Pan Trinbago boss: My nephew is an excellent musician

PAN TRINBAGO president Beverly Ramsey-Moore has stoutly defended her band’s victory in the National Panorama Medium Conventional band final at the Dwight Yorke Stadium, Bacolet, Tobago, on February 23.

Ramsey-Moore is the leader of Katzenjammers, which won a hat-trick in the competition with its stirring version of the Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco) tune Lying Excuses.

The song was arranged by her nephew Kersh Ramsey, who also led Katzenjammers to victory in the 2023 and 2024 medium band competitions.

After the presentation, Ramsey-Moore was asked to respond to critics who might regard Katzenjammers as benefiting from bias, owing to her family ties with the arranger and her position as Pan Trinbago president.

Ramsey-Moore responded initially, “Talent is talent.”

THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine, who was also on the stage for the celebration, quickly interjected, “I don’t think it is fair to Mrs Ramsey to project any malfeasance for the reason why they won, because the other sign of the coin is, should they not participate at all?”

He said for as long as Pan Trinbago has existed, the presidents of Pan Trinbago have always come from pan sides.

“As a matter of fact, you cannot be the Pan Trinbago president if you do not belong to a pan side.

"So I don’t know how else she can really address that. It is really a foolish criticism. The president must come from a pan side.

“It just so happens that her pan side has an extremely talented arranger and extremely talented and dedicated players. That is all, really. So spare her.”

Ramsey-Moore interrupted Augustine, saying she was not afraid to answer the question.

“I own it. Kersh is my nephew, but he is an excellent musician, and of course, as the chief said, as long as you are in Pan Trinbago, you must be a member of a band.

“So whether it is this president or any other president, even members of the executive – do you know we have members of the executive who play with steelbands and are being adjudicated on?

“Kersh is an excellent musician and Katzenjammers is the band that I belong to and they deserve to win. They played well and all the other bands were excellent, but there can only be one winner.

"I am not running from that at all. I own it. He is my nephew and I love him very much.”

Minister of Sport and Community Development Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis said Katzenjammers’ victory provides an opportunity for Tobagonians to “acknowledge, claim and appreciate that we have come this far and we are finally at this point of greatness.

“In the past, when Trinidadian bands have won consecutively, nobody questioned it.

"This is our time, this is our turn. We did our homework, we have studied, we practiced.

“The very young came out, the old came out and we have done our work over the years and here we have right here in our hold, talented arrangers, talented panmen coming out and doing their homework.

“I think this is our opportunity as young people, as Tobagonians, and I would say as people from Tobago West to really claim this moment and be very proud of what we have produced.”

Cudjoe-Lewis urged people to not waste time “criticising and falling on the bandwagon of the naysayers.

“This is our time, this is our moment. We have earned it and we bask in the glory with our very own son of the soil, Kersh Ramsey. It is in his blood. It is in his line. He has been doing this work from generation to generation. Why not claim it? Why not own it?”

She said the victory should also inspire other young arrangers and panmen.