Calypso has given us a handful of unforgettable female figures. There is, for example, Kitchener’s Flag Woman and Scrunter’s Woman on the Base, there is David Rudder’s Bahia Girl and Sparrow’s Winer Girl from Princes Town. Not one of those four has a name. But the women I want to …
Read More »From Sparrow to Cro Cro to Machel: Best chronicles calypso controversies through the years
Emceeing the Revue Calypso Tent’s show in 1972, night after night, the Mighty Stalin introduced Kelvin Pope in the same way: “So, ladies and gentlemen, here without further ado is that four-king four-cup four car Duke.” Famously, of course, over the four years immediately preceding ’72, the Mighty Duke had …
Read More »Vaneisa: Faith, hope and gloom—are we really haters at heart?
Last Sunday, Queen’s Hall was the venue for Dawad Philip’s Sunday with the Warlord, a play about the calypsonian Lord Blakie (Carlton Joseph). Blakie was perhaps best known for his two Road March wins, “Steelband Clash” (1954) and “Maria” (1962), and the play is a sort of narrative about his …
Read More »Bard women; fickle goddesses: Best considers dynamics of Calypso and her women
It is 2016. Do you know where Jean and Dinah are? And why? It says a lot for the Mighty Sparrow that sexagenarians and teenagers alike—and all the age-groups in between—often answer that question in the affirmative. Round de corner posing; bet yuh life is something dey selling… In Calypso …
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