Spectacular Lord Shorty was ironically anything but little. Standing an imposing six feet four inches tall the musical genius boldly experimented and created the sensual soca, with his exploratory “Indrani” song in the early 1970s, the consummate classic “Endless Vibrations” album of 1974 and the international hit “Om Shanti Om.” An original Trini “saga boy” or dashing dandy with a particular passion for beautiful women and hedonistic living, Garfield Blackman seamlessly merged the eastern sounds of the dholak, tabla and dhantal from the mostly Indian village, Lengua where he grew up in the southern part of the island, with the symphonic steelpan and catchy calypso music he also loved.
This national soul of calypso originally abbreviated “sokah” as he first spelt it to reflect the oriental influence, later became simply “soca” – a new musical genre that has continued to enchant, evolve and encompass ever exotic elements ranging from kadence, funk, soul and zouk to Punjabi bhangra, chutney, parang, ragga and dance beats.
Tagged “The Love Man” for another favourite pastime, the Lord also enjoyed drink and drugs in equal abandon. Shorty’s epiphany came in 1977 when he lost his house, his close friend, fellow calypsonian and composer Maestro died in a car crash, and he became so disenchanted with the sybaritic style that a few years later he fled deep into the far-off forests of wild Piparo with his wife, Claudette, and nearly a dozen offspring. In an extraordinary transformation, the swarthy soca songster discovered religion and monogamy, converted to Rastafarianism, grew dreadlocks, altered his name to Ras Shorty I and swapped the expensive, fancy designer threads for spartan white cotton robes, and stringy sandals or bare feet. Small wonder that stunned Trinidadians wondered whether he had gone raving mad.
But Ras Shorty I’s remarkable musical output did not dim and with the spiritual awakening and calm, emerged another musical group, comprising 13 of his numerous talented progeny, christened appropriately “The Love Circle” and a unique fusion “jamoo” or Jah’s (God’s) music. Indeed, the pioneer had come full circle and so resorted to stinging melodies on the dangers of his former fast life and the sinfully smutty lyrics he too had once so warmly embraced and been pilloried for, to the extent that he had been charged for public indecency after almost literally demonstrating “The Art of Making Love” during a performance on stage.
Attaining fresh international fame with his stirring anti-drug composition, “Watch out my children!” the musician did not live to see the video, dying from bone cancer in 2000. Penned subsequent to a revealing visit through the tough streets of the capital Port of Spain where he stumbled across a group of wasted, errant boys high on cocaine, the commentary sternly warns youngsters to “walk cautiously” and “be alert.” For “you have an enemy, that is roaming Jah’s earth. I know that you are young and restless, But you don’t have to be careless, Sober thinking leads on to righteousness, And happiness, spiritual bless…”
“Watch out my children, watch out my children” he cautions. “You have a fellow called Lucifer with a bag of white powder. And he don’t want to powder your face. But to bring shame and disgrace to the human race.” Today, Ras Shorty I’s lyrics prove as prophetic as when they were written in the small, lamp-lit wooden home set among the cool, whispering trees more than two decades ago. Translated into at least 10 languages, the piece became the enduring anthem of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) against the proliferation of narcotics. Later the UNDCP combined with the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division to form the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
As Shorty predicted, tarnished Guyana yet again finds itself in a flagrantly scandalous situation with the constant trafficking of the white powder across its borders and the ensuing handling and re-distribution including through the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) by the seemingly untouchable coke dons, such as the now missing “Fat Man” the Guyanese-born American, Barry Dataram (BD), alias Kevin Mogatani who confessed on national television earlier this year to dealing and smuggling. He went on the offensive against the country’s controversial Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU), when a relative complained of losing $3M and Barry became loquacious and accused a certain rogue officer of corruption, taking $10M bribes for arranging safe passage for shipments, and of helping organise the re-introduction of some seized drugs back on the streets. The Government-appointed one-man commission of enquiry and his report on those allegations was submitted in July but not fully released to the public.
Over the years, a circus of several ill-fated attempts to extradite Dataram to the US failed on account of his expensive, high-powered lawyers, and for the umpteenth time he was arrested – in 2015 – by CANU. This resulted from the discovery of 284 pounds of cocaine at his Diamond home stashed in 428 parcels of frozen shrimp in a white freezer, as large compressed blocks in a cupboard near the kitchen sink, and in smaller packages stacked in a blue baby tub and even in common black plastic garbage bags. By the time the seafood lot reached the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) a few miles away in the city, eight were already missing.
“Is me thing, none ah dem people ain know about dis,” Dataram declared, according to CANU Officer Anthony Yarde, a man he would brand a liar, and who recounted details of the bust during testimony in March at the trial of Barry and “dem people” – 20 year-old common-law wife Anjanie Boodnarine, and friends Kevin Charran and Trevor Gouveia. On Tuesday, September 26 Magistrate Judy Latchman, based on the evidence freed the three and found Dataram, in his absence, guilty of the possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, sentencing him to a nominal five years. Problem is BD and Boodnarine have not been back in Court for a while and seem to have happily skipped town and country after they managed to secure High Court bail totaling a paltry S4.2M which has been ordered forfeited and arrest warrants issued for the elusive two.
“Ah don’t think they does bother with me now,” the short, stocky Dataram brazenly told journalist Travis Chase of HGPV News in the infamous February interviews, referring to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) which was finally allowed to set up an office in Georgetown that same month. But brash Barry would do well to recall the kidnapping attempt of his then wife Shaleeza and their three year-old child in December 2007 by a Venezuelan pair, one of whom was shot and killed by Police and the other later freed when the Datarams did not testify. BD would be lucky to end up with the devil merely powdering his nose for the DEA may be his safest option yet to launch a recording deal, start singing and finally face the music.
ID stares suspiciously at any Guyanese food imports displayed in Trinidad’s groceries, wondering if she will get drunk on shrimps, star apples, or snapper and to her husband’s amusement picks through the parboiled rice and even the Demerara sugar.
