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“[…] Where is the music to ‘turn a woman’s body into jelly’? Where is the fun? The celebration? The ‘Spirit of Carnival’? (Fun fact: that actually used to be a judging criterion in Calypso).
“Long gone are the days when a calypsonian could win with a rum song paired with a party tune about fighting on Carnival Day! (Sparrow 1972 – Drunk & Disorderly and Rope). Once upon a time it was almost unthinkable that the Calypso Monarch would not also win Road March…”
The following Letter to the Editor on the 2026 Calypso Monarch final and the state of the artform was submitted to Wired868 by Martin ‘Mice’ Raymond, music producer, educator:
Photo: Tuco.
“[…] Is a living vibration, rooted deep within my Caribbean belly.
“Lyrics to make a politician cringe—or turn a woman’s body into jelly…”
David Rudder ‘Calypso Music’, 1987.
While living in the UK in 1987, the very first thing I heard about David Rudder’s Calypso Music was:
“Boy, if you hear the pile ah tata Rudder singing this year! Some Soca song about Calypso!”
I heard the same sentiment repeated many times. This was after all, just one year after some ‘band singer’ who didn’t even have the decency to give himself a proper Calypso sobriquet and insisted on (shock, horror!) using his real name, swept all comers—winning Young Kings, Calypso Monarch, and running first and second in the Road March.
(Fun fact #1: the ‘Soca Mafia’ ole talk started right there and then; Rudder’s manager was the late Ellis Chow Lin On—make of that what you will).
When I finally got around to actually hearing the song, I was in shock. It was beautiful; clearly one of the greatest pieces of Calypso music ever composed.
It was at this point, almost 40 years ago, that I realised is best I just hush my mouth. Some people are so blinded that they can’t see greatness even when it is staring them straight in their face.
But the damage was done. David was signed to London Records, a division of Polydor. They were so spooked at the negative reaction from Trinidad, that they opted to release “Madness” (the ‘big song’) as the single instead, pairing it with “Bahia Girl” as the B-side.
Yet everywhere he performed in the UK, there was polite chipping to “Madness” but standing ovations for “Calypso Music’.
I say all this to make a somewhat roundabout point: more than enough has been said about the lack of “lyrics to make a politician cringe’ in the current Calypso Monarch competition.
In fact, some (including our current Prime Minister) seem to think that it was a surfeit of this type of lyrical approach that is responsible for the decline in Calypso Tent attendance.
However, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar suggested that much of the population feel “alienated” by political calypsos.
(via Newsday.)
I prefer to look at the other side of the equation: where is the music to “turn a woman’s body into jelly”? Where is the fun? The celebration? The ‘Spirit of Carnival’?
(Fun fact #2: that actually used to be a judging criterion in Calypso).
Long gone are the days when a calypsonian could win with a “rum song” paired with a party tune about fighting on Carnival Day! (Sparrow 1972 – Drunk & Disorderly and Rope.
Once upon a time it was almost unthinkable that the Calypso Monarch would not also win Road March.
Sparrow has eight Road March titles to go with his eight Calypso Monarch crowns.
Photo: Frans Schellekens/ Redferns.
I still remember my uncles complaining loudly in 1976 when Chalkdust’s Ah Put on Meh Guns Again beat Kitchener’s Flagwoman and Sparrow’s How Yuh Jamming So for the ultimate prize:
“Steups! How de hell yuh go jump to dat Carnival Day??!!”
But I get it. Calypso is now slow, serious, somber. Our Carnival Sunday night is filled with lamentations—weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Calypso has a duty to reflect the times. But Trinibad stepped up to the plate years now.
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A performance for the ages—well done and huge congrats to her!
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Trinis have become too self conscious, constantly droning on about ‘colture’ and (snore) history. Lost their sense of fun.
We Trinis do not drone on about ‘colture,’ Niala; it’s ‘colteer.’
But navel string severed, you are safely on the outside looking in; ‘THEIR sense of fun’ speaks volumes.