Dr Winford James
A golden generation of calypsonians are inevitably leaving us–one by one–and, while I accept the inevitability of their deaths, I cannot avoid the feelings of sadness and pain that visit me upon such events. They have given me and so many others such happiness and joy, first during the calypso season and then beyond, that, unreasonably, we think they should have an extension of life as a reward, despite our knowledge that old age and its accompanying debilities and vulnerabilities will take them (and us) out.
Black Stalin is one of these golden calypsonians that have now joined the list of the departed; he was 81. Others–by no means all–are Kitchener, Shadow, Bomber, Explainer, and Singing Francine. They get into their 70s, with some moving into their 80s, and then they capitulate into eternity. But they are immortalised by their songs–in lyrics, melody, and performance.
I have no doubt that Black Stalin will be immortalised in his calypsoes, especially as the technologies of musical conservation keep improving.
I consider him a calypso genius who not only won the Monarchy/Kingship six times (1979, 1985, 1987, 1991, 1995, and 1999) but whose ideological consciousness pushed him to write and sing calypsos, almost all of which–the lone exception seems to be ‘Ah feel to party’–many would consider to fall into the genre of ‘serious calypsos’ or ‘nation-building calypsoes’. He often sounded like a social counsellor. I briefly consider some of his more famous offerings below (‘We could make it if we try’, ‘Caribbean Man’, ‘Bun dem’, and ‘Ah feel to party’).
In ‘We could make it if we try’, he coaxes us into believing that we can overcome our socio-economic crises by ‘[giving] it one more try’. As is usual, the chorus summarises the main message, leaving it up to the verses to provide detail. Here’s the chorus:
‘We could make it if we try
Just a little harder
If we just give one more try
Life will be much sweeter.’
And one of the coaxing verses is as follows:
‘Life may be rough
Life may be tough
But we must keep going
We feelin the pain
Yes we keep holin strain
But we must keep fightin
Regardless of how it come
We just cyar surrender
We gotta keep workin towards a better future
We may never be always down
And fightin to stay off the ground
We must remember
Our day would come.’
‘Caribbean Man’ won him his first Monarchy (in 1979). It is about the racial oneness of Caribbean people who were brought to the Caribbean as slaves to work on the plantations. It captures the sameness of their experiences, even today, across the different islands/countries, and it invites Caribbean men to rally around the same ambition:
‘Dem is one race
The Caribbean Man
From the same place
The Caribbean Man
That make the same trip
The Caribbean Man
On the same ship
The Caribbean Man
So we must push one common intention
For a better life in the region
For we woman
And we children
That must be the ambition of the Caribbean Man.’
‘Bun dem’ is my favourite calypso by him. It features Stalin enjoining ‘the Master’ to help St. Peter at judgement time in the celestial place to punish with death by fire wrongdoers of every kind against the black man, for that is where the latter can get his revenge:
‘This is my time for bunnin
Ah bunnin and ah bunnin and ah bunnin and ah bunnin
Peter keep the fire blazin
Blazin blazin blazin blazin
This is my time for bunnin
Ah bunnin… .
Peter keep the fire bunnin’
One of the people Stalin wants to personally punish is the Spanish Crown’s butcher in the so-called New World–Christopher Columbus:
‘Peter, Ah doh want you to make fuss
Remember I want Christopher Columbus.’
Stalin is here playing in the Big League, judging and executing empire builders and racist champions of colonisation and slavery.
‘Ah feel to party’ is perhaps his lone party calypso. He, The Black Man, is instructing his wife to get ready to go partying with him since he’s in the mood. Responsible man and father that he is, he tells her to make sure the children are okay, and then they will go out and ‘party’, ‘jam’, and ‘boogie woogie’:
Tonight the black man feeling to party
Tonight the black man feeling to jam jam jam jam jam
Tonight the black man just feel to boogie woogie
Come on come on hold on to your man
And leh we do leh we do and leh we do a little…oye.
We go do a little tota
We go do a little grind
We go do a little back back
And show dem youngsters how to wine.
And guess what, they are going to do it to steelband music. The notes of the tenor pan beaten out in his vocal tract are endless: Pa dam a dam pa dam pa dam… .
I am grateful for the music he has regaled us with.