Category Archives: Culture

Carnival, Culture, Entertainment, General T&T, Music

Kaiso ’til yuh puke

By Raffique Shah
February 25, 2020

Raffique ShahI was pleasantly surprised by the quality of many calypsoes I heard during the first half of the Calypso Monarch finals last Thursday night. My self-regulated sleeping hours did not permit me to take in the second half, which I’m sure was better. But based on the performances I watched and listened to, I can safely say that calypso is on the rebound, albeit slowly. For this, we need to thank the young bards who have decided to stay with traditional calypso even if they sometimes venture into the soca arena to share in its rich rewards.
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Carnival, Culture, General T&T, Racism Watch

Puttin’ Yo Self in People Mouth

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 18, 2020

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeJudith Reyes is my neighbor. Our parents lived in the same spot for over eighty years. Neighbors thought our mothers were sisters. Judith’s brother Giles and I live like brothers. We have never quarreled with each other.

Every morning when I am in Trinidad Judith sends me a cup of porridge with prunes in it. She makes it clear that she is not doing that for me. Rather, she is doing this for my mother who she reminds me was my protector. She says: “Yo’ know how much candles yo’ mother light for you at Mt. St. Benedict?”
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Carnival, Carnival, Crime in T&T, Culture, General T&T

Pan Potential

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By Raffique Shah
February 17, 2020

Raffique ShahAs I savour some of the best offerings from this year’s Carnival from the comfort and safety of my home, I cannot help but think of the thousands of performers and revellers out there who, even as they immerse themselves in the gaiety of the festival, must ponder the possibilities that they might become victims of some criminal act before the day or night is over.
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Culture, General T&T, International, USA

Americanization of life in T&T

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By Dr Kwame Nantambu
December 03, 2019

Dr. Kwame NantambuNow that Trinbagonians have already successfully completed their “shopping mayhem” per “Black Friday Sale: Back to Black savings with huge Discounts,” “Black Friday super sale,” “Black Friday 3 Day Sale,” “Black Friday Deals,” “Black Friday Sales,” “Black Friday Weekend Super Sale” plus “Best Black Friday Deals … Today Only” and in the process overtly and scandalously imitating the ex-post United States Thanksgiving Day, Thursday 28 November events/activities, it is indeed apropos to examine the Americanization of specific aspects of life in T&T.
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Carnival, Carnival, Culture, General T&T

Salute the London clan

By Raffique Shah
March 09, 2019

Raffique ShahHaving written last week that I did not see the successors to Sparrow and other icons in the pantheon of great calypsonians of Trinidad and Tobago, hence of the world, I think I must be man enough to apologise to the London family, three of whom won the four most prestigious calypso titles at stake this year.

Uncle Brian, who composed the winning songs for nephews Ronaldo and Rivaldo, beat a formidable field (Gypsy, Myron B, Black Sage) to take the ex-tempo crown convincingly, having failed on several previous occasions. Ever since his entry into the calypso arena sometime during the first decade of the Millennium, Brian has consistently maintained high standards as a composer and singer. He was selected for the monarch finals on five occasions (1st runner-up in 2010), and the ex-tempo finals more than that.
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Carnival, Culture, General T&T

The Carnival is over

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By Raffique Shah
January 09, 2019

Raffique ShahI was pleasantly surprised when the announcement by the National Carnival Commission that it was scrapping the North Stand for this year’s Carnival did not elicit an uproar of objections from stakeholders in the national festival and hordes of party animals whose love for steelband music lasts one day—the National Panorama Semi-Finals.

For all its symbolic representation of the spirit of Carnival, crammed as it was (note tense) with more than its 8,000 maximum capacity, the North Stand was a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money. For close to 50 years, ritually, every January, contractors and hundreds of workers would engage in a frenetic exercise of erecting the facility, only to dismantle it two weeks after Carnival. The cost? Four million dollars.
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Culture, General T&T, International, Race and Identity, USA

The Museum of African American History

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 08, 2019

“The past is all that makes the present coherent.”

— James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt was a rainy afternoon in Washington D.C., the Friday after Christmas, when I paid a chance visit to the National Museum of African American History & Culture. I had heard so much about this fantastic museum and the attention it has drawn throughout the U.S. (United States) that I did not expect to get a ticket to explore its wonders. I took my chances and was lucky to enter its gates. I didn’t regret it. It was one of the most impressive museums I have ever seen.
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Culture, Education, General T&T

Fall of giants—but there is hope

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By Raffique Shah
November 3, 2017

Raffique ShahA friend of mine, a Queen’s Royal College alumnus, no less, and an Afro-Trini, which is relevant only because of the theme of the discussion we had, having scanned the list of the 389 national scholarship winners, noted the demise of his alma mater in academic performance (and in sports, I should have reminded him), and more generally, the seismic shift in scholastic achievements from geographical, race and gender perspectives.
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Culture, England, France, General T&T, International

Love A Donkey: Besson’s Independence Fables – Pt 2

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 10, 2017

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn “Independence Legacies,” Gerard Besson offers his reading of Trinidad’s modern history. He says: “From 1783, Europeans and Black people who were not enslaved… arrived mostly from French islands. Many were refugees, political enemies and strangers to each other.… After the British conquest of 1797 to this milieu were added Chinese, Portuguese, and African freedmen. Then after much miscegenation, some decades later, Indian indentureship commenced, and latterly [sic] the Lebanese and Syrians arrived” (my emphasis).
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Crime in T&T, Culture, Finance, PNM, Politics

Love a Donkey: Besson’s Independence Fables – Pt 1

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 03, 2017

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI always marvel when relatively intelligent people say silly things about Africans and our past because of their color or class position. In “Independence Legacies” Gerard Besson offers a mishmash of information, which suffers from factual, interpretive, and definitional flaws. Besson is more concerned with trotting out an ideological position rather than with offering an analytical argument to support his contentions. It’s almost as though his “Creoleness” exempts him from treating his subject matter with the academic rigor it deserves.
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