TT no longer Land of Calypso

THE EDITOR: TT boasts that it is the Land of Calypso. However, how true is that statement? Isn’t it safer to say we used to be the Land of Calypso?

How else can we explain why in the midst of this year’s Carnival season calypso tents had to close their doors? Several reasons have been offered for the lack of patronage the tents have been experiencing in the past few years that culminated in this never-heard-of-before scenario.

What is apparent, though, is that the “self-hate” we have for our country is at the root of the problem. That craft of blending tight, incisive lyrics with great melodies is gone. All our practitioners now offer are hymns and lamentations describing the state of the country, and crime and its impact on communities and the country.

As a result, record stores can now offer buyers only soca and reggae. Recently, a request from a friend to purchase “real calypso” music for him to take back to his overseas home resulted in an exercise in futility.

With the deaths of Earl Crosby and Cleve Calderon, the duo that promoted calypso music in their respective establishments for decades, it appears there are no longer stores in the capital with a stock of vintage calypso recordings.

I know it will be asking too much of our calypsonians that they deliver a song in the mold of Progress every year. But their failure to sing, among them all, one memorable calypso a year has surely resulted in the death of the art form.

GERALD AGOSTINI via e-mail