Bananas, bumpers stifling calypso
Edison Boodoosingh | 8:44 pm
Published: February 15th, 2009
Edison Boodoosingh | 8:44 pm
The passing of the Mighty Duke pounds another nail into the proverbial calypso coffin. Calypso is now the remnants of a great art form, suffocated and replaced by the lyrical insipidness masking as art and creativity, under the label of soca.
Calypso has seen its best days, and though some struggle to keep this dying art form alive, it’s like swimming against a big wave in Maracas. For those like myself, who grew up, in the 70s to early 80s, listening to Duke, Sparrow, Maestro, Merchant, Kitchener, Nelson, Chalkdust, Shadow, Shorty and Blue Boy, etc, it is hard to accept the foolishness that passes for music today. Even if their songs were not too great lyrically, either the brass arrangement, or the fact that the artistes could actually sing, made the music memorable.
Duke’s Thunder had two catch lines—“ah givin you thunder” and “whole night”—but because of the musical arrangement, his voice, and the way he sang it, the song was good enough to become a calypso classic for all time. La la, by Nelson, was just that; “la la” was the entire chorus, but the sweetness in Nelson’s voice and the arrangement, I mean that song must have come out in 1973 if I remember right, but to be able to remember a song after some 35 years tells you something about the quality of the song. Now, we are left to hear the word “wine,” 100 times, ad nauseum.
Even the mas’ itself has degenerated into a 2,000-plus, all-inclusive, beads and bikini fest, complete with security dressed as if they are going to fight a war in Iraq. The geriatrics are now left to play fancy sailor, while the poor risk a “buss head” on J’Ouvert morning. In saying farewell to Duke, we say a slow goodbye to the art form that he presented with such flair in his tailor-made suits on the Savannah stage, a venue which was unceremoniously discarded, despite its historic value. Finally, I would like to believe that calypso remains our heritage and not soca, at least not the soca of the present; banana and bumpers included.
