CARNIVAL MOMENTS: Calypso Semifinals 2012

Superior Picky
Superior Picky

Picky was the first semifinalist singing “One More Year.” In 2012, he was the longest-serving calypsonian in the semifinals, having started singing in 1968. Swinging Stars took off real slow and never sped up the song. Yet Picky’s lyrics heralded Dominica’s calypso classics, asked for another year to create “scandal” then warned that “Calypso is not one man’s one-sided fantasy.” In 2011, Beno gave us a similar tip in his piercing rendition titled “Gangster King .”

Vigilante, a construction worker from the community of Castle Bruce, sang second. In his

Vigilante
Vigilante

writer’s mind thought, “Everything is upside down.” Those “living high in society” were, the lyricist concluded, the ones bringing “down” the country.

I need be careful: This may well be Roseau people language—unresolved issues as third millennium consciences are stirred out of their innocence. The lines instruct too since they were written by a city/town lyricist for a country/rural fellah whose singing accent issued like fresh water into his writer’s chosen melody. Vigilante’s mentor, Dice, was from the east of Dominica too. They both identified a justice system “in crisis.”

Checker’s writer danced in a dual space having identified one or two figures who exhibited

Checker
Checker

two sides, an individual whom “we” had to save from himself. One of these figures was “cunning as can be.” The other or the same one “assumes command” “with no reprimand.” In the presence of this unfolding self, this uncovered dual personality, the calypsonian wants us to know that “man of values will always be treasured.”

The 2009 and 2010 monarch was certain that if he was the one giving

so much blows—the one other than Rose—he would be sentenced. “If it was me who was doing dis to she dey would’ve bury me in de cemetery.” Rose was getting away with murder—

Karessah
Karessah

the performer came on stage battered as if covered in blood with the abuser’s main instrument on his head. ’Twas a shoe symbol. Dominica Labor Party! O Karessa was on. “Ah ketchin me nennen,” he confessed.

There was a young lady in a Pentecostal church in Portsmouth who “never was a whiney,” not only did she not drink, hey, she did not whine or so it seemed. Well, that was until she met the pastor in Explosion’s “Pasta Wine.” It’s all about moral decadence. A drop of that wine hit the “tips of the tongue / when it reach she waist / all barriers fall down.” How graphic that is!

Dressed like Moses, Jammer B, saw rocks “falling” on wicked men and women. He changed Explosion-681x1024his song at the semis, and I thought this brave, though a few commentators did not think it wise arguing judges would not have been familiar with “Man Bong To Be Free.” What happened to flexibility, basic interpretive intelligence? In the quarters, he carried “Silent Tears.” His emancipation themes are needed so urgently for our own reflection, experimentation, wholesome ownership. “Like a bird in a tree,” “total liberty,” “riches of the worl / diamond and gold / dat you mustn’t trade for your soul.” There’s such a harvest in the Caribbean soul in this third millennium!

Jammer B
Jammer B

Our children, who should be the ones reaping that harvest, are doing this, only that their offspring is likely to be under attack. And I speak not only about the black male nor the Caribbean male, neither am I referring to the animal nomenclature kids.

De Bobb serenaded “A Child of Mine,” reminding all gathered, those seeing and hearing that “your problem child is not your child alone.” Men and women were abusing children in a land Bobb loved, one in which his daughters were growing up. “A parent can lose his head and commit a crime,” the singer reiterated. Men and women who did care about their children were almost afraid of themselves, fearful of what they might do if someone “touched” their child. Exacerbating issues was the recurrent cry in Dominica’s 2012 calypsos: “There’s no moral and justice in my land.”

Bobb
Bobb

Mighty Logas crossed into territories of tongues, untranslated languages, only that these were hiding corrupt practices, sexual immorality, and greed. Remember Karessa’s2009 Pastor Rod? Mighty Logas hymned the trend: “too many pastor Rods.” Humming out that Christianity is not about “demons and spirits,” the singer of “Internet Children” in 2011 went on to roar against pastors more concerned about tithes. When this became the dominant feature of the pastor’s service, Logar’s believed it was “time to run.” The language was spitting strange!

Observer needed to know whether by questioning the state apparatus—its leaders, their

Logas
Logas

morals, and relations—he would be perceived as a “state enemy.” Agriculture was in a mess, money was being spent arbitrarily, those in office were talking about good governance, wanted citizens to be tolerant yet were being so arrogant. If by pointing these out he was deemed a state enemy, well, he would be prepared to live with that. His job as a calypsonian, he announced, was to “articulate society’s wrongs.” If that made him a state enemy, then so be it!

The satirical cut in Triumph’s “Rum in Electoral Reform.” Agreeing that wommiels (rum drinkers) exist in both the United Workers Party and the Dominica Labor Party, he belted out, “I’m warning government / don’t stop de booze” (rum), running the logic that the day they “stopped the booze,” “labor bong to lose.”

Dice
Dice

Dice, in “Stand for Teacher,” delivered a quintessential ballad. He praised teacher, “the lowest paid” who always, in spite of material limitations “made the grade.” Reminded me of my father who thought the job of teacher to b the “most ungrateful.” One caller to the popular Hot Seat hosted by Matt Peltier Jr. reported that grown male teachers cried when they heard Dice’s song for the first time.

Jahmal Lloyd in “Pit Toilet” told his audience that in college psychology texts, homosexuality was presented as a function of nature; but his song, grounded in the books of Romans and Leviticus, concluded that the actions of these “big boys” were immoral. Something happened along the way: Either the backups sang a different chorus, and this threw him off. He confused lines.

Black Diamond
Black Diamond

Peter Pros uncovered the story of two men “one giving houses and one giving cars” to young girls. These politicians, it seems, were putting “all deir money” “in de hairy bank.” They were depositing for withdrawal at maturity time as we would say in the credit union movement. “Six or so girls with Black Berries” were connected with these two or so men—the blackberry gifts received as investments with interests I would say. Hairy banks for sale! Open 7/11! Chinese investments and buyers accepted! Just call in with your offer, your deposit!

Scrunter needed to advise those in political office. He celebrated the opposition’s return to parliament, its return to civil debate. He advised the speaker of the house that the opposition is “not mickey mouse.”

Scrunter is out of the calypso competition this year
Scrunter

If you think carefully of what you’re reading in toto, such a nation state is unsettled, its old, cherished values disintegrating, its deprogramming in full force! It may well be shedding old skin!

Hunter, probably one of Dominica’s most decorated calypsonians, called for divine intervention. A Frenchman from the neighboring island, one hired by government to produce asphalt to refurbish the island’s transinsular road, was, in Nature Island, neglecting environmental law. Clearly, there was disorder. When a calypsonian of Hunter’s ilk overtly orients himself on that side of calypso’s critique, government is not being transparent.

Hunter
Hunter

Soul Puss in essence sought to alert us about threats to island sovereignty. His songwriter was concerned about abundant giving by China and Venezuela. He surmised that in transactions such as those between China and Dominica, a time comes when “the giver becomes the master.” Dominica, he forewarned, could become “like Tibet is to China.” He cautioned the leaders of China and Venezuela that “when dey buy de leader” they did not buy the citizens.

Weekes, an acting superintendent of police and public relations officer for the Commonwealth of Dominica Police, had spoken out about questionable activities within the police service. The island’s prime minister requested tangible evidence from the forces’ PRO. According to

Checko
Checko

calypsonian Checko in his self-written “AM PM,” “you shut up Weekes and dem / still dey say/dey love de PM.” Remember, Checko is a police officer!

A pastor had broken “the master’s will.” Comforter never thought he would have to write calypso about a preacher man, but actions of this individual who “split the church” forced him to. The calypsonian called on him to “step dong / and face your punishment.” His weakness was hidden in a pleasure principle.

Sye’s lines “was it the iron gate / or the easy door’ in his road march number “Burn, Burn, Burn” tells me much about coincidences or powerful synchronicity. Says a lot about word,

Sye performing at the calypso finals
Sye

sound, and power! G. O. N. Emmanuel, whose house was hit in a December 25, 2010, fire had a legal partner whose name was Isidore, pronounced “easy door.”

Tim Durand wrote a gripping ballad on behalf of Webster “Web” Marie. It is titled “Way Dey Gone.” He was singing about Dominica’s passports and cited a woman named “Grace and her tongue.” Remember Hunter’s “Amazing Grace” in 2006. Chinese do not easily show their passports, so much so to sell them!
The final nine were elated. They were De Bobb, Checko, Dice, Explosion, Vigilante, Sye, Web, Soul Puss, and Karessa. Comforter did not make it and threatened legal action!

Excerpt from Steinberg Henry’s “Calypso Drift” (Segment 14/Chapter 114). www.calypsodrift.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, Choices Bookstore, Dominica —

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