Later today at the Tobago Jazz Experience 2018, Fantasia is scheduled to be a headline act. I do not know in what keys Fantasia sings her rhythm and blues, but her appearance in Tobago today is a case of Fantasia in G, because the engagement of such artistes is part …
Read More »Same-sex “soul” brothers (and sisters); gay/lesbian interactions in Africa and the Diaspora
The issue of homosexuality and same-sex relationships as it pertains to people of African and Indian descent is an extremely divisive one. As I pointed out in my preceding article, regarding African people, it is as deeply contentious in Africa as it is here in the Americas. Some of that …
Read More »Daly Bread: ‘Sweet type of love!’; groovy bards and Panorama shuffle offers hope amidst calypso gloom
What a great result from the Panorama semi-finals last Sunday. The two groovy “young boy” songs Year for Love and Hello—subject only to a tie for fourth place with Lightning Flash—ran first, second, third and fourth as played by Renegades, Despers, Phase II and Skiffle respectively. These songs create a …
Read More »Dear Editor: T&T’s culture trap; are shortcuts and lame ducks with us to stay?
“In Trinidad and Tobago, it is almost a cultural reflex to take the easiest and shortest route. It is the cultural reason why we fail, as a people, to make any progress. “[…] Which is why the PSC made the glaring error that people external to themselves can see but …
Read More »Dear Editor: Chutney has a place in Carnival no matter what Cro Cro says!
“[George] Singh’s outburst was a public exposé of what the Indo-Trinidadian (Indian) community had always known, i.e. Indian culture (e.g. chutney, pichakaree) is given marginal or no space in ‘national’ and regional shows (e.g. CARIFESTA). […] “In all his anger, Singh was careful not to confirm what almost every Trinidadian suspected …
Read More »Daly Bread: What’s left of Carnival? Reviewing the problems at Revue
On Wednesday last, we received news that the Revue Calypso tent was the latest victim of money problems in the cultural milieu. This news was made worse when readers digested that the Revue was more than 50 years old and had been founded by the late Lord Kitchener. Kitchener’s body …
Read More »Not Condemning: The tragedy of Laventille, Desperadoes, crime and bandits
Trinidad and Tobago has always been dreadful at organising anything but Carnival. Nowadays, we can’t even organise that properly. And it is killing us, in some ways, literally. The example of Desperadoes and the Laventille Hill is instructive. Laventille has been problematic but it has produced some of the most …
Read More »Dear Editor: Respect noise pollution laws! The EMA must turn deaf ear to Red Ants’ rubbish
“The law is not there to support a noisy culture; in fact, culture isn’t just out there, it’s man-made, in constant flux. The law is designed to help to shape the culture in ways that ensure harmony between legality and morality. And when that relationship is perverted what you have …
Read More »Master’s Voice: Eyeballing the abyss; what prospects does 2018 hold for old colonials and new societies?
Mazlow, one of my Facebook friends and occasional adversary, loves to use that phrase by Nietzsche about staring into the abyss with eventually the abyss staring back. Our abyss is in the form of not so much failing institutions but institutions that were never set up to succeed and are …
Read More »Daly Bread: Musicians on the Titanic; looking at Trinbagonian response to our crises
In 1912, the Titanic began its maiden voyage across the Atlantic from England to New York. The ship was thought to be unsinkable—as though God was not only a Trini but was also the Titanic’s owner. Four days into its voyage, the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank with loss …
Read More »Dear Editor: Is it too much to ask for more inspirational front page photos from the media?
“Just look at the back pages of most of papers—or any of their sport pages for that matter—over the last few months. They have been packed with tons of fine T&T accomplishments. “Why, I ask, are such beautiful and proud moments such as those wasted on our back pages versus …
Read More »Daly Bread: More predictions of storm; will National Security finally include culture in crime plan?
I have to return to the prevailing conditions of instability which are obvious to me but now as a post-script to my tribute to Roland Quesnel, my revered teacher, a contemporary of mine, Randolph Peters, wrote that, like me, the person who most impacted his intellectual development was Quesnel. He …
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