Category Archives: Carnival

Carnival, Culture, General T&T

When music ignites passion

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By Raffique Shah
February 13, 2024

Raffique ShahI can see it clearly today as I did back then 70-odd years ago. My brain at eight years young focused on the sweet melody that came from the one steelband that passed through Freeport Junction. By 6 a.m. when the junction came alive with about 800 people of varying races, colours and cultures, swaying, jumping and shouting loudly to the sounds of Lord Blakie’s “Steelband Clash”, I stood there in awe of what I was witnessing.
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Carnival, Carnival, Culture, General T&T

There is hope yet for pan

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By Raffique Shah
February 13, 2023

Raffique ShahEvery year, ritually, come Carnival, steel pans and drums rescued from the paws of scrap-metal hustlers hunting for a few dollars, or rust that’s threatening to render them useless, join hundreds of cellos, bass and retired hubcaps from derelict motor vehicles, coming together to treat music lovers with the most scintillating sounds and songs that could allow the “mad blood” in all of us to enjoy “we music”.
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Carnival, Culture, General T&T

Black Stalin: calypsonian, crusader

By Raffique Shah
January 02, 2023

Raffique ShahBy a strange coincidence, last Tuesday, the fourth day of a very long Christmas weekend, I set up my music system around two in the afternoon, inserted a USB “stick” on which I have, over many years, collected hundreds of tracks from CDs I had bought or recorded music that was freely available for download from several sites on the Internet, and prepared for a treat I had not enjoyed for quite some time.
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Carnival, Culture, General T&T

Saying Yes, Sometimes

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 04, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe condemnations came fast and furious. U.S. actor Michael B. Jordan, it seems, was farse and outaplace to name his new rum J’Ouvert and equally outatiming to set the label of his product on a box that included “a schematic of the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, plus a written reference to Trinidad and to J’Ouvert as a local celebration of emancipation and carnival” (Newsday, June 21).

One Trini woman mused: “We look for that. This is what happens when we are constantly ambivalent about our culture, largely ignore its historical, spiritual and ideological significance” (Newsday, June 21).
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Carnival, Crime in T&T, Culture, Entertainment, Music

Opportunities lost

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By Raffique Shah
September 07, 2020

Raffique ShahEarly morning Independence Day. I switch on the television, remembering that there would be no military parade this year, thanks to Covid-19, the Great Destroyer. So what is there to watch? On CNC3, I catch the last few words of the Prime Minister—rerun of an interview he’d done with Natalee Ligoure a few days ago. Then the host excitedly introduces 2020 Panorama champions, Desperadoes—their winning performance on Carnival Saturday night.
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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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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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