‘Allyuh come een!’ If you like soca and calypso, Blaxx (Dexter Stewart) has made you happy, jump, wave, sing, laugh, knock a glass, hug a stranger, tap your feet or spread your hands and let go at least once. In an industry with an insane annual refresh rate, quick to …
Read More »TTOC’s must-read nameless magazine tells stark truths about Tokyo—and beyond
After the 2020 false start, T&T athletes sweated, cried and bled as they prepared to face the Olympic starters in 2021. While they did so, some of the country’s most accomplished and known sport journalists assembled their own Team TTO to come up with an interesting mix of nostalgia, analysis …
Read More »Is T&T getting better or worse at the Olympics? Jabari uses history as his guide
Trinidad and Tobago’s performance at the Olympics should be analysed with a level head, acknowledgement of non-existent national sporting systems and within the context of its Olympic history. The two island nation attended its first Olympics in 1948 and, between then and 1952, won three medals. Rodney “The Mighty Midget” …
Read More »PHRASER’S STYLE: The Ballad of Fitzroy Coleman
Fitzroy Coleman fingers dancing on the fret. And when you think that he through, he aint start nothing yet… “Calypso Music”, David Rudder While Rudder’s lyrics are now a clichéd reference to the jazz/calypso guitar great, it is Fitzroy Haynes Coleman’s saviour from obscurity in the land he was born …
Read More »PHRASER’S STYLE: How the International Soca Monarch underdeveloped soca music
It has been the impetus for a few soca men and women to develop the capacity for serious money-making but, overall, the International Soca Monarch (ISM) has, for years, done a great deal to put the genre several steps back. It has encouraged unhealthy sectionalism and underdeveloped the soca music …
Read More »Bull, Princess and Stink: Jabari picks Parliament’s Blue Soap Wall of Shame
Bull, princess and stink—the three words that had the biggest impact in our Budget debate and debate about the debate by Trinidad and Tobago parliamentarians. Contributions in Parliament were generally poor. Few of the elected members analysed the vital macroeconomic matters which all of us have to deal with. Even …
Read More »I swear! Jabari Fraser looks at Senators Drayton, Mark and Richards
“I, having been elected a member of parliament, do swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to Trinidad and Tobago, will uphold the constitution and the law and will conscientiously and impartially discharge responsibilities to the people of Trinidad and Tobago, upon which I am about to enter.” …
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