Ste­vie Won­der, Fela � I love Fela. The digs he used to take at Niger­ian so­ci­ety, the same things still go­ing on. Bob Dy­lan is the ul­ti­mate Amer­i­can ca­lyp­son­ian.

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I pre­fer club per­for­mances. The big shows, yeah, you con­trol the mass­es and it's very pow­er­ful. But in a club. I did a show at Mar­tin's on the Boule­vard, the band jammed up in this lit­tle back­yard, the place packed and, in the mid­dle of it, Beau Tewarie and Deep­ak Chopra came in. Af­ter three or four songs, I start­ed Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic. And like they had to go some­where, they got up to leave. Over the whole sound sys­tem, a man bawl, "Nah! Nah!Nah! My king on the stage and Deep­ak Chopra walk­ing out? While he singing the great Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic. @#$$# you, Deep­ak moth­er #$#@ Chopra!" You couldn't get that in a sta­di­um.

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When, some­times just one per­son comes up and says, "When you say, so, so, so, so and so, do you mean, so, so, so, so and so? And it's ex­act­ly what I meant? That is the best part of the job.

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Art can't lead. All art can do is sug­gest.

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The bad thing about the job is I'm get­ting tired of the drudgery of the road and, when you reach, some­body is two hours late and things aren't ex­act­ly as the con­tract says.

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A Tri­ni is a rumshop where you watch Ar­genti­na v Ger­many and, by the time Ar­genti­na get the third goal, the DJ in the rumshop find three ver­sions of Don't Cry for me, Ar­genti­na and play them. Start­ing off with the Den­nis De Souza ver­sion!

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Trinidad is the on­ly place where peo­ple don't eat food, they de­clare war on it. They lash a roti! They put some blows on a pelau! They leather the dumpling! They mur­der the pud­ding! Tri­ni don't eat food, they's fight food. And win!

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Trinidad and To­ba­go is my heart and soul. It's my home, my spir­it. Even though it gets me tired some­times, there's a laugh in the place that makes you say, "All right. Let me go again!"