Trinidad Ghost and zessers

THE EDITOR: If some people don’t now the word “zesser,” they can find out about it from one of the young people. Or they can check the online Urban Dictionary; yes there is one. The meaning of the expression is not flattering. Take a look at Trinidad Ghost’s YouTube video, More Zessing “Zesser.”

The video is good and the song was played on the DJ trucks during Carnival. A part of the song is used as one of the meanings of zesser in the Urban Dictionary.

The lyrics composed by many of the calypso, rapso and reggae artistes need recognition and discussion, because they give us insights about what is on the ground in TT. In the case of zessers, Trinidad Ghost should be complimented for making us look at some Afro-Trinidadian youth and their way of life.

The video, which features mainly Africans, opens with Trinidad Ghost saying to someone on the phone, “Yuh ain’t see what them girl and dem want for the New Year boy. Is only zessers they want boy.”

And the lyrics go like this:

She want a zesser

Ah real high stepper

When she stop inna the room

A Big Glock on the dresser

She want a zesser

A real trend setter

Blue notes in high pocket

Cause he have real cheddar

She want a zesser

With big Beretta

Extended clip, rubber grip and copper

Trinidad Ghost has pointed us in a certain direction. He does not say so but maybe he doesn’t have to comment. The reality is that zessers and their admirers’ behaviour do not move Africans in TT or the Caribbean one step forward. It is a matter of one section of the society going one way, the rest going another way.

Africans in the Caribbean live in a world where the UN has declared a Decade for People of African Descent. Our government, which should have taken a prominent role during the decade, has not announced anything to highlight either the particular physical or psychic needs of Africans. But other people are going ahead.

Soft power is in vogue. The Chinese are on the way to becoming the world’s most powerful economy. The Indians have produced a generation of scientists and engineers and they have Bollywood.

Africans on the continent are not far behind. The continental African population is young, eager, fast growing and entrepreneurial. Nigeria and Ghana alone have made their film industry, Nollywood, one of the three most important in the world.

We in TT need to look at the names of the scholarship winners, especially as the emphasis is on mathematics and the sciences. They do not reflect a heavy presence of African youth.

The jails are filled with too many African youth. And when the Americans sent out their travel advisory recently they said, “Do not travel to Laventille, Beetham, Sea Lots, Cocorite…”

Trinidad Ghost has made his own alert. Let’s take heed.

AIYEGORO OME, Mt Lambert