Calypso! Calypso! You Know What I mean

I had spent the week in Barbados and was able to get a flight back on that Sunday, arriving home at about 4.15 p.m. I had arranged to have my ticket purchased. I was informed that the show was to start at 7 p.m, so although somewhat tired and a bit hungry I got myself prepared for the show. I was told it was going to be at the Cruise Ship berth but was unsure exactly where and how the semi-finals crowd was going to be accommodated. I got to the site and realised there was no parking room left. I therefore drove to the area of Greaves Supermarket and parked there. When I got to the venue, all the seats were taken, but thankfully a kind hand offered me a seat that was just vacated. Normally at the Park I sat under one of the pavilions with friends and felt free to move about and a lot of space to play with. Sunday night was not so. Let us hope they rethink this next year. As it turned out I was told that the show was to start at 8 0’clock. In any event it started much later. Just before the last group of calypsonians took the stage sleep was getting the better of me, so I left and had a midnight dinner at home.

Calypso is my thing! I grew up with it. My primary school teacher ‘Caribbean Pete’ (Olson Peters) use to sing his compositions in the area where I lived. Sometimes a friend Wellington (Willie), a friend of Pete will listen to him and come to the shop which my mother managed and sing Pete’s tunes. Furthermore, an uncle of mine was a Sparrow fan and ensured that he got an annual copy of his albums. I was looking at a list of Calypso Monarchs and saw Young Sparrow listed as winning the crown in 1960 and 1961, and Caribbean Pete in 1962 and 1963. I might be wrong, but I am of the view that Pete won the crown before Young Sparrow. In fact, I was deeply saddened to find that my teacher was defeated by Young Sparrow whom I got to know later.

At one time there was much discussion about the origin of the calypso and its role. This was very much the scene in 1986 when I delivered at a seminar on Calypso at UWI, Trinidad, a paper entitled, “Calypso and Politics in St. Vincent and the Grenadines With Special Reference to the Role of the Calypso in the 1984 General Election” (Remember Horn Fuh Dem). I share the position held by the then President of the Calypsonian Association in 2000/1, Josiah Ash. He referred to the Calypso as the ‘Voice of the People’ and the calypsonian as the educator, informer and entertainer. But it was much more. The calypso would have undergone a lot of changes over the years. We can trace what appears to be the emergence of something that might have evolved into the calypso in the case of St Vincent.

Alison Carmichael, wife of John Wilson Carmichael who owned the Mousebank plantation in Cane Hall, lived on that plantation from the end of December 1821 to 1822 when she left for Trinidad.

In a book published in 1831 when she gave her own thoughts as the wife of a planter on slave society in St Vincent, stated that the slaves had fertile imaginations, composing impromptu words to their songs “very often of the most ludicrous nature, one sings it over once and the rest join in chorus. She never understood what she called the Negro dialect, and never realised that many of those songs were lampooning the planters and slave society.”

The slaves knew what it meant, but not the planters and the other Europeans. As the form we now know as the calypso developed, one of the things that stood out was the double-entendre, singing about something but with a hidden meaning. The people on the ground however “Knew What It Mean”

Calypsos, as they emerged, had traditionally been critical of those in authority. The ordinary man who did not have access to the traditional media that in any event was limited, spoke through the calypsonians. Older folks would remember when songs critical of the administration were being sung even on the night of the Calypso finals, to find the one radio station WIBS experiencing technical problems when the songs were being sung. Once the Chairman of CDC pulled the plug when a particular calypsonian was singing. De Man Age would have had his encounter with this. The refusal to play certain songs on the lone government radio station was part of the reaction to some of the calypsos.

A lot has happened since with the liberalisation of the traditional media, the rise of digital age and the development of social media. So even Vincentians and others in the diaspora “know what they mean” and respond accordingly. There is still today fear of libel action. But social and political commentary remain essential parts of the calypso. Let us remember Poorsah’s EYE WATER and Mouth in Me Momma and other satirical ones. That’s calypso as I always knew it and long be it so!