Humour for crown

THE EDITOR: Now that the finalists for the 2019 Calypso Monarch finals have been announced, the public, tent mangers and judges should seriously consider what Black Sage (Phillip Murray) sang about in his calypso Humour for Crown.

At `his tent, Kaiso House, he offered what should be considered as an indictment of the state of contemporary calypso both at the tents as well as those chosen for the competitions. He begins:

My fans around the town

Asked me what going wrong

In Calypso Monarch competition

There were songs in there

That did not belong

And they don’t like to pick good humorous song.

Like them don’t know calypso is entertainment

They killing the show with politics and lament

Big calypso finals with very few laughs

Humour is a dying art please bring back the craft.

Maria Bhola is in the monarch finals this year and Chalkdust’s satire has been there in the recent past but they may be exceptions to the rule. Nonetheless Black Sage’s points need scrutiny.

In answer to a listener’s query about coping with life in TT compared to elsewhere, Chalkdust sang Learn to Laugh:

Every Trinidadian has a secret weapon

To fight misery and corruption

And then ah tell them

When they jam we in a corner

And we can’t take it no longer

We does laugh it out brother

In these troubled times we need to look for a light touch to national matters. Black Sage said the authorities don’t seem to know that calypso is entertainment. He has highlighted what I think is pertinent, because the public is denied the benefit of being entertained with humour in its many manifestations.

Humour has its categories, it being done in different ways. Antics on stage are not the only hallmarks of humorous calypso. Calypsoes could be absurd or farcical like Spoiler’s and Brother Alpha’s. Self-deprecating like Melody’s Mama Look a Boo Boo, Brigo’s Mama Popo, and Surpriser’s Old Age is a Disaster.

Humorous songs may be risque, not smutty. Listen to Puppet Master singing Mih Boy. Duke, Sparrow and Bomber always had humour in their repertoires. There are calypsoes based on the animal sounds like Scrunter’s Crapaud Revolution. Funny has his special style.

Language skills are critical to successful humorous calypsoes. It is what Black Sage means when he sings:

Humorous calypsoes

Are very hard to make

It’s a chance plenty composers fraid to take

You come in the tent every face serious

Only Sprang and Tommy being humorous.

Them mocking pretenders love to follow a formula

All the ladies feel they must sound just like Singing Sandra

Is a same old same old kind of song year after year

Let’s change that and have our audience laughing from ear to ear.

Black Sage’s calypso did not make the grade for Skinner Park far more the Savannah, most likely for the very points that he has advanced. But his comments must be considered. Quite possibly he may stimulate a change.

AIYEGORO OME
, Mt Lambert