Nass­er Khan

In these trou­bled times, among the few re­main­ing and en­dur­ing threads that hold us to­geth­er are the bound­less har­monies of the ca­lyp­so art­form.

The theme for Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month in T&T was ap­pro­pri­ate­ly en­ti­tled “Ca­lyp­so Un­leashed: Bound­less Har­monies,” a theme meant to cel­e­brate the en­dur­ing pow­er of ca­lyp­so to ed­u­cate, en­ter­tain and unite.

Oc­to­ber was de­clared Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month in 2002.

TU­CO must be com­mend­ed for its cre­ativ­i­ty, and its con­tin­u­ing ef­fort to keep alive the tra­di­tions of ca­lyp­so in the “Land of Ca­lyp­so” in all its many gen­res since the pi­o­neer­ing days in the 1950s of Atil­la the Hun, Ex­ecu­tor, Hou­di­ni, Rail­way Dou­glas, Lord Ca­ress­er, Growler, Roar­ing Li­on, Duke of Iron, Lord In­vad­er, King Ra­dio, Growl­ing Tiger, La­dy Trinidad, Spoil­er, Lord Pre­tender and Lord Kitch­en­er among the ma­jor artistes.

The beau­ty and bril­liance of the ca­lyp­so art form in its abil­i­ty to ed­u­cate are un­matched, of­ten re­ferred to as the voice of the peo­ple, de­scribed as “an ed­i­to­r­i­al in song” (Mighty Duke), “by ca­lyp­soes our sto­ries are told, with this rhythm to touch the soul” (Mighty Sniper) and ac­cord­ing to David Rud­der “lyrics to make a politi­cian cringe.”

Many ca­lyp­soes have been writ­ten and sung over the years that doc­u­ment mo­ments in T&T’s his­to­ry like no text­book can. Ac­cord­ing to pro­fes­sor of lit­er­a­ture and ca­lyp­so scribe Gor­don Rohlehr: “It is pos­si­ble to un­der­stand any giv­en era in the Caribbean by study­ing ca­lyp­so.”

The late Broth­er Re­sis­tance once said: “Ca­lyp­so cel­e­brates and analy­ses life and the way we live it.”

Here, from the ed­u­ca­tion­al as­pect of ca­lyp­so, are some ex­am­ples of such clas­sics over the years.

At­tempts at Fed­er­a­tion and Caribbean uni­ty and in­te­gra­tion have been an elu­sive dream of our re­gion, even to this day, as is be­ing played out. The top­i­cal rel­e­vance of West In­di­an in­te­gra­tion and fed­er­a­tion have been the sub­ject of many ca­lyp­soes be­fore, dur­ing and since the ac­tu­al Fed­er­a­tion, which last­ed from 1958-1962:

• Fed­er­a­tion—The Mighty Spar­row

• Ex­pe­dite Fed­er­a­tion (1933)—Atil­la the Hun

• Ad­vice to West In­di­ans (1939)—The Growl­ing Tiger

• Mon­tego Bay Con­fer­ence (1947/8)—Atil­la the Hun

• Fed­er­a­tion—Lord Be­gin­ner

• Fed­er­a­tion—The Roar­ing Li­on

• Fed­er­a­tion—King Fight­er

• What’s Fed­er­a­tion—Small Is­land Pride

• Trinidad Have Fed­er­a­tion Al­ready—Atil­la the Hun

• We All Is One or Fed­er­a­tion—The Mighty Spar­row

• Fed­er­at­ed Is­lands—Bomber

• Ref­er­en­dum’ (1961/62)—Lord Laro

• Cry of the West In­dies (1968)—Young Killer; ° Caribbean In­te­gra­tion (1977)—Ex­plain­er

• Caribbean Uni­ty (1979)—Black Stal­in

• One Caribbean (1994)—David Rud­der.

The late Roar­ing Li­on (Rafael de Leon) sang to wel­come Pope John Paul II on his his­toric vis­it to T&T in Feb­ru­ary 1985. It was record­ed as a 12-inch sin­gle and the ca­lyp­son­ian pre­sent­ed a copy of it to the Pope, af­ter singing it to him and re­ceiv­ing a pa­pal bless­ing.

Hase­ly Craw­ford’s amaz­ing feat at the Mon­tre­al Olympics in 1976, cap­tur­ing T&T’s first gold medal, re­sult­ed in at least five ca­lyp­soes by Lord Kitch­en­er, The Mighty Spar­row, Mae­stro, Broth­er Mu­da­da and Strik­er.

The tri­al and con­vic­tion of Ab­dul Ma­lik and oth­ers for the mur­ders in Ari­ma of Eng­lish woman Gail Ann Ben­son and Trinida­di­an Joseph Sker­ritt in­spired One to Hang from the al­bum We walk 100 Miles in 1973 by Lord Kitch­en­er, as well as Stan­ley Ab­bott from the al­bum Tourist in Trinidad 1974.

Tax­es, it is said, are as in­evitable as death and in T&T, we cer­tain­ly have our share of them. Not to be left out, the voice of the peo­ple has been trans­mit­ted via the so­cial and po­lit­i­cal ca­lyp­soes of the day to the ex­tent that the Mighty Spar­row’s PAYE (Pay as You Earn) of 1958 cap­tured the Road March ti­tle in that year.

In the 1980s, the Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) was in­tro­duced by the ANR Robin­son-led gov­ern­ment, with Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters, belt­ing out his ca­lyp­so No VAT.

Then, in 2010, T&T was faced with the prop­er­ty tax, and again the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ voic­es were raised with ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Ti­gress, Lu­ta and Kurt Allen do­ing just that. La­dy Ti­gress de­vot­ed her en­tire ca­lyp­so, Don’t Touch Mih Ca­ca­da, to the con­tro­ver­sial prop­er­ty tax.

With the threat of the glob­al­ly ram­pant COVID-19 virus, Car­ni­val was can­celled in 2021. Back in 1972, the threat of a po­lio out­break led to Car­ni­val be­ing post­poned from Feb­ru­ary to May and Ebo­la posed a threat, but Car­ni­val pre­vailed in 2015. When Car­ni­val was even­tu­al­ly staged lat­er in 1972, the rains came and vir­tu­al­ly ru­ined the pa­rade. This was vivid­ly cap­tured by Lord Kitch­en­er in his 1973 Road March, Rain­o­ra­ma.

Here are some oth­er sig­nif­i­cant events and mo­ments in time that have been im­mor­talised in ca­lyp­so:

1933—Graf Zep­pelin/Atil­la the Hun

1950—Vic­to­ry Test Match (Crick­et, Love­ly Crick­et) - Lord Be­gin­ner (there are over 250 Crick­et-themed ca­lyp­soes) 1954-Steel­band Clash-Lord Blakie

1960—Ri­ot in the Oval-Lord Bryn­er

1973—Mem­o­ries-Mighty Spar­row

1977—Craw­ford-Mighty Spar­row

1978—Miss Uni­verse-Lord Kitch­en­er.

Two “uni­ty” themed ca­lyp­sos that will auger well as theme songs/ca­lyp­soes in these cur­rent times could be: Ja­ha­gi Bhai (Broth­er Mar­vin/1995) and Re­al Uni­ty (Machel and Dru­patee 1999/2020).

Our his­to­ry could well be taught in schools through our unique ca­lyp­so art­form. Since there is no crick­et to ral­ly around any­more, maybe we can ral­ly around ca­lyp­so be­ing taught in schools?

Nass­er Khan is a reg­u­lar colum­nist, au­thor, re­searcher, pro­duc­er/pub­lish­er, 2024 Hum­ming­bird Medal awardee (Sil­ver) in the field of ed­u­ca­tion and lit­er­a­cy