Dear Editor,
Dave Martins was a man of the soil, humble and held fast to his roots that fed the creativity of an extraordinary mind whose sweet music and lyrics tell of the land of Guyana, its trees, mountains and rivers, and more so of a people proud, strong and free.
He was quintessentially a Caribbean man whose music mingles with the tropical breeze, coconut palms, sun and sand, and at times mocks that lack of “Caribbeanness”, that show of a contrived identity of a Caribbean man or woman in the concrete jungle of a foreign land. He was also quick to sing of that harmony we saw on the cricket fields of yore when Kanhai and Sobers bestrode the grounds of Sabina Park and Bourda.
Never one to imitate, Dave was creative to the core. He had a deep love for the arts and poetry. He toiled and toiled and how poorer we would have been if he had not brought forth such music and lyrics. A man of the Earth, and who could have said it better than the man himself:
“And even when the maker call,
I will remain this way,
I gon walk into heaven, put down meh roti
and seh…W’happing deh.”
Sincerely,
Haimnauth Cecil Ramkirath
