By Raffique Shah
January 11, 2018
The Government missed a good opportunity to impress upon the population the gravity of the country’s economic circumstances, and consequently the dire need for all segments of society to make sacrifices on the expenditure side of the equation, when it capitulated by doling out millions of taxpayers’ dollars to fund private promoters whose sole interest in Carnival is to profit off it.
Continue reading Funding culture vultures
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 06, 2017
Last Wednesday, Max Prime’s “We Jammin’ Still” was declared the Road March of the year. Over the two days of Carnival, it was played over 556 times as opposed Machel Montano’s “Your Time Now” that was played 77 times. On January 11, Joanne Briggs declared: “Ultimate Rejects” has already been declared the people’s anthem for Carnival 2017″ (Trinidad Guardian). She wasn’t wrong. Over the last two months, “We Jammin’ Still” replaced our National Anthem as an expression of our people’s sentiment: a directionless nation in crisis.
Continue reading An Anarchist Anthem
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
October 26, 2015
As the Trinidad/Tobago United Calypsonians Association (TUCO) is currently celebrating “Calypso History Month”, it became supremely imperative for this writer, albeit lover of the calypso art form, to pen a few thoughts about the need to take the art form of calypso to the next ultimate international level.
Now, for the past umpteen decades and counting, the calypso genre has been posited within the local myopic confines of the Ministry of Arts and Culture.
Continue reading Taking calypso to the next level
By Raffique Shah
February 15, 2015
I waited patiently for Calypso Fiesta, the Mother of all Calypso shows, which featured 41 of the top calypsonians for this year. I did not trust the 20-plus radio stations in the country since those that feature local music kill us with pumping, jarring noises accompanied by voices that all sound hoarse as if the artistes are stricken with sore throats, that they tell me is soca.
Continue reading Kaiso, boy!
Bunji rocks ‘106 and Park’
By Leiselle Maraj
May 02 2014 – newsday.co.tt
Host of BET’s 106 and Park, Bow Wow (Shad Moss), did his research before interviewing local artiste, Bunji Garlin, and his wife, Fay-Ann, on the show’s episode that aired yesterday, questioning the two about their boycott of the recently concluded Tobago Jazz Experience.
Continue reading Bunji Garlin and Fay Ann Lyons on 106 & Park
By Raffique Shah
February 25, 2012
ON Ash Wednesday, two articles in the Express perked me up. In the first, Planning and Development Minister Dr Bhoe Tewarie, interviewed in the Grand Stand, told reporter Anna Ramdass that soca star Machel Montano “should be leading the charge in selling Trinidad and Tobago internationally”. Vowing to pursue this quest at Cabinet level, Dr Tewarie added, “…I think Machel is in a class by himself… we should try to support an external thrust led by Machel in the world outside…”
Continue reading Marketing our music
Dr. Kwame Nantambu
Posted: March 04, 2009
This article seeks to clear the air as to my obdurate professional assertion that there is a direct correlation between soca lyrics and moral decadence, public pornography cum simulation of sexual intercourse and sexual promiscuity in T&T.
The stark reality is that when Lord Shortie introduced Soca music via his 1974 LP titled “Endless Vibrations”, his lyrics were conceived/conceptualized within the context of love; hence, the “Love Circle.” Sadly, some of today’s Soca lyrics have completely transformed the original “Love Circle” into today’s Soca public pornographic Sex Circle as patrons “get ready to juk, juk, juk”.
Continue reading Soca lyrics & moral decadence revisited