A glimmer of fading Carnival hope

THE EDITOR: I am a middle-aged soca lover living abroad. I desperately seek out new releases at this time of year (knowing I am heading home/out of the cold) and along with friends and family we evaluate the year’s offerings and I have to say this year artistes have produced a lower standard of music compared to last year.

I think we initially went downhill in the 90s with the emergence of jump, wave, wine lyrics that still unfortunately exist to this day along with the standard “bumper” song. Meaningless!

Our whole culture is deteriorating before our eyes and we are doing nothing about it. There is no story within the lyrics/song. We have repetitive garbled nonsense. So-called leaders in the Trini music industry are also contributing so it’s not about being a new artist.

The same thing has happened to costuming with bikinis and feathers being the staple on the streets. This has led to fewer tourists seeing what was the billed as “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Instead we now have a party tourist coming in who only wants to look pretty, drink and wine.

There is very little left to see on the street except for literally a few bands trying to produce something more like a costume following a theme and not just the current standard of combining colours of feathers. And those creative bands are suffering as they are not “in style” to please the paying masquerader.

Children’s Carnival is also somewhat safe as they at least try to follow our traditions of a theme and proper costume. Out of the musical darkness we have acts like Voice, Destra and Kes, among others, who are trying to progress but save the art form and not infuse it with culture from America or other Caribbean islands to the extent that it will decimate our very valuable creativity and ability to stand alone in the genre we offer. Don’t waste it, lyricists, value and preserve it.

J GOMES, London