Upgrade vs People Man

WAYNE KUBLALSINGH

ONE OF the most intriguing issues in this year’s Carnival, on both the social and performance stage, is that of "outside woman" vs "inside woman". This is epitomised in the hardly-noticed soca-kaiso clash between Upgrade and People Man by Fay-Ann Lyons-Alvarez and Maria Bhola-Paul, respectively.

The persona in Lyons-Alvarez’s soca composition piques the woman she is “horning.” When the latter sees her parked in her yard, she should be glad. She should be thankful. For she has upgraded their man, made him into a brand. “You shoulda be the happiest thing under the sun.” For “the effort that I put in benefit both of us.” The wife or live-in companion should “congratulate your girl on a job well done.” Indeed, she should “say thanks, na.”

First, she argues:

The wine that I give him, now ah make him worth more

You now have a man, gurl your king now score,

You shoulda leh me know I woulda help from before

I throw away your vinyl give you hard wood floor,

The food whey I giving you never will regret

He healthy and lengthy and everything set.

The paramour has brought back a better man, better husband, better brand: a better social, marital and economic product. Brands.

Second, she argues that she does due diligence:

I pick him up and fix him up and drop him back Monday

I pick him and fix him up and drop him back Tuesday,

I pick him up and fix him up

If I pick him up and fix him up,

If I pick him up and fix him up and drop him back Wednesday

I pick him up and fix him up and drop him back Thursday.

Not only does Fay-Ann Lyons-Alvarez's persona pick him up, she picks him up every day of the working week. Not only does she pick him up, she drops him back every time. Not only does she fix him up good and proper, if you know how I does fix him up!

Third she teaches him:

I teach him every corner, he could pass any test

I drop him off tomorrow, you could handle the rest,

So when you see he come home and he feeling them breast,

Remember to be grateful he learn from the best,

To see your thing mash up woulda be a sad sight

And if I didn’t help girl it wouldn’t be right.

She has taught the man tricks from all the corners of her known universe, has improved his physiological apparatus and she had a moral duty to do so.

Fourth, this inside/outside man “woulda cheat anyway,” “woulda roam anyway,” “woulda been on the streets anyway,” “woulda leave you alone anyway,” and “woulda go underneath anyway.” He had a “back-up phone.” So the inside woman should not get vex, should not fuss. “Cause my flex simplifying yuh life that was so complex.” She has decomplicated the life of the proverbially hassled housewife.

Maria Bhola-Paul replied in her kaiso People Man. This very coherent writer and performer says, okay, no problem, you could borrow my man, but if “You want people/People man/We have rules and regulation/You gotta make ah contribution/When you borrowing people man”:

Lady, I know you with meh man

And I know meh man with you,

So let’s just have that discussion

About what we going and do.

She outlines a plan, using the days-of-the-week motif that Upgrade employed. First, Mondays and Tuesdays:

Mondays we does eat leftovers

But he really like fresh food

So maybe you could make that your cook day

Cause I doh really be in the mood.

Tuesdays I go to yoga

And he goes to the gym

I propose you could do we laundry

Since you perfectly fit and slim.

And Wednesdays:

Wednesdays them children have lessons

Daniel ketchin he tail with maths

I hope you at least have some passes

So maybe you could help him with that.

Thursdays is dance and drama

And sporting activities

I go do the drop-off and pickup

And maybe you could handle the fees.

The outside woman must pay for her borrow, in time, skills and money. You must “Pull your hand/When you want people man/Come with a little donation/When you borrowing people man.” The home woman is not being unreasonable. Major expenses would be borne by the householders, but minor expenses need to be met: “You could at least pay the wi-fi,” and “you could help out with the sou-sou.”

But not all is clash, disagreement. At the end of each song, the women seem to agree. Upgrade warns the ladies to better brand their man, upgrade him. To learn to “create” and “trade” your man. And People Man warns her sistren to “Go and cock up in front of him/And show him where to score the goal.” And, she rebukes:

You cyah be complaining

How all yuh doh have no fun,

But is twenty-four o’seven

You smelling like Clorox and onion.

These are beautifully penned songs. Graphic, ironic, employing classic versification. Classics of soca and kaiso, in a world where true talent is sacrificed at the altar of marketing monsters. These women write their own songs. Thematically, they point the way to forms of marital contracts, in an era of family dissolution, high divorce rates, child neglect, beyond the traditional patriarchy, matriarchy and anarchy.