Only a complete ignoramus! Or the kind of blindness that will not see! Tell me, how could even one person in Trinidad and Tobago actually entertain the thought that Aldwyn “Kitchener” Roberts might have been capable of such an abomination? Oh, what a country! In the days when Guy Harewood …
Read More »Kitchener and Sparrow not good enough for top ten? Ah wanna fall!
Is greatness, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder? The question is broached in a not-very-good Calypso History Month piece penned by Debbie Jacob in a recent Newsday article under the headline: ‘My top ten calypsoes’. Alas, she offers no answer. “When it comes to narrowing down all the …
Read More »Dear Editor: It’s a glaring omission not to award ORTT to “Kitch” and 2008 Olympics 4x100m team
“[…] Kitch was not a medical doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a banker, or someone with ‘Dr’ before his name. However, his sterling contribution to this country far surpassed [that made by] many who hold such academic accolades, and have in the past received the ORTT. “[…] Another glaring omission is the …
Read More »Daly Bread: Mama Dis is Mas; the brilliance of Kitch and potential of Caribbean music
If I wanted to make my mother Celia steups, I would tell her that Sparrow was better than Kitchener. Of course I did not mean it because I became a Carnival piong when they both ruled town. This column focuses on Kitchener because this year is the 100th anniversary of …
Read More »Dear Editor: Let’s do right by Kitch and give him the ORTT he richly deserves
“[…] In 1993, for very spurious reasons which do not bear repeating, Kitch and Sparrow were denied the nation’s then highest national award, the Trinity Cross, although both were clearly deserving of the honour. They were both offered the Chaconia Medal (Gold), which Kitch refused—having regard to the aspersions cast …
Read More »Vaneisa: Mama dis is Kitch; a look at Joseph’s ‘fictional biography’ of calypso icon
The book lay nestled among my collection of Caribbean writing. It came my way after I had run an appreciative review of it by Jarrel De Matas in UWI TODAY (August 2018). Having inserted it among books I’d already read, it got lost until a few weeks ago, when I …
Read More »Calypso as film—Pt 3: Grandmaster Kitch, gothic chill and Hitchcock’s thrill
It is not only Dr Bird who goes head-to-head with the director of The Birds. Sir Alfred was a master of reminding audiences of what may lie beneath surface reality and of bringing them chillingly close to it. Grandmaster Aldwyn ‘Lord Kitchener’ Roberts’ does so in ‘Love in de Cemetery’ …
Read More »Vaneisa: The Gentle Observer—remembering the ‘Cultural Sprangalang’
The following column on Dennis ‘Sprangalang’ Hall, who passed away on Friday 2 October 2020, was first published in the Sunday Guardian on 30 January 1994: “Why you want to write about me?” he asks suspiciously on the telephone. “I doh like publicity. I’s just ah ordinary man making mih …
Read More »Famalay for the Road! Machel nears record; here’s how he compares with Kitchener and Super Blue
Soca star Machel Montano is now just one hit away from the all-time record for Road March titles, as he was awarded his tenth crown today by TUCO for Famalay—a collaboration which includes Ian “Bunji Garlin” Alvarez and Gamal “Skinny Fabulous” Doyle. Famalay was played 346 times at the respective …
Read More »Gibbons’ new calypso drama: Voices from the ghetto to sing de chorus?
What, I asked myself, might a Part IV of “Sing de Chorus” look and sound like if the dramatist decided to write one? What quality material would he have to draw on? Would any such production be what a recent Express story about an upcoming concert called “an ode to …
Read More »Dear Editor: Authoritarian or authoritative? Are calypsoes more poetry than reliable history?
“Sparrow literally put words in Dr Williams’ mouth to great effect. “Since Dr Bird—thankfully!—is still alive, I am sure that he would be eager to tell journalists/researchers what statements in his calypso ‘Get to hell outta here’ and, for that matter, his other calypsoes were historically accurate and where he simply used …
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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