Calypso, soca reviews vital

THE EDITOR: So what happens now? The so-called calypso season is over. After 11 calypsonians have been selected to compete in the National Calypso Monarch Competition, it leaves 29 others from the top 40 performers at the Calypso Fiesta as well as scores of others with no hope of being heard.

In other words, several citizens’ creative efforts, good, bad or indifferent, are no longer available, not even for the sake of further improvement should it be necessary.

Sniper once said “by calypso our stories are told,” so when the voices of calypsonians are virtually silenced TT has no idea of what a significant part of the population is saying or doing.

Our journalists were not paying attention to some contributions from the 40 semi-finalists. There was no analysis of calypsoes like Letter of Restraint (Sasha Ann Moses), He Leave Enough (Eunice Peters), Feel Like We (Helon Francis) and A School for Love (Karen Eccles).

Unfortunately, our media managers do not seem to require their writers to review our calypso and soca and the several competitions. So in most cases the papers print reports which do not give the artistes the best consideration.

I have written previously about the lack of music criticism in the national media regarding calypso and pan. I took a cue from what Liam Teague said about Panorama 2017:

“What can actually help Panorama is educating the masses. A lot of people come into the panyard and sit and listen but aren’t aware of the intricacies and subtleties of the music. We can spend five – or ten – minutes speaking to the audience to give them a greater appreciation and a lot more people will be inclined to visit panyards because what they are hearing won’t be a mystery.”

To that I added, “…So in addition to pannists speaking to audiences at the panyards, I ask that we also have a consistent body of work from critics who can rouse people to visit the calypso tents where attendance has been declining for years.”

TT needs to recognise that many of our traditional calypsonians are unique folk artistes who for a variety of reasons do not record their works. The tents are their real home. Competitions are their centres for certification.

The soca singers/dancehall artistes are a much smaller modern grouping, who record, create videos and perform at festivals. Some of them get a lot of rotations on the radio, but there is not a collective TT push to get even that genre into a place like the Grammy Awards, from which they can further market themselves.

The media should be partners with our artistes in reaching for the stars. I look at our fellow Caribbean artistes, like the youthful Koffee who received a 2020 Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album. Grammy Awards are offered following the votes of several categories of participants in the recording industry.

Where does that leave us? Calypso and its derivatives are locked into Carnival. At least NJAC/NACC had pioneered the Black Tradition in Arts concerts which inspired other promoters. The soca/dancehall artistes usually move out to regional carnivals and the Caribbean diaspora. Occasionally intrepid groups or people may make it to trade shows.

Let the tents be developed into attractive venues for entertainment. Let the soca/dancehall artistes join forces with the traditionalists. Let the shows become unique experiences to which audiences will be attracted.

And let us confront the elephant in the room. It is the matter of 50 per cent airplay (really fair play) for all material, without exception, produced by TT audio and video artistes.

Until we can face up to these deficiencies we can only hope as we say, “long live calypso,” “calypso is in safe hands” and “we want more soca.”

The media have to come on board.

AIYEGORO OME

Mt Lambert