This past week, even as we mourn the loss of calypsonians Lord Canary here, and of King Austin in Trinidad, the subject of calypso as an art form is again getting traction with comments by Trinidad & Tobago President Anthony Carmona delivering the feature address at the Top 20 Stars of Gold Show presented by the country’s National Action Cultural Committee (NACC). Focusing on his concern for the art form he recalled King Austin’s hits, “Progress” and “Who is Guarding the Guards” and said that the former work warned of the dangers of an economic development that was out of step with human and environmental well-being. “My deepest regret is that this great calypsonian, King Austin, like many before, died in a type of destitution that must make us all feel a sense of shame,” lamented the President. “To be a Calypsonian artist is a worthy and honourable profession, just like any other honest profession. We must come to terms with the passage and frailty of time and the time has come to simply act on the crisis of destitution among our Calypsonians.” Carmona urged the calypso fraternity to create a pension and annuity scheme to provide for that time when the calypsonian can no longer sing.
His Excellency also suggested that a year-round calypso tent and steelband tent be set up to employ artistes every day on a rotational basis, and urged that calypso be more widely promoted on the world stage, as done in the past, by featuring songs on world themes. Saying it is an art form of international reach and stature, he suggested calypsonians could gain international acclaim by singing on international topics. Carmona asked aloud what is stopping our artistes from such an international reach. “We have to consider whether by limiting our content and scope in calypso to local political issues and picong issues insular to us, the man in London, Berlin, Sydney or the United States will no longer understand and be able to enjoy these small issues which are normally not aired internationally. Like jazz, classical music, pop and reggae, calypso should be appreciable to an international audience.”
Coincidentally, Carmona’s speech is making the rounds online, even as we are hearing of the very recent passing of Lord Canary and King Austin, and in a strikingly related further coincidence there is an important documentary on calypso on YouTube featuring Chalkdust, Lord Pretender and David Rudder that adds further dimensions to the subject. In the 90-minute presentation, Pretender, still in good voice in his 90’s, and still quite the comedian, related some first-hand knowledge of the early struggles in the art form, and said he regretted the changes in the soca evolution resulting in less emphasis on lyrics and melodic flow.
Particularly striking for me, however, was the contribution of David Rudder who weighed in heavily on the role calypso has played in the cultural development of the Caribbean. Speaking without notes or prompter, Rudder eloquently stressed that, in the process of entertaining us in the time when it was the popular music of the day, calypso had created a sociological transformation in Caribbean people by making them subliminally aware of their origins and of the challenges that lay ahead of them as independence came, and he emphasized the 1970 uprising in Trinidad as pivotal in the process. He sees it as a time for Caribbean people of “coming back to yourself”, of finding the relevance of, as he put it, “our Caribbean belly”, not in the sense of a literal “belly” but a symbolic one of identity, and he sees soca as growing out of calypso in that evolution. He said: “That 1970 period was a crucial time when those events here made people of my age begin to look at themselves. We were in the American music era then, and 1970 said to people ‘start to look at yourself’. Out of that came these new vibrant young people, still the same old kaiso in a different form, reflecting that vibrancy, that urgency, of 1970.”
The song-writer singer reacts to the comments about this person or that creating soca. “Sure, the music men have to implement the changes, but I believe the events in that era dictated the change in the first place.” Rudder is providing another example for us of what I’m always preaching about: that musicians do not create popular culture in a vacuum, sitting along in a room somewhere with a guitar. Instead the music is a result, as David says, of “events or trends” in that time in that society identified by the people and then picked up by the artistes – Ed Watson; Lord Shorty; Pelham Goddard; David Rudder – who then present to the masses what the masses have already identified as appealing or worthwhile to them. Rudder is pointing to the stirring of an awareness of self, of origins, triggered by events in his homeland in 1970 when the existing political order was under severe attack.
In the various comments outlined above on the matter, Rudder’s point is a pivotal one, deserving of further dissemination by our sociologists and cultural people. His perspective on influences operating on popular music are significant, particularly for emerging artistes. Following my viewing of the documentary, I wrote to Smokey Burgess in Barbados who had sent it to me: “SMOKEY: Thanks for sending this. Important calypso history from Pretender, and particularly David’s point about calypso as a search for identity, and how relevant it is to all Caribbean people, even the separated ones. What he’s saying there has a certain subtlety about it, but it is powerful truth. That process of realisation that the ‘true true calypsonian’ creates in his work underpins the achievements of Caribbean people over the years, starting in music, but spreading from there to all areas working with that self-awareness and confidence – traits of who we are today. David is so right about that. The only thing I would have added was the personal commitment ‘to de wuk’ in all those people who were creating and performing the music. The region, particularly outside Trinidad, often doesn’t even know their names but owes them far more than it realises. I have often said that the insouciance and adaptation to life that identifies Caribbean people so strongly, a part of us even when we migrate, owes in large part to the agitation of calypso in our upbringing and our adult lives. “
The documentary with Chalkdust, Pretender and David Rudder contains much more than I have covered here. It’s a fine piece of work. The link to it is https://youtu.be/FFkf0DU1fJA
