Preserving legacy of our icons

Dara E Healy  -
Dara E Healy -

Culture Matters

DARA E HEALY

I started running Kitchener’s tent from something like 1967…I did ten seasons emceeing in Kitchener’s tent and I mean people who have been around calypso would always say one of the baddest MCs they have seen in the business up to today is Black Stalin. At a certain point around 1976/77 I just said look, Black Man, cool it a bit on the emceeing and get into some more singing…And I think the results of staying off the stage, we saw it in 79 with the first calypso crown and my first album.

– Black Stalin, GBTV interview, 1994

TOO LATE. Sadly, that is often the timeline when honouring our cultural practitioners. I wish I had known more about Rawle Titus for instance, that I had an opportunity to benefit from his passion for researching and teaching our traditions.

There are plans to make his creative works available to more nationals, but how may we document and preserve the work of our creatives while they are alive? Further, as we consider the long-term impact of icons like Black Stalin, should our ambitions not go beyond preservation to amplifying their body of work in schools and communities?

There are practitioners who reach deep into communities to connect with the life-force of culture, like the single-minded JD Elder. Then there are those like Black Stalin, Jit Samaroo, Julia Edwards and others who sang, danced or played pan because they had no choice. We have come to that point in our collective history when remembering them is essential.

Our nation is once more in a fragile state, perhaps similar to the time when George Bailey felt he needed to bend wire and create masquerades to highlight racism in our society. Or when Minshall’s technological crab trailed our blood across the Savannah stage.

Creativity transformed us in other ways, when, for example, someone bent back on their knees and moved under a flaming rod, six inches above the ground. Or as we empowered the community to tell its story of Ram and Leela through drama and dance.

Today, the ability to tell stories could not have been imagined by any national plan for culture and arts. Few plans could have envisaged Tik Tok or Snapchat. Weekly, I meet people, many of them young people, who have created their own digital space to address information gaps. They are no longer waiting for a museum exhibit or national festival to actively engage around the stories that are important to them.

However, how do we pull all the information into a repository that is easily accessible? Should institutions like the National Archives or the UTT now address the complexities of digital nation-building content and how it should be managed? Too often enthusiasm is not supported by ideological clarity and when that occurs the result is unavoidably – confusion. We have a recent example of a global animation celebrating pan that did not mention Laventille.

How we protect the works of our icons is another crucial area. Sadly, there are people within the creative sector who plagiarise so often it is a natural part of their modus operandi. Theft of poetry, choreography or lyrics occurs more frequently than you think. And no, it does not matter if the icon is still alive.

To assist with the setting of standards and guidelines, it is imperative that our legal fraternity and other key sectors become more proactive about protecting the music, written works, designs and other creative output.

As we move deeper into digitisation of creative works, this issue of protection will become even more urgent. If we felt outrage over the creation of a J’Ouvert Rum – just wait. The potential to create entire online worlds, a metaverse, is closer than we realise. Here, users will be able to buy, sell and interact on terms established by the global entity that owns the space.

In the 1940s, we were warned when the Andrews Sisters successfully pretended that Rum and Coca-Cola by Lord Invader and Lionel Belasco was theirs. That legal case ended well for us, but do we have the resources or the savvy to protect our creative output in a global and far less regulated digital realm?

In the end, documenting our icons must be a priority for all of us, if we are to protect their legacy for future generations and inspire the much needed healing of our nation.

Dara E Healy is a performance artist and founder of the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN

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"Preserving legacy of our icons"

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