Caribbean Beat Magazine (#123: September/October 2013)

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10 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
No. 123 September/October 2013Contents
54 66
EMBARK
19 Datebook
Events around the Caribbean in
September and October
26 Word of Mouth
Discover a new crop of Jamaican
artists, experience J’Ouvert Brooklyn
style, and jam to Dominica’s World
Creole Music Festival
32 The Look
Cayman-based Admas Mahdere
brings Ethiopian textures to the
Caribbean
34 The GAME
The West Indies women’s cricket
team is on the rise
36 frequent flyer
Travel tips from Vincentian artist and
ARC magazine editor Holly Bynoe
38 Bookshelf
This month’s reading picks
40 Playlist
Recent tunes to get your feet tapping
43 Cookup
bittersweet
Franka Philip remembers the late
Mott Green and his vision for
Grenadian chocolate
IMMERSE
46 panorama
chutney succession
Chutney soca’s rise to mainstream
popularity in Trinidad began in the
1990s, and today’s artistes are hits
of the Carnival season and the year-
round concert curcuit. Photographer
Mark Lyndersay’s portraits capture
two generations of chutney soca
stars, while writer Essiba Small
explains how the sound has evolved
over the decades
54 backstory
landship ahoy
Little known outside Barbados,
Landship is a unique performance
tradition — drawing on naval lore
— with deep community roots. As
Landship marks its hundred and
fiftieth anniversary, Marcia Burrowes
investigates how the movement has
responded to changing times
58 snapshot
lights, camera, animals
Drawing on their love of animals
and willingness to work on a
miniscule budget, the short films
of Trinidadians Christopher and
Leizelle Guinness have become online
sensations. Georgia Popplewell
learns how they got started, and
where they’re heading next
60 Own Words
“in the theatre, you never
know what’s gonna happen”
Bahamian playwright Nicolette
Bethel, co-founder of the Shakespeare
in Paradise theatre festival, on
the unpredictable thrill of live
performance and the importance
of preserving tradition — as told to
Nicholas Laughlin
63 Riddem and Rhyme
backup stars
Where would Jamaican music be
without the genius of its backup
musicians? Garry Steckles pays
tribute to these stage and studio
veterans
ARRIVE
66 offtrack
the stones of statia
In the eighteenth century, the
“Golden Rock” was a bustling port.
Today, sleepy St Eustatius has more
historic ruins per square mile than
any other Caribbean island. Walter
Hellebrand remembers how it went
“from boom town to ghost town”
72 travellers’ tales
azonto lessons
It’s Trinidadian writer Attillah
Springer’s first time in Ghana. Why
does it feel so familiar?

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CaribbeanBeat
76 destination
miami is an island
Squeezed between the Atlantic and
the Everglades, Miami may be the
biggest Caribbean city that isn’t
actually in the Caribbean. Philip
Sander explores Miami’s Caribbean
pockets
ENGAGE
82 green
forest economics
As part of a pioneering development
strategy, Guyana gets US$50 million
per year to preserve its vast rainforests.
Nazma Muller finds out what it means
for long-term economic growth
84 discover
great shakes
UWI’s Seismic Research Centre helps
keep the Eastern Caribbean safe from
earthquakes. Erline Andrews talks to
the scientists who monitor the tremors
under our feet
86 On this day
a wild surmise
James Ferguson recalls the fateful
day, five hundred years ago, when
the conquistador Vasco Núñez de
Balboa set eyes on the Pacific
96 parting shot
The spices of life in Marigot market
76
Sales Marketing Representative
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Cover The colourful life-
guard stations along Miami
Beach, each one unique, are
icons of the city
Photo Fotomak/
Shutterstock.com
This issue’s contributors include:
Marcia Burrowes (“Landship ahoy”, page 54) is a
lecturer in cultural studies at the Cave Hill campus of the
University of the West Indies, whose research includes
the history and social connections of the Landship
movement.
Walter Hellebrand (“The stones of Statia”, page 66) is
Monuments Director of St Eustatius, the Dutch
Caribbean island where he was born. He previously
worked in international public relations. His work
since has included TV documentaries (for the National
Geographic Channel and Discovery Channel), articles,
exhibitions, and presentations at symposiums.
Mark Lyndersay (“Chutney succession”, page 46) is a
writer and photographer working out of Trinidad and
Tobago. His long-form photojournalism projects include
Local Lives, which explores the human endeavour
underpinning daily life and the spectacular festivals on
the islands. He also photographed Drupatee
Ramgoonai, featured in this issue, for the cover of her
breakout album, Mr Bissessar. All can be found on his
website, lyndersaydigital.com.
Freelance journalist Nazma Muller (“Forest economics”,
page 82) divides her time between Jamaica and her
home country, Trinidad and Tobago. She is currently
working on a visitor’s guide to Trinidad.
Georgia Popplewell (“Lights, camera, animals”, page
58) is a media producer and writer from Trinidad and
Tobago, and managing director of the international
citizen media network Global Voices Online.
Nicole Smythe-Johnson (“The art of hope”, page 26) is a
reader, writer, and senior curator at the National Gallery
of Jamaica.

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elcome aboard, and thank
you for choosing Caribbean
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On many of our most popular routes
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companion. Take advantage of one of our
special fares and even do some exploring
close to home — we know you’ll love
the beaches of Antigua, the forests of
Guyana, surfing in Barbados, or even an
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If you are one of the luckiest people
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at an amusement park and feel young
again, or even hit the club scene in New
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16 WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
Cal Events
Caribbean Airlines supports
Jamaica Diaspora Conference
on trade and investment
Trade and Investment was the focus of the fifth Biennial
Jamaica Diaspora Conference, recently held in Montego
Bay. Caribbean Airlines was an exhibiting sponsor of the
event, which this year built on the legacy of the Jamaica
50 celebrations by exploring defined opportunities for the
diaspora to expand their business interests in Jamaica.
Caribbean Airlines was the Official Airline Partner of the
three-day conference, and participants — including several
key governmental stakeholders, officials, and business leaders
— got the opportunity to interact with the airline’s team of
representatives in areas such as sales and cargo.
Minister of State in the Jamaica Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade the Hon. Arnaldo Brown with CAL cabin attendants (from left)
Nyasha Davidson, Taryn Holung, and Suliann Pinnock
Caribbean Airlines a hit at
TIC 2013
Caribbean Airlines was one of the more popular booths
at this year’s Trade and Investment Convention held at
Hyatt Regency Trinidad. With a focus on the airline’s
Cargo and JetPak products, TIC provided a great
platform for Caribbean Airlines to promote the benefits
of flying and shipping freight with the air carrier.
Caribbean Airlines supports
Guyana diaspora in Canada
Caribbean Airlines was a notable presence at the Guyana
Independence Festival at Centennial College (Progress
Campus) in Toronto, which brought together several
government, tourism, and trade agencies, all with the focus
of addressing concerns of Guyanese in Canada.
The event was fully endorsed by His Excellency Donald
Ramotar, President of Guyana, who was in attendance along
with other Guyanese officials. The day included songs and
dances by the Katawau Dance Group, a group of young
Amerindians from Guyana, as well as softball cricket and
football games featuring Guyanese-Canadian players.
Hardeep Birdi and Nazie Mohammed hand over a prize ticket to a lucky
participant at the Guyana Independence Festival
Caribbean Airlines at CTO in NYC
Caribbean Airlines made its presence felt at Caribbean Week in
New York. Organised by the Caribbean Tourism Organisation,
Caribbean Week in New York is a celebration of the sights,
sounds, colour, culture, and unique vacation experiences of the
Caribbean, combined with business sessions and consumer-
oriented events with food, fashion, entertainment, and
networking opportunities.

PLEASEENJOYRESPONSIBLY
Discover the True Taste
of the Caribbean

datebook
Your guide to events around the Caribbean in September and October — from a new
music festival in Suriname to a celebration of Creole heritage in St Lucia
Don’t miss . . .
New Roots at the National
Gallery of Jamaica, page
26 • J’Ouvert in Brooklyn,
page 28 • Dominica’s World
Creole Music Festival,
page 30
SURINAME
courtesythemoengofestivalofmusic
Get your Moengo groove
Like most Caribbean territories, Suriname has a rich past that
influences its present. The country’s many cultural influences are
the backdrop for the new Moengo Festival of Music in September.
Organised by the Kibii Foundation — which was founded in 2010 by
visual artist Marcel Pinas, profiled in the July/August 2013 Caribbean
Beat — this is the first in a triennial series of cultural festivals
focused on music, dance, and contemporary art. Pinas, a descendant
of Ndjuka maroons, sees the event as an opportunity for the
indigenous people of the rural Marowijne region to showcase their
culture and talent. The festival, which will host local, regional, and
international music groups, plus workshops and a craft market, is the
beginning of a bigger plan to brand Moengo as a cultural district.
When: 20 to 22 September
Where: Moengo, Marowijne district
For more information: email moengofestival13@gmail.com

datebook
Three Kids
Director: Jonas D’Adesky • 2012 • Haiti •
81 minutes
A steadfast friendship binds three twelve-year-old
boys living in a children’s home in Port-au-Prince.
When an earthquake devastates the city, the lads
escape to seek their fortune on the streets.
God Loves the Fighter
Director: Damian Marcano • 2013 • TT, USA •
104 minutes
Charlie is a young man seeking to make ends
meet on the streets of Port of Spain. Reluctantly,
he takes a job from a gang leader as assistant to a
drug courier. An honest yet sympathetic tale of real
life as lived in contemporary urban Trinidad.
The Stuart Hall Project
Director: John Akomfrah • 2013 • United Kingdom
• 100 minutes
In 1951, Stuart Hall left his native Jamaica to
study at Oxford. He would later become one of
the UK’s foremost cultural theorists. This powerful
documentary portrait of Hall is comprised entirely
of footage from his archives.
I Am a Director
Director: Javier Colón • 2012 • Puerto Rico •
87 minutes
A budding filmmaker returns to his native Puerto
Rico with plans to make a movie, Hollywood style.
There are just a few small complications: he has
no script, no money, and no discernible talent. A
hilarious satire on the filmmaking process, by turns
savage and affectionate.
Melaza
Director: Carlos Lechuga • 2012 • Cuba •
80 minutes
In the town of Melaza, the sugar industry is at a
standstill. Monica, receptionist at the sugar mill,
still goes to the factory daily, although it has been
shuttered for a year. Her husband Aldo teaches
swimming in a pool with no water. To make extra
money, they engage in a lucrative but illegal
venture.
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Catch a flick
Eight years on, the trinidad+tobago film festival
(ttff) is still going strong, as it continues to
celebrate films from the Caribbean, its diaspora,
and “heritage countries” — including, for the
first time this year, China. A special highlight:
a retrospective of the work of black British
filmmaker John Akomfrah. At the opening night
gala, director Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow
Sun — an adaptation of the popular novel by
Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
— will open the usual packed programme
of feature-length and short films, with 130
narrative, documentary, and experimental
selections. ttff/13 also includes workshops,
panel discussions, seminars, and a Unesco-ttff
conference called “Cameras of Diversity for a
Culture of Peace.”
When: 17 September to 1 October
Where: locations around Trinidad and Tobago
For more info: visit www.ttfilmfestival.com
Jonathan Ali of the trinidad+tobago
film festival shares his top five picks
from the 2013 programme
Audience at a ttff screening in Port of Spain
marlonjames,courtesythetrinidadandtobagofilmfestival
courtesythetrinidadandtobagofilmfestival
Still from Melaza

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Aruba
Aruba Reef Care Project
When: 21 September
Where: Beaches around the island
What: Volunteers help clean up the scenic beaches
and reefs of Aruba, with the collected waste sorted for
recycling. Twenty years after it started, the project is still
going strong
For more info: email arubareefcare@gmail.com or call
+297 740 0797
Jamaica
Caribbean Fine Cocoa Conference and Chocolate
Expo
When: 25 to 27 September
Where: Ritz Carlton, Montego Bay
What: Nothing else signals guilty pleasure as
immediately as chocolate, and while you may not be a
chocolatier with an interest in the business side of things,
the expo will feature all sorts of delicacies made from the
humble cocoa bean, as well as chocolate-making master
classes
For more info: visit www.caribbeanfinecocoaforum.org
datebook
Tobago International Cycling Classic
When: 1 to 6 October
Where: around Tobago
What: In its twenty-seventh year, the island-wide tournament
attracts some of the world’s top cyclists to compete in one of the
Caribbean’s loveliest landscapes. New to the 2013 programme: two
days of off-road mountain biking, through the picturesque hills of
Tobago’s Main Ridge
For more information: visit www.trinbagowheelers.com
TOBAGOARUBA
JAMAICA
courtesythetobagointernationalcyclingclassic
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from our capital city, Georgetown, Grand Coastal Hotel is the place to stay when travelling for business or pleasure.
Tel: 592-220-1091
Fax: 592-220-1498
www.grandcoastal.com
reservations@grandcoastal.com
Restaurant | Bar Grill | Gym | Pool | Conference | Free Wifi
/grandcoastal

ST LUCIA
courtesythestluciatouristboard
Practice your Kwéyòl
Jounen Kwéyòl — Creole Day — began in
1984, and is a celebration of the food, music,
dress, culture, dance, and other aspects of
life that make St Lucia unique. The highlight
of Creole Heritage Month, which runs all
through October, it is the biggest national
cultural festival in the island. Each year,
different communities are selected to host
Jounen Kwéyòl activities, which include a
Creole Mass, a food and drink fair, and an
“exhibition of Creole technology, equipment,
and items depicting the folk life of the
ancestors of modern-day St Lucians,” with
cultural performances throughout the day.
When: 27 October
Where: communities across St Lucia
For more info: visit www.stluciafolk.org, or call
the Folk Research Centre at +758 452 2279 or
453 1477

datebook
courtesythecocodancefestival

Barbados
Caribbean Food Beverage Expo
Where: Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Barbados
What: Looking for culinary masterpieces from the
Caribbean? Be sure to visit the expo to experience cooking
demonstrations, competitions, QAs, pastry displays, and a
chocolate fashion show on the final day — yes, you read
that right . . .
For more info: visit caribfoodexpo.com
St Kitts
Latin Festival St Kitts
When: 27 October
Where: St Kitts Marriott Resort
What: It started out as a way to bring the Caribbean and
Latin America together, but has grown up since then. Now
in its fourth year, and with a Dominican Republic focus, the
Latin Festival continues to spice things up, with music, food,
and dancing
For more info: visit www.latinfestivalstkitts.com
BARBADOS
ST KITTS
Stories by Mirissa De Four
Make some moves
Quick, think about the best dance video or musical
you’ve ever seen. Those dance moves are all the work
of talented choreographers who use the human
body as their medium. If you’re interested in seeing
what some of the best Trinidadian choreographers
have to offer, check out the fifth annual COCO
Dance Festival in October. More formally known
as the Contemporary Choreographers’ Collective,
COCO is the brainchild of Dave Williams, Nicole
Wesley, Nancy Herrera, and Sonja Dumas, themselves
choreographers, who use this event as “a platform
of innovation, experimentation, and excellence.”
Alongside a programme of performances, there will
be an award ceremony honouring those who’ve made
significant contributions to the world of dance.
Where: Queen’s Hall, Port of Spain
For more info: email cocodancett@gmail.com, or visit the
COCO Facebook page
TRINIDAD

word of mouth
Dispatches from our correspondents around the Caribbean and further afield
The art of hope
F
or me, the New Roots exhibition at the National Gallery
of Jamaica — which opened on 28 July and runs until 30
September — is a small miracle. Two months before its
opening date, the exhibition originally scheduled for the summer
was postponed. Suddenly there was a three-month hole in the
National Gallery exhibition programme. Then word came that the
Mutual Gallery was closing. It was sad enough to have one less art
space in Kingston, but all the more since Mutual hosted the annual
Super Plus Under 40 competition — one of the few opportunities
for young Jamaican artists to show their work. Spirits were low
all around.
We decided an exhibition focused on emerging artists
was the way to go. We began searching for promising artists
under forty years old with limited exhibition histories. At first,
prospects seemed dim. Few were prepared to pull together a
body of exhibition-quality work in less than ten weeks. But
after much nail-biting and cajoling, ten artists representing
all of the major media were identified. We found three distinct
approaches to painting in Gisele Gardner, Camille Chedda, and
Deborah Anzinger, photography from Varun Baker, film from
Nile Saulter, animation from Ikem Smith, digital art from Astro
Saulter, sculptural jewellery from the Girl and the Magpie,
and installation pieces from Olivia McGilchrist and Matthew
McCarthy.
We decided to liberate the exhibition from any thematic
requirement, giving the artists free rein to indulge their varied
fascinations. We envisioned it as a demonstration of the new
routes (pun intended) that Jamaican art is taking, not an
exploration of any subject. Yet, sitting in the National Gallery a
few days before opening, I couldn’t deny the presence of strong
resonances across this disparate group of ten. There is definitely
a focus on all things “street”: from McCarthy’s grafitti-inspired
mural to Nile Saulter and Varun Baker’s character studies
of recognisable figures from the streets of Kingston. Social
responsibility is also a theme, with Ikem Smith and the Girl and
the Magpie being the best examples. Spontaneous conversations
like Anzinger’s unstretched canvas in the same gallery as
McCarthy’s stretched tarpaulin are also a joy to observe.
The real party-crasher though, is hope. I don’t mean hope for
the continued development of Jamaican art, though there is that
too. I am talking about an absence of sadness or despair. These
artists articulate an energy and lightness in their approach, a
seeming determination to make good of what is. They engage
with politics, identity, injustice, but with remarkable joie de
vivre. Walking through the exhibition, what you see is play
and a youthful exhuberance that challenges gloom-and-doom
narratives, even as it acknowledges the difficulties.
And so it was that an exhibition that came out of
disappointment and recession became an example of the
continued currency of good intentions and sweat equity. All I
can say is: here’s to that.
Curator Nicole Smythe-Johnson of the National
Gallery of Jamaica explains why an exhibition of work
by younger Jamaican artists fills her with hope
White Palm Painting (2013), by Deborah Anzinger; acrylic on palm,
dimensions variable courtesythenationalgalleryofjamaica

T
here I was, liming in the subway
station until the train came. It
was a little more than nippy. Not
my regular J’Ouvert weather. But when
in Rome — or Brooklyn during Labour
Day Carnival in September — love the
J’Ouvert you’re with.
I’m connected to J’Ouvert in Trinidad
on an umbilical level. For me, the navel
string of Trinidad Carnival lies there.
The rhythm, the charmed darkness, and
the mystical break of dawn forging into
licensed abandon are just what I need to
feel the power and beauty of my island
nation.
It was easy to feel the spirit of the thing
even in that Brooklyn subway station,
where my Tobagonian cousins and I
waited for the Number 2 or 3 train to take
us to Eastern Parkway. The buzz of the
pre-dawn moment was unmistakable.
Young second-generation Trinidadians
proudly displayed their red, white, and
black, and you could see that even if they
never visited Trinidad for Carnival, they
understood it — the perusal of the streets
before dawn with the collective intention
of communing with each other through
revelry. They understood the power of
tradition.
A few bouncy train stops later, we were
at the Parkway, with the Brooklyn Public
Library in the background and Grand
Army Plaza in front, both magnificently
lit up. Throngs of people hovered at the
library steps or walked down Flatbush
Avenue towards Empire Boulevard,
energising themselves with soca music
along the way. Pan on wheels was
“beating sweet,” and the rhythm sections
were in full swing. It was strange for me to
perambulate a thoroughfare that feels like
twice the width of Port of Spain’s Ariapita
Avenue, with gargantuan deciduous trees
bending towards me as pan music filled
the air, and NYPD vehicles keeping vigil.
But there were the familiar sights
too. There were versions of the Dame
Lorraine, whose cross-dressing,
subversive inversion of self and society
is universally understood. There
was the infamous Grenadian
mud band whose reputation for
immersion in mud, paint, madness,
and mayhem precedes them —
and they did not disappoint. In the
midst of the action, island identity
was most present. It is a parade of
Caribbean pride as well as festivity.
Vendors sold small, medium, and
large Caribbean flags, and revellers
and onlookers alike entered the
night and exited the morning with
representations of their native
land draped around their bodies.
For those second- and third-
generation Caribbean-Americans,
identity was wrapped around them,
literally and figuratively.
Older Caribbean-Americans — mostly
Trinbagonians, I wager — also kept
tradition in the form of the Ole Mas
competition, going strong with age-old
picong on makeshift signs poking fun
at local and national public figures. And
just in case I was homesick, a Moko
Jumbie, stiltwalker of the mas, loomed
large above the crowd, looking very much
like an overgrown Pierrot Grenade in his
colourful, ragged splendour.
Pretty mas’ was due to come out later
in the day. But by eightish, I was tired
and sated, the way I am after any good
J’Ouvert, so I took the trains back to
my friend’s apartment, showered, and
crashed on the nearest bed. The cat of
the house, a friendly feline named Max,
looked at me quizzically, but in mere
minutes, in the middle of the morning,
I was deep in slumber and oblivious to
his curiosity. The only thing I had really
missed was a little post-J’Ouvert dip in
the sea. Maybe next time, after the fact,
I’ll hop on a train headed for Coney Island.
Parkway
J’Ouvert
Visiting New York, Sonja Dumas discovers
that Brooklyn’s Labour Day Carnival opens
with a J’Ouvert that’s close enough to the
real thing
DArrenCheewah
word of mouth

Discover what’s possible
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And though the awards are nice, it’s really the success of our customers that we care about the most.

Let the
music flow
In Dominica, music flows like
water, writes Natalie Clarke,
previewing the 2013 World
Creole Music Festival
rhythms, pulling you in, and it’s home to the famous World Creole Music
Festival (WCMF), now in its seventeenth year.
WCMF — in 2013, running from 25 to 27 October, and marking
Dominica’s thirty-fifth anniversary of Independence — is three nights
of pulsating rhythms, made up of many Creole genres. Every year the
Dominican diaspora, along with their posse, come home to celebrate all
month long with family and friends. From the beginning, WCMF has hosted
many of the major Creole music acts of Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and
Dominica itself — as well as musicians from Africa and from the Creole
diasporas in Europe and North America. In recent years, many top reggae
and dancehall acts have joined them.
Two legendary performances among many: the closing of the first-ever
festival by Haitian kompas group Tabou Combo, and Kassav’s performance
to mark the fifth anniversary in 2001. My own favourite memories include
Jah Cure’s awesome early Sunday afternoon “rebound” performance
in 2010, when a tropical storm caused this last-minute rescheduling to
become a regular fixture. The Sunday “early” show has become a family
affair, appreciated by all patrons. And last year Tarrus Riley got over five
thousand fans to put their hands in the air and over their hearts in perfect
mesmerised harmony, totally absorbed in the divine heights created by his
musical design.
The WCMF’s main stage continues to engage great local musicians.
This year the festival honours one of the creators of “cadence-lypso,”
Fitzroy Williams, along with a galaxy of cadence stars. Dominica’s greatest
cover band — Swingin’ Stars, featuring Daryl Bobb, Dice, Hunter, and
Daddy Chess — will take us back in time, with thirty-five years of calypso
hits. Other headliners include a mix of Creole and reggae superstars,
including veterans Kassav’ — the zouk ensemble par excellence who
invented the genre — Carimi and Nu Look from Haiti, international reggae
act Busy Signal, and the legendary Tito Puente, Jr, bringing a Latin element
of explosive percussion.
No wonder my love affair continues to grow, as I experience the joie de
vivre of Dominica and its music. n
W
aitukubuli: the Kalinago name for the island
resonated in my mind as the plane floated
down between the verdant mountains of
Dominica. In all my previous travels I’d never been
greeted by such bubbling excitement and river-rushing
wellness.
Three years after settling here, Dominica still
beckons me to come away from the hustle and
bustle of my work space and explore a hinterland
full of wonderful colours, giant ferns, and cascading
waterfalls. Waters flow everywhere — as does
the music of the island, from every village. The
Commonwealth of Dominica is full of natural
DArrenCheewah
word of mouth

Photography by Bernado Neri
Visit www.admasm.com for information
on purchasing Admas items
Smooth
as silk
Cayman-based Admas Mahdere
combines traditional weaving
techniques with sleek silhouettes
T
he 2013 Cayman Islands Fashion Week
boasted a slew of impressive designers, but
Admas Mahdere wowed the crowd with
her latest collection of perfectly tailored clothing
for women, inspired by her African roots (she was
born in Eritrea). Using beautifully hand-woven
cotton and silk from Ethiopia, each piece has
what Mahdere calls “a stand-out feature.” Despite
no formal training, her skill at mixing textures,
patterns, and cut-outs, incorporating her signature
weaving, is a definite representation of what she
aspires for her line to always be: innovative.
Alia Michèle Orane
style.aliamichele.com
Above Silver and ultramarine blue diamond jumpsuit
with woven trim details Left Admas silk and cotton blend
woven bustier and diagonal pencil skirt
the look

W
hile their male counterparts have struggled to stay competitive in
international cricket, it’s the West Indies women’s team who are
currently making waves on the international scene. Captain Merissa
Aguilleira and her band in maroon have certainly made it known that
they aren’t to be taken lightly in a world once ruled exclusively by
Australia, England, and New Zealand. And they’ve done that the hard way.
Last February, the West Indies made it all the way to the Women’s World Cup final
in India, a marked improvement, considering their previous best finish was fifth. In fact,
that’s where they landed in their last two trips to the event, in 2005 and 2009, while their
two before that — in 1993 and 1997 — saw them place sixth, then with a first round exit.
Fast forward to today, and the team’s growth is evident: at the 2013 World Cup, they
beat both Australia and New Zealand for the first time in history, but were overwhelmed
by the former — who have won six of the ten Women’s World Cups to date — by 114
Making the finals of the 2013 Women’s Cricket
World Cup is just one of the recent successes
of the surging West Indies women’s team.
Kern De Freitas credits an infusion of young
talent, combined with hard work, for the
team’s international ascent
runs in the final. They’ve also reached the
semi-finals of the last two ICC Women’s
T20 tournaments.
The first sign that things were
changing for the team came following
the 2005 Women’s World Cup. Regional
teams began to place an emphasis
on youth and development. Aging
stars like inspirational Trinidadian
skipper/wicket-keeper Stephanie Power,
Tobagonian Envis Williams, and St
Lucians Nadine George and Verena
Felician began to make way for a
younger crop.
Trinidadian Anisa Mohammed, for
example, played in the 2005 Women’s
World Cup as a sixteen-year-old off-
spinner, and she is currently atop the
West Indian bowling records at age
twenty-four. Almost all the remaining
members of the current Windies women’s
squad began playing in 2008, and are
under age twenty-four.
Former West Indies opener Sherwin
Campbell, who has coached the team
since then, is finally seeing the fruit of all
his hard work. “I think obviously we had
a good fifty-over World Cup, and gained
a lot of experience through that,” he says.
“The team that went to the World Cup
was quite a young, inexperienced team.
We gained some more exposure on [the
previous] tour [of England] as well, so we
have some focus.”
Campbell is sober in his understanding
that improvement is still needed,
particularly in the batting department,
and he wants his most senior players
— including inspirational Trinidadian
skipper Merissa Aguilleira, consistent
Stafanie Taylor and spunky Shanel Daley
of Jamaica, and hard-hitting Barbadian
Deandra Dottin (record-holder for
fastest century and first women’s T20
International century-maker) — to lead
that charge.
The next step for the players is to
prove that their growth continues. An
exciting tri-series tournament in October,
hosted by the West Indies and featuring
England and New Zealand, will provide
that opportunity. That could make the
learning curve steep, and the challenge
stiff, for the young Windies women. But
if appearances count for anything, then
surely their best is yet to come. n
New kids on
the pitch
courtesythewestindiescricketboard
West Indies women’s team players
celebrate on the field
the GAME

“I depend
Vincentian artist and ARC magazine editor
Holly Bynoe on keeping healthy on the
road, and the importance of taking your
time while travelling
courtesyhollybynoe
L
aunched in early 2011, ARC
magazine has quickly won
an enthusiastic audience for its
coverage of contemporary Caribbean
art, with a focus on younger artists close
to the cutting edge. Based in Bequia,
editor-in-chief Holly Bynoe — also a artist
and curator — spends much of her time
travelling to fulfil a busy programme of
launches, exhibitions, and other art-world
events.
What’s the place you’ve travelled to that
surprised you the most, and why?
I visited London for the first time in 2011,
to produce the exhibition Forever Forged,
Forever Becoming in collaboration with the
African and African Caribbean Design
Diaspora. I was very much drawn to the
familiarity of the streets, the façades, and
the general aura of the flow of the city.
There was a certain colonial staging to the
order and the circuitry that I inherently
recognised, and felt combative with.
I don’t often travel alone, and I did
for this particular trip, so I took my time
and didn’t have to manage anyone else’s
expectations. In many ways, I was able
to wander and gaze at a pace that didn’t
feel too metropolitan — meaning I wasn’t
rushed, and I allowed things to progress
organically during my hectic work
schedule.
You’ve visited galleries and other art
spaces across the region. Do you have a
favourite one, and what makes it special?
Popopstudios International Centre for
Visual Art in the Bahamas has been the
unique Caribbean creative community
experience for me. There is a diffusion of
hierarchies and the formation of one solid
community that works like a well-oiled
machine.
At Popopstudios they allow for
experimentation and have an increasing
regionalised view of Caribbean art. There
is something special in the Bahamian
creative community, and Popopstudios
is an anomaly in the Caribbean, where
networks and niches are pervasive.
How do you cope with being away from
home so often?
I make sure to travel with very homely
and comfortable casual clothing that
allows me to adjust swiftly to new spaces.
I do a lot of investigation when I travel
to new countries, ensuring I always have
a wifi connection and proper electrical
connections in order to keep up with work.
Getting enough rest and water, and eating
foods with little sugar content before I
travel, means that I have adequate energy.
If all else fails, the triple shot: finding
good coffee is crucial to my well-being.
That said, being over-caffeinated when
travelling can be terribly uncomfortable. I
need to find my happy medium.
I usually depend on the kindness of
strangers, colleagues, and my friends
to ensure that my accommodation,
transport, and all else is in place.
What places are still on your wish list?
Iceland, Argentina, Hong Kong,
Micronesia, and the entire West Coast of
the United States. I am in the preparatory
phases of planning this epic US trip with
three close compatriots and artists.
If you had to leave your house with five
minutes’ notice to catch a plane to the
other side of the world, what essential
things would you take with you?
My computer, camera, and hard drive
would be on the top of the hasty grab —
not sure how I’d survive without them.
Also comfortable shoes, pajamas, and
my stack of vitamins and medication to
promote proper rest and relaxation.
If you could have an all-expenses-paid
vacation anywhere in the Caribbean,
where would you choose?
Guyana or Belize. I haven’t been to these
countries yet, and could profit from a fully
immersive experience and some alone-
time exploring their cuisines, capitals,
historic sites, rivers, and interiors. n
on the kindness
of strangers”
Frequent flyer

We Offer
Call: 1-868-675-7034 or visit our website: www.gotrinidadandtobago.com/trinidad/meetings • email: conventionbureau@tdc.co.tt
www.tdc.co.tt

The Sky’s Wild Noise, by Rupert Roopnaraine
(Peepal Tree Press, 370 pp, ISBN 1845231619)
Winner of the 2013 OCM Bocas
Prize for Non-Fiction, Rupert
Roopnaraine’s collected essays
span a lifetime of service to
Guyanese politics, representing
a compendium of reflections
on the nation’s evolving socio-
cultural fortunes. Roopnaraine’s
unflinching doughtiness as an
analyst imbues the writing:
certain fellow political
luminaries do not escape
satirical treatment. The author
divides the collection into four sections, covering
politics, art, literature, and tributes: fallen and departed
comrades are remembered in expansive prose for the
merits of their contributions to Guyana’s nation-building,
lingering in the political interstices in the literary work of
Martin Carter. The Sky’s Wild Noise reveals as much about
the tenor of Roopnaraine’s activism as it does about
the often-fractious landscape of Guyana’s navigations
towards autonomous rule.
Chick, by Hannah Lowe (Bloodaxe Books, 64 pp,
ISBN 1852249609)
Hannah Lowe’s debut collection
of poems spotlights her father,
a Chinese-Jamaican migrant to
Britain in the 1940s, revealing
segments of the life he led in
compartments: chief among
them, he was an accomplished
card sharp, whose motto read,
“If you can’t win it straight, win
it crooked.” Lowe peels back
layers of her domestic past,
revealing as much about the
Britain she grew up in as she
does about Chick, the tender-hearted, tenacious gambler
whose nickname furnishes the collection’s title. These are
earnest, immediate poems, of a dice- and card-player’s
dexterous hand, of a father’s presence and absence alike,
of a daughter’s coming to terms with a man she once
claimed as her brown-skinned chauffeur. Chick reads as a
litany of memoir pieces, suffused with tenderness, grace,
and Windrush-fuelled dreams hung out to dry on Brixton
laundry lines.
All Decent Animals, by Oonya Kempadoo (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
260 pp, ISBN 9780374299712)
As a designer for a prominent, unwieldy Carnival mas camp, Ata has cut her
teeth on the creative irregularities of an artist’s life in Trinidad. She searches for
more than can be found in her careful blueprints for commercial work, while she
tends to her ailing friend, the architect Fraser Goodman. Her European boyfriend
Pierre aids in Fraser’s care, but as their mutual friend’s health deteriorates, the
couple finds that fewer things between them can be taken with certainty.
Oonya Kempadoo’s third novel, released a full decade after her 2002 Casa
de las Américas Prize–winning Tide Running, serves up Trinidad Carnival and
Trinidad culture on an ambitious fictive stage, typified by its unusual, often
startling use of language. Through Ata’s documentarian eyes, the writer hails
out “the chaotic Spanish clamouring, the Indian clannishness and cutlass temper,
the African skiving danceability, and English peasant/French farmer crudeness,”
noting how “they all blend together into a confused, brash way of life and
language.” Fans of Kempadoo’s dually curious and wondrous lexical assignations
will revel in her colourful, synaesthetic depictions of J’Ouvert’s messy splendour,
of the kaleidoscope that a drive up to Blanchisseuse can afford, in which
“Trinidad is revealing slips of her exotic dress.”
But, more than a proclamation of the island’s beauty, All Decent Animals
grapples gamely with the ache and persistence of disease, charting the decline of
Fraser’s health, hearkening to his longings for the reckless ardour of a hale youth.
The novel displays a persistently seeking core, pulsing with questions about the
artist’s mission, about the incompatible dualities between passion and usefulness,
about how courageous, ordinary people might survive in a pseudo-paradise land
beset from within by so many masked devils. Penning both a love letter and a riot
act to Trinidad, Kempadoo charts fragile terrain deftly, summoning a portrait of
a place that prompts both delight and rich despair.
Bookshelf

Solid Foundation: An Oral History of
Reggae, by David Katz (Jawbone Press, 416 pp,
ISBN 1908279303)
In this revised and expanded
edition of a volume first
published in 2003, David Katz
augments what was then hailed
as a necessary exploration of
reggae as an art form, social
catalyst, and inter-generational
mouthpiece. The full panoply
of reggae’s freshest and finest
do not escape illumination in
Katz’s chronicles: Jimmy Cliff
and Buju Banton, the Skatalites
and Prince Jammy, Beenie Man
and the Wailers — all receive investigation and assessment
in the writer’s deft timelining, representing a veritable
embarrassment of riches in the art form’s dynamic
evolutionary diorama. Repurposed for inclusion in the
lineup of the twenty-first century’s musical encyclopaedic
contributions, Solid Foundation purposes to be just that:
a bulwark of information sure to enhance the historical
chops of the reggae savant and dilettante alike.
And Caret Bay Again: New and Selected
Poems, by Velma Pollard (Peepal Tree Press, 190
pp, ISBN 9781845232092)
Casa de las Américas Prize–
winner Velma Pollard’s
newest collection repositions
the writer’s semaphore
atop the uncertain, often-
perilous fissures that riddle
Caribbean selfhood. These
poems bear the full, frequently
disappointed weight of an
archivist’s gleanings: a historian
observing the land and its
peoples, speaking freely of
the ways in which we wrong
nature, in which we wrong ourselves for uncertain
empires of foreign promise. Yet, in the Caret Bay
poems, and several others dotted throughout this
anthology, Pollard purposes to write away from
regional disillusionment, reminding the reader of what
sanctuary might be found in Nature’s respite: in “Caret
Bay II”, the poet proclaims, “this evening needs no
syllables to watch us walk away, shielded by sombre
evening and the smell of young smoke rising like
incense from a dreadlocks’ hearth.”
Reviews by Shivanee Ramlochan, Bookshelf editor
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playlist
Bread Gyazette
The band Gyazette was formed
in 2007 by self-taught guitarist
Nikolai Salcedo and six other
musicians. They have been an
energetic addition to the live
music circuit in Trinidad, with
their unique sound described by
Salcedo as “fresh kaiso with a
contemporary edge.” Some have labeled it “nu kaiso,”
and while the lyrics do lean in that direction, the band is
more versatile than that.
You can’t help but hear the influence of the great
David Rudder, André Tanker, and 3Canal on Gyazette’s
eagerly anticipated debut EP, but that doesn’t mean they
are copying them. What they have done is taken that
sound, flipped it on its head, and added a rock sound
with reggae beats.
Lyrically, the songs touch on topics like hunger and
fighting inner demons, and there is some playfulness too.
The title track “Bread” tells the story of a Trinidadian,
unemployed, who needs to “wuk his car like a taxi” to
get food. This is something that happens every day in
Trinidad and Tobago, but Salcedo tells a good tale about
how he turns the page on some would-be robbers and
they end up feeding him. “Mango” is about working
too hard, and to relieve this stress the singer must “go
pick a mango” (you can decipher the lyrics however
you please). The final song, “Longing for You”, brings a
change of pace, and can be considered the ballad of the
album, but it’s definitely a standout. The only drawback
to this album is that it’s too short.
Jumbie in the Jukebox Kobo Town
On listening to the second album
release from the Toronto-based
band Kobo Town, led by Trinidad-
born Drew Gonsalves, you get the
feeling it wasn’t by accident the
first lines of the opening song,
“Kaiso News”, are “If I had a
choice I would choose to live back
when calypso bought you the news.” Gonsalves paints a
vivid picture of Trinidad past and present. He sings of the
Trinidad Labour uprising of 1937 in “Road to Fyzabad”,
as well as topics like emigration and paranoia, all the
while transporting the listener directly to his home island.
Tapping into the roots of calypso as social commentary,
he sings of “Postcard Poverty”, where tourists come to
Trinidad simply to take photos of the ghetto to show their
friends at home. And when Gonzales sings about “Diego
Martin”, the town where he grew up and which he left
at age thirteen for Canada, you can hear in his voice the
pain he felt as a young man separated from his home
and country. If you love kaiso, calypso, alternative music,
Improving the quality of life for every patient

or just want to hear some great musical storytelling, this
is the album to buy. If this reviewer could give it stars, it
would receive five out of five.
Losers Never Win desmond
Reggae, like other forms of music,
has many categories. Some artists
sing of their political views, some
are lady lovers’ rockers, and some
give off a dancehall vibe. desmond
— yes, he goes by one name, with
a lowercase d — does not fall into
any of these categories.
You can tell he isn’t a typical reggae singer. His voice
is very distinctive, as he is classically trained. This also
shows in the music, which relies heavily on saxophone
and piano, neither of which is heard much in reggae,
but they are perfect for the sound he is going for, as he
delivers positive messages in each of the three songs on
his EP Losers Never Win.
The title track tells a straightforward story of a son
wanting to be a winner in life, and his father giving
him advice. Nothing groundbreaking there, but the
arrangement of the music is very evocative. “Makes
me Stronger”, venturing into RB territory, tells of a
relationship gone bad, where the singer claims “All the
wrong you do is all right for me / Makes me stronger.”
The final track returns to the reggae format and again is
positive in its message.
If you’re looking for a unique new artist, give desmond
a listen — his music is available on itunes and Amazon,
or visit his website at www.desmondthesongwriter.com.
Other Side of Love Sean Paul
Music is an ever-changing entity,
and all artists must adapt to stay
current and trendy. Sean Paul has
tried to do exactly this on his new
single — the first from his as yet
untitled next album — and has
hired hit-maker producers Benny
Blanco and the Cataracs to give
him an electronic/pop sound, pulling him away from
his dancehall roots. The song is about a relationship
break-up, and while other artists might have taken a
sombre approach, Sean Paul gives it an upbeat swing.
The production is flawless, but while it will be a hit in the
clubs, Sean Paul really should stick to what he does best
— his attempt to sing on this single is very distracting,
even given the liberal use of autotune.
Reviews by Sheldon Cadet
Single spotlight

I
n the past, when friends visited Grenada, they brought back
quaint little packets of nutmeg and spices with some cocoa
balls. We’d usually take out the cocoa, and toss the nutmeg
into a spice bottle in the cupboard. The cocoa would be
grated and made into delicious cocoa tea — and that was
as far as Grenadian cocoa went for me.
Fast forward a few years to London, and I’m shopping in
a supermarket, where among the posh chocolate brands like
Green and Black’s and Valrhona sat a chocolate bar from
Grenada. The Grenada Chocolate Company’s brightly coloured
wrapper — depicting the Caribbean Sea framed by branches
laden with yellow and orange cocoa pods — put a smile on my
face, because it looked so much like home.
The seventy-one per cent dark chocolate bars were
impressive, and I felt they more than held their own against
more popular brands. I did a little research about the company
behind this chocolate, and discovered it was run by a hugely
passionate American man who had fallen in love with Grenada.
I didn’t know much more about Mott Green and the grand
vision he had for Grenadian cocoa until recently, when, sadly,
I read his obituary — and discovered that the idealistic driving
force behind the Grenada Chocolate Company had developed a
system of farming and manufacturing chocolate that was quite
revolutionary.
M
ott Green was born David Friedman in Staten Island,
New York. He studied for a degree in engineering at the
University of Pennsylvania, but dropped out months
before graduation. Embarking on a bohemian existence, he lived
in abandoned houses with groups of anarchists and helped feed
the homeless by getting food that would otherwise be dumped
by restaurants. While living this bohemian dream, he put his
engineering skills to use, and Green assembled appliances and
systems based on solar power in the neighbourhoods where he
lived.
B ittersweet
The late Mott Green (April
15, 1966–June 1, 2013) was
an unconventional American
entrepreneur with a vision
for making Grenadians proud
of their world-class cocoa.
Franka Philip explains how his
Grenada Chocolate Company
broke the mold, and set an
example for cocoa producers
around the world
cookup

were able to experiment with how they fermented
the cocoa beans and therefore determine the
flavour they wanted in their chocolate. “It’s
interesting how so many chocolate makers don’t
get involved in the fermenting process,” he said.
“The fermenting part affects the flavour so much.
It puts us in the interesting position of being able to
make the most of our beans, flavour-wise.”
As any cook knows, working with chocolate in
a tropical climate is not an easy thing. The Grenada Chocolate
Company’s award-winning chocolates especially fascinated
chocolatiers in Europe. Chantal Coady of Rococo Chocolates
was the first to sell the bars in Britain. When interviewed by
The Food Programme, she marvelled at how Green and his
team managed to create such excellent chocolate in tropical
conditions.
“It’s extremely hot and humid. To make chocolate, you need
very controlled, almost laboratory type conditions, a constant
temperature of about eighteen degrees C to align the crystal
structure to make a chocolate bar. It’s very difficult when you
don’t have good electricity, and when you’re starting with
a temperature of almost thirty degrees outside, it’s almost
impossible,” she said.
Green built the machines to suit the small scale of the
operation. He used exercise bikes to power one of the mills and
solar power to run the operation. According to the New York
Times, Green’s company only recently became profitable. This
was due in part to the opening of a shop in Grenada that sells
treats made from its chocolate.
Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper noted that, with a weekly
output of less than three hundred pounds, Grenada Chocolate
Company chocolate is some of the most expensive in the world.
(A bar of Grenada dark seventy-one per cent costs £5.50, or
US$8.37). But it won many fans for its bold flavours, which Green
attributed to Grenada’s volcanic soils, and the walls of his factory
featured numerous awards in the category of best dark organic
chocolate bar from the London-based Academy of Chocolate.
G
reen’s tragic death, as a result of an accident while fixing
electrical equipment at the factory, shocked many. Chantal
Coady said he was “taken at the prime of his life.”
“Mott was truly a son of Grenada. He came in, shook the
place up, and he cared so deeply about the country. They
definitely claim him as one of their own,” she said.
Mott Green’s vision — for making top-class chocolate that
benefited the people of Grenada — is his legacy. And it’s not just
for Grenada, but for cocoa producers all over the world who want
their people to be empowered and in charge of their destinies. n
According to the New York Times, Green’s love affair with
Grenada began as a child, when his father, a doctor, took the family
to the island for several winters while he taught at the medical
school there. He cemented this relationship in the mid 1990s, when
convinced by a Grenadian friend living in New York that he should
visit. After arriving with very little money or material things, it was
only a matter of time before Green fell in love with Grenadians and
their cocoa. Green himself started to produce his own cocoa balls
and cocoa tea in his bamboo house in Hermitage, which would
become the base for the chocolate factory.
After studying the techniques Grenadian farmers were using,
he became convinced that fine chocolate could be produced on
the island. In 1999, he and his business partner Doug Brown
established the Grenada Chocolate Company. “My progression,”
he told D magazine in Dallas in 2012, “was activist, love Grenada,
love cocoa, love machines and tinkering, making chocolate, and
doing it all without hurting the land.”
The Food Programme on BBC Radio 4 had been following
Green for several months before he died to make a documentary
about the chocolate and his vision. In many cocoa-producing
nations, farmers and workers have been exploited by middlemen
working for chocolate producers across the world. In some ways,
the Fairtrade movement has tried to address this imbalance,
and, as Green told The Food Programme, his vision was to create
a co-operative of cocoa farmers and chocolate makers so they
could benefit directly from cocoa farming.
The Grenada Chocolate Company pays cocoa farmers twice
the going rate for their cocoa, and all the workers in the factory
are paid equally. This seems like a simple and obvious idea, but
it was new, and it was the first time that any country grew cocoa
and produced chocolate for export. Usually, cocoa farmers sell
their beans to companies who make the chocolate and then
distribute it around the globe. So rather than boasting that their
cocoa beans go into some of the finest chocolate in the world,
Grenadians can lay claim to producing top class chocolates
themselves. “I wanted to create a group of self-empowered
cocoa makers who would be in control of the whole supply
chain,” Green told the BBC.
Since he and his team had control of the entire process, they
The Grenada Chocolate Company
headquarters in Hermitage
courtesyceliasorhaindo/tropicaltiesdominica

46 Closeup
Chutney succession
54 Backstory
Landship ahoy
Chutney soca artiste Sally Sagram
immerse
marklyndersay
58 Snapshot
Lights, camera, animals
60 Own Words
“In the theatre, you never
know what’s gonna happen”
65 Riddem Rhyme
Backup stars

I
t’s fitting that the man who created
soca music, by combining soul
with calypso, was the one who
also birthed chutney soca. Back in
1974, when Trinidadian Ras Shorty
I released “Om Shanti Om”, there
was not yet a name for this musically
intoxicating marriage. Shorty infused soca
with traditional classical Indian percussive
instruments like the dholak (a two-headed
hand-drum), the tabla (similar to bongo
drums), and the dhantal (a long steel rod
played by striking it with a horseshoe).
“Om Shanti Om” was arguably the
first chutney soca song on record, but the
genre drew on the older chutney style,
which can be traced to Caribbean Hindu
weddings. Traditionally it meant a kind of
traditional tune sung by women, later lent
a dance tempo by musicians like Ramdew
Chaitoe in Suriname. Trinidadian Sunilal
Popo Bahora, a.k.a. Sundar Popo, took it
mainstream with the release of his 1970s
hit “Nana and Nani”.
And though Shorty experimented
with a soca-and-chutney cross in that
same decade, chutney soca as we know it
today was only officially defined in 1987,
with the debut of Drupatee Ramgoonai’s
first album Chatnee Soca. The following
year, another exponent emerged, in the
person of Samraj Jaimungal, or Rikki Jai,
as he’s much better known. Rikki Jai was
a member of the Indian music orchestra
JMC Triveni before releasing “Sumintra”
— a runaway hit that told the story of an
Indo-Trinidadian woman’s love for soca
over the music of Indian playback singer
Lata Mangeshkar.
Today’s widespread popularity of
chutney soca among Trinidadians of all
backgrounds can be credited in part to
the introduction of the Chutney Soca
Monarch competition in 1995, open to
all performers of the genre. Rikki Jai
and Drupatee became household names,
alongside Ramrajie Prabhoo (the first
woman to win the coveted Chutney Soca
Monarch prize), Heeralal Rampartap,
Sonny Mann, and Rooplal Girdharie —
who also increasingly found a place in
Carnival fetes and soca concerts.
Today’s chutney soca has changed
since the days when Drupatee and
Rikki Jai ruled supreme. The use of
filmi melodies from popular Bollywood
movies, with lyrics rewritten to give the
songs local relevance, has increased the
genre’s popularity. Meanwhile, the lyrics’
prevailing themes have also evolved, in
directions that often flirt with stereotype,
with numerous pro-alcohol songs (Adesh
Samaroo’s “Rum Till I Die”, Ravi B’s “Rum
Is Meh Lover”), and others slyly tackling
marital infidelity.
The genre has also spawned young
and feisty superstars — among them,
KI, Sally Sagram, and Nisha and Ravi
B — who are just as popular during
Carnival season as soca artistes. Unafraid
of trying new things, including musical
collaborations, these artistes are also
trendsetters, with endorsement deals for
telecom companies and websites that
keep their fans in touch with gig dates and
new releases.
Meanwhile, pioneers Drupatee and
Rikki Jai have also successfully kept up
with the music, and serve as inspiration
and motivation to the growing bunch of
younger chutney soca performers. Earlier
this year, Drupatee’s career was given a
second breath of life, when she teamed
up with soca’s hottest export, Machel
Montano, for the song “Indian Gyal”. The
two first collaborated on the chutney
soca “Real Unity” thirteen years ago —
the song symbolic not only of the ethnic
backgrounds of the two singers, but as a
genre all Trinidadians can lay claim to.
Chutney
succession
Its roots go back to the 1970s, but chutney
soca — a genre infusing Indo-Caribbean
music with soca elements — really began its
rise to popularity in Trinidad in the 1990s.
Today’s chutney soca artistes are stars of the
Carnival season, with international concert
gigs filling the rest of the calendar. Essiba
Small charts the musical form’s evolution
over the decades, while photographer
Mark Lyndersay captures portraits of two
generations of chutney soca stars
panorama

Sally Sagram
Photographed at Extreme band room, Chaguanas
Two years into her career as a singer, Sally Sagram
lost her father, Bal Sagram, a local singer of Bollywood
playback songs. She was just ten years old, and decided
she would follow him onto the professional stage. By
the time she was nineteen, she was singing chutney
soca with the Spread Paal Crew, and soon after began
performing and competing in national shows.
Three years ago she formed the crossover band
Extreme with her brother Shivan, and it’s here, in the
band room below her home in Chaguanas, that Sally
plans global musical domination with her bandmates.

KI
Photographed at Woodford Café, PricePlaza, Chaguanas
When Kris Vishal Persad was hoisted aloft by his fans at the 2012 Chutney Soca
Monarch competition, it seemed a clear repudiation of the love song “Single Forever”,
which had propelled him to what seemed like sudden, shocking success. But KI, at
twenty-five one of the youngest-ever champions in the national competition, had
already spent most of his life around a band, his father Veerendra’s JMC Triveni.
Formed in 1977, Triveni was a polished band performing a range of Indian classical
works and a Bollywood repertoire before they jumped boldly into the soca mix.
KI began freelancing with the band at the age of fourteen, joining as a keyboardist
and drummer three years later. He fondly recalls winning the first ever Children’s
Mastana Bahar competition, but fell back on his “single man” persona for photographs
at the Woodford Café bar. In 2013, he invited ladies to be “Friends for the Night”, a
popular sequel to his runaway 2012 hit. It’s a persona that suits the dimple-cheeked
charmer, who never fails to flash that devastating smile.

Raymond Ramnarine
Photographed at the Bakyard Studio, Gasparillo
Dil-E-Nadan was playing at a concert in Toronto, and Raymond Ramnarine, then just a
child, realised, “I want to be on stage!” Ramnarine’s hubris was understandable. Dil-E-
Nadan had won the Prime Minister’s Trophy in 1970, was acknowledged as a powerful
export product, and it just happened to be led by his father, Ramnarine Moonilal. He
would have to wait and pay his dues, along with his brothers Rennie and Richard, who
are also part of the band, a half-century-old family tradition.
In the Bakyard Studio, a small room adjoining the Dil-E-Nadan band room,
Ramnarine works out the songs that have made him a force to be contended with in
chutney soca, and winner of the 2013 National Chutney Soca Monarch competition.
The space is behind his father’s house, which is next to his home, which in turn is next
to his brother’s house. Dil-E-Nadan may be a band, but it’s also family, the fruit of those
bonds and the weave that binds Raymond Ramnarine’s bloodline tight. “It’s our father’s
dream,” Ramnarine says. “Our parents lived every moment of their lives for this.”

Ravi and Neysha
Photographed at the Sangre Grande roundabout
Ravi Bissambhar and Neysha Bissambhar, the son and
daughter of the late Jewanlal Bissambhar, grew up
influenced by their father’s life in music. As Ravi B and
Neysha B, working with the band Karma (which includes
their brother Anil), the stylish siblings have offered up a
collection of hits and successful collaborations with other
performers in the genre and outside it. The pair point to
their successful opening of a Bollywood show — featuring
playback singers Alka and Udit Narayan, which won them
praises from the headliners — as a highpoint in their
careers.
The two singers chose the tiny roundabout in Sangre
Grande for their photograph. They grew up here, in east
Trinidad, and it remains dear to them as the place where
they first dreamed of performing for big audiences. The
roundabout is a landmark, but it also leads off in multiple
directions to quite different destinations. It’s also a reminder
of all the places they can still go.

Drupatee Ramgoonai
Photographed at the Trinidad Valley Harps panyard, Penal
Mother of two, wife to Siewdath Persad, and the seminal influence on the merging
of local Indian music and the fast dance version of calypso known as soca, Drupatee
Ramgoonai worked with producer Kenny Phillips in 1987 on a blend of the soca beat and
the rhythm of the tassa drum called “Mr Bissessar” that landed in the local music market
like a bomb. Known since then for her collaborations with Machel Montano, Crazy,
and Alison Hinds, she had a hit in 2013 with Montano in “Indian Gyal”, which invited
listeners to “wuk up the larki.”
It’s been an astonishing thirty-one years since Drupatee decided to sing, and it’s even
more surprising to realise it began in a panyard, the home ground of Trinidad Valley
Harps, then a small band practicing under a house in Penal, South Trinidad. “I would
sing a Hindi song and they would play along the pan,” she recalls. “I think this is where I
saw that the merging of two genres of music could create unity.”

Rikki Jai
Photographed at the Pungalunks Factory, Couva
Virtually nobody in Trinidad and Tobago knows who Samraj Jaimungal is, but Rikki Jai
is a national icon. The young performer had already been working with the Naya Andaz
Orchestra and JMC Triveni when he encountered Drupatee Ramgoonai, and realised her
success had opened the doors for what would become known as chutney soca. Born into
a household where all flavours of music were embraced, it wasn’t surprising that young
Rikki absorbed calypso, classical Indian music, rock, and rockers, and began to blend the
beats he was hearing into something fresh and new, breaking out with the still popular song
“Sumintra”.
Rikki Jai spent most of his professional life in studios, and wanted to be photographed
where the music gets made. He got his start with Kenny Phillips (“Sumintra” was the B-side
of his first single with the producer) and is photographed at the Pungalunks Factory in
Couva, where producer Big Rich crafts songs for a new generation of performers. n

Launched a century and a half ago, Barbados’s
unique Landship masquerade joins British
naval heritage to West African performance
roots. In its 1930s heyday, there were sixty
Landships across the island. Today, only one
remains. But as Marcia Burrowes explains,
Landship’s Friendly Society community roots
have helped steer its traditions through the
weather of change
A
uniformed group of men,
women, boys, and girls
march out in straight-line
formation, to the rhythms
of the drums and flute of
a tuk band. When the Drill
Master calls out “rough seas,” they start to
dance around the parade space, creating
the image of sails tossed in the wind.
At “man overboard,” a member of the
crew dramatically falls to the ground, and
a nurse comes over to revive him with
“quinine” — which is actually white rum.
Other “manoeuvres” include the plaiting
of the maypole and the “wangle low,”
for which the crew, hands on hips, dance
low to the ground with circular waist
movements.
Landship is a unique form of traditional
Barbadian masquerade, combining
elements of naval lore with African-
Caribbean performance tradition, and
dating back to the mid nineteenth century.
Oral history refers to 1863 as the year
when the community ritual of forming
ships on land first began. The narrative
remembers Moses Wood as the seaman
and founder who decided to recreate on
land the discipline and camaraderie he
had experienced at sea.
Wood and a number of his friends,
also former seamen, created this ritual by
adopting and transforming the uniforms
of the British Royal Navy. They also
followed the ranks of naval hierarchy, and
used titles such as Captain, Lieutenant,
and Commander for the crews of these
“ships” that “sailed” on dry land.
Documented evidence of Landship
activity surfaces briefly from 1875, when
a group entertained sugar plantation
workers with their “marchings” and
“dancing” at a Crop Over celebration.
But it is at the end of the nineteenth
century that the “ships” appear in records
as Friendly Societies, known also as
Shipping Societies. The records also note
their ritual of naming: in 1898, the Ship
Nelson and the Naval Victory were the first
two Landships to be registered.
Between 1907 and 1912, further
“ships” were launched, such as the
Indefatigable, Queen Mary, and Rosetta. By
the 1930s, such famous Landships as the
Landship ahoy
Cornwall, Ironduke, and Vanguard were
afloat. In 1931, a central authority, called
the Barbados Land Ship Association, was
formed to oversee the administration
of the various groups. The association
devised the prefix “BLS” — “Barbados
Land Ship” — further acknowledging
a nautical heritage. And the crews had
the support of prominent members of
Barbadian society, such as Dr Hugh
Cummins, later premier of Barbados.
B
y this time, many of the crews
had never actually been to sea.
With occupations based in and
BLS Barbados Landship performing the
“maypole” manoeuvre in National Heroes
Square, Bridgetown, in the early 2000s
backstory

caption Ad escipsame qui omnit
acepudae. Dolorem saecepedi dit
omnias apiendae sus, cone liberru
around Barbados’s plantations or villages,
Landship crews of the early twentieth
century were, for example, cane-cutters,
lighter men, washerwomen, and domestic
servants. Sixty Landships are estimated to
have been in existence in the 1930s, with
crews totalling three thousand men and
eight hundred women.
In 1937, the Landship sailed into a
significant event in Barbadian history.
When Marcus Garvey visited the island for
one day, it was the BLS York, comprised of
twenty-four men and women, who formed
his guard of honour. And the women in
the Landship crews, “nurses,” were given
the title of “star,” in memory of Garvey
and his Black Star liners.
Key aspects of Landship ritual had
been established by this time. With
the ship as the central image, the
headquarters of a Landship was called
the “dock” and the surrounding land
was called the “waters.” In the early
days, many docks were identified by the
presence of a “moses,” or small fishing
boat, out front, or by a miniature ship on
its roof. When on parade, some Landships
in Bridgetown created the image of a ship
through the use of ropes. The crew on the
outside of the formation held the ropes
while the officer, known as the Sailing
Master, marched on ahead.
The tuk band — with its bass drum,
kettle drum, flute, and steel triangle —
had also become an integral component
of the Landship’s public appearance.
Though evidence suggests that other
musical combinations, such as the string
band, accompanied some ships, it was
the tuk band, known as the “engine,” that
ultimately delivered the musical wind
force for the Landships to set sail. Often
the Landships on parade were so big that
two or more tuk bands would play for
their performances.
MikeToy

L
andship history is characterised
by lost ships. Lord High Admiral
Vernon Watson, head of the present-
day Landship, explains that just as a new
ship is said to be “launched,” his father
used the terms “foundered” and “sank” to
describe a ship that ceased to exist.
Landship membership fell after the
Second World War, possibly because crew
members had been recruited for the war
effort, or migrated after the war. Only
the BLS Cornwall appears to have been
active in the late 1950s and early 60s. For
the ceremony marking the Independence
of Barbados on 30 November, 1966, a
combined squadron of Landships went
on parade. But membership and morale
were low, and the movement seemed to
be heading for extinction. Commander
Leon Marshall of the BLS Cornwall worked
assiduously at resuscitating the Landship.
His efforts were successful: in 1972 six ships
werere-launched:theBLSDirector,Ironduke,
Queen Victoria, Rodney, and Vanguard.
Consequently, the 1970s witnessed
the launch of several other Landships
in parishes around the island, known
for their parades, which were held on
pastures and other designated areas,
such as the field at WIBSCO, the biscuit
company in Bridgetown. In many ways,
Landship visibility in the 1970s echoed
the popularity of the 1930s. Newspaper
coverage was intense, and Landships
became central to national events, such
as Crop Over celebrations. The Matron of
the BLS Director remembers the vast and
appreciative crowds witnessing Landship
performances at plantation fairs.
But the sudden publicity resulted
in closer scrutiny of these community
groups, with some members of the public
accusing them of playing the “monkey
game” — mimicking the culture of former
colonial masters. Those in the Landships’
defence came swiftly forward and the
public was made aware, perhaps for
the first time, of their Friendly Society
histories. Many young Landship members
Top Landship tuk band parading at
a funeral, 1973
Above left Landship officers in
Bridgetown on Independence Day,
1973
Above right Commander Leon
Marshall of the BLS Cornwall on
parade in the 1970s
courtesythebarbadosgovernmentinformationservicecourtesythebarbadosgovernmentinformationservice
courtesythebarbadosgovernmentinformationservice

could attest to support for the purchase
of schoolbooks and the payment of
tuition fees as they prepared for the
eleven-plus examinations. The practice
of “meeting turns,” or susu, was integral
to Landship identity, a cultural norm that
reflected a West African heritage. And
the drumming rhythms of the tuk bands
and the crews’ “manoeuvres” clearly
anchored Landship within the creolised
spaces of Caribbean culture.
D
espite the 1970s Landship revival,
and in keeping with the cycles
of its history, by the early 1980s
membership dwindled and several
Landships foundered. Officers of the
remaining Landships opted to become a
combined squadron. This decision proved
unpopular, especially among the rank and
file, as many crews wanted to retain their
individual Landship identities. The union
proceeded, but with a much-reduced
membership.
The unified ship was named the BLS
Barbados Landship. It sailed under the
command of Vernon Watson, then at
the rank of Captain. As older members
died or withdrew their membership,
Watson took steps to ensure the ship’s
survival. He lowered the entrance age for
members from twenty-one to eight years,
a move that allowed him to welcome
children, especially girls, into the crew
— a significant change to Landship
identity. Watson also ensured that the
Barbados Landship continued key rituals,
such as meeting at the dock on Fridays,
“throwing” meeting turns, attending
church services, and hosting parades.
Three decades later, the now Lord
High Admiral Watson continues to
work at keeping the Landship afloat,
as it sails into its century-and-a-half
anniversary. “My passion,” says Watson,
“is not to let it die!” With an aging crew
of officers and much younger and fewer
numbers in its rank and file, the future
of the Landship is once again uncertain.
But the Landship has faced rough seas
before. Perhaps more favourable winds
are waiting ahead. n
Though other musical combinations, such as
the string band, accompanied some ships, it
was the tuk band that ultimately delivered the
musical wind force for the Landships to set
sail. Often the Landships on parade were so
big that two or more tuk bands would play
Landship nurses performing the “wangle low” manoeuvre
MikeToy

Photography courtesy Bepperton Entertainment Productions
Lights,
camera,
animals
When Christopher and Leizelle
Guinness released their short
film Pothound online, they
didn’t expect its audience would
number in the hundreds of
thousands. With their latest short,
Captain TT, similarly winning
fans, the Trinidadian couple
talk to Georgia Popplewell
about their love of animals, the
advantages of working on a
shoestring budget, and the origin
of the name of their Bepperton
Entertainment Productions
W
hen the great American comedian W.C.
Fields quipped that one should never
work with children or animals, he likely
had both his tongue in his cheek and
visions of catastrophes, actual and
imagined, in his head. But those of us
who’ve ignored Fields’s advice and lived to tell know the perils
only too well, and so do Trinidadians Christopher and Leizelle
Guinness — which hasn’t stopped this filmmaking couple from
making a beeline for these two cinematic no-no’s.
The Guinnesses, both thirty-one, have three short films to
their credit. For their first, they chose a safe subject: themselves.
Married People was made during the year they spent in Canada
furthering their studies. Shot in their apartment in Oakville,
Ontario, it was one more item on the list of “passion projects” the
couple has racked up over the years, alongside
their work for various Trinidad and Tobago
advertising agencies.
Returning to Trinidad in 2011, the
Guinnesses decided to strike out on their
own, parlaying their skills in animation
(Christopher) and graphic design (Leizelle)
and their experience producing television
commercials into Bepperton Entertainment
Productions (the acronym, BEP, is Trinidadian
slang for “sleep,” something Leizelle says she’s
quite fond of doing). Forced soon after their return to confront
the death of one of their beloved dogs, Christopher was inspired
to write the short that put them on the filmmaking map.
Pothound debuted on the video-sharing site Vimeo in
November 2011. It became a Vimeo Staff Pick the day it
was uploaded, and by January 2012 the film had gone viral,
registering 15,342 plays on 5 January alone. It was a finalist at
the 2012 Vimeo Awards in the narrative category, and won Gold
ADDY awards for cinematography and animation. At the time of
writing, Pothound has been viewed 150,000 times.
The story of an adventurous mongrel with an overdeveloped
sense of social responsibility, Pothound stood out on account of its
unique visual and storytelling style. Absent was the conventional
linear narrative common in Caribbean films; also absent was
dialogue, as the story is told is told largely from the perspective of
snapshot

Bubbercin, the Guinnesses’ engaging mixed-breed puppy.
Bubbercin, only five months old when filming began, received
a crash course in acting at the Google School of the Arts (i.e.,
dog training information Leizelle downloaded from the Internet)
before being put in front of the camera. She proved a moody star
at times, so the filmmakers kept things simple and went with
the flow. The result, according to Leizelle, was “a lot of happy
accidents.”
Pothound takes on issues such as bullying, aging, and ethnic
stereotypes, and highlights aspects of rural and small-town island
life. One of the most appealing scenes was shot on the beach at
Grande Rivière on Trinidad’s north coast during turtle nesting
season, with Bubbercin roving the beach among leatherback
turtles and vultures. Pothound was made in support of the Trinidad
and Tobago Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
and to say that Chris and Leizelle are animal lovers is a vast
understatement. They currently have nine dogs, and regularly
care for and re-home strays. They’ve nursed a pigeon, an owl, and
when Bubbercin had her way with an iguana, they took care of it
too. “Whatever we find we try to rescue,” says Leizelle. “I think we
would both be really good vets if we weren’t filmmakers.”
Releasing Pothound publicly on on Vimeo, followed by heavy
promotion on social networks, has exposed the couple’s work to
a larger — and more global — audience than if they depended
solely on film festivals. One concern the Guinnesses had was
whether non-Trinidadians would “get” the story. But the nearly
dialogue-free Pothound turned out to have universal appeal, as
the 450-plus comments left on its Vimeo page attest. “The first
question people ask is usually, ‘How did you get the dog to do
that?’” says Leizelle. “I think everybody enjoyed the fact that it
was a dog movie.”
T
he Guinnesses next film project was Captain TT, released
in May 2013, and starring six-year-old Kden Hee-Chung.
More ambitious in scope than Pothound, Captain TT opens
with the famous Edmund Burke quote about the triumph of evil —
albeit used ironically — and includes some voiceover. The story
of a young boy exploring his potential by imagining himself as a
superhero, Captain TT feels somewhat messier and less resolved
than Pothound, but there’s a real enchantment to its chaos. The two
films are connected by recurring characters, including the elderly
woman in the market, played by Christopher’s grandmother.
The Guinnesses received some financial support from the
Trinidad and Tobago Film Company’s production assistance and
script development programme for Pothound, but they financed
Captain TT out of their own pockets. “They say think outside
of the box, but I like to think inside of the box, because you get
very creative inside your little box with nothing,” says Leizelle,
referring to decisions dictated by their shoestring budget.
Things like compensating for the lack of a full-frame camera by
using a wide-angle lens. Or the improvised monopod (a 2x4 and
some twine) on which they mounted the camera, running with it
in order to capture Bubbercin’s travelling shots on the streets of
San Fernando. Telling the story from a dog’s-eye view — or, in
Captain TT’s case, a child’s-eye view — justified the audacious
angles, the frenetic cutting, and the impressionistic storytelling
style. For Captain TT, where Christopher did a great deal of
climbing and swivelling his body for the overhead shots, part of
the budget went towards Tiger Balm, to sooth his sore muscles.
And they chose locations with lots of existing texture and props.
“People see a junkyard,” says Leizelle of one location that
features prominently in Captain TT, “but when Chris and I were
scouting for places and came across it, the first thing that came
to mind was, ‘wow, what an amazing set.’”
Captain TT has been screened at the Aruba Film Festival
and at an ARC magazine Caribbean Short Film Night in St Vincent.
It will appear next at the Caribbean Film Corner in London and the
2013 Icon Festival in Israel. And in September the Guinnesses will
begin pre-production on their fourth short, Forever Alone, “a satire
on the culture of loneliness.” “It’s a departure,” says Christopher,
“from the nostalgic charm of Pothound and Captain TT, but there
will be flashbacks featuring kid actors, and a mischievous dog.” n
Opposite page Kden Hee-Chung, star of Captain TT Above Christopher and Leizelle Guinness and two of their canine charges

Photograph by Duke Wells
“In the
theatre,
you never
know what’s
gonna happen”
Nicolette Bethel, Bahamian playwright and
co-founder of the Shakespeare in Paradise
theatre festival, on the energy of live
performance, the relevance of Elizabethan
plays, and the importance of passing on
traditions — as told to Nicholas Laughlin
T
heatre was all around me
when I was growing up.
Every place you went —
church, school — had a
performance component.
My mother Keva was
the principal and then the president of
the College of the Bahamas. And my
father Clement was a concert pianist and
a composer and a choral director. Then
I had a grandmother who was the most
amazing storyteller. So performance
was always around me, and it was just
a small step to get from that everyday
involvement to the actual stage.
The very first time I remember being on
stage, somebody picked me to play Mary
in a school Christmas pageant. I might
have been six or seven. I had no lines — I
just had to stand there and look virginal.
When I was around eleven or twelve,
I wrote stories all the time, and I
discovered that my stories were coming
out in play form. Not that I knew anything
about how to write for the stage, but it
was dialogue back and forth, and laid
out like I’d seen plays laid out in books.
When I was thirteen, fourteen, I wrote
an adaptation of Cinderella for a class
pageant. Nassau also had a very active
theatre scene, and my parents, being the
parents they were, took me to see some
of the plays and musicals. I remember
very clearly the day I went to see Oliver!
I made up my mind that one day I was
going to play the Artful Dodger. Never
happened!
I did all this in high school, but when I
went away to the University of Toronto, I
just didn’t have the same mindset as the
people I observed doing drama. It was a
very Eurocentric, highly intellectualised,
highly stylised approach to theatre, and
it just did not resonate with me. I was
always interested in storytelling.
Then I met a woman who produced
plays in French, which was my minor. She
recruited me into her theatre company,
and made me stage manager. They were
doing Molière, and classical French
comedy, and I loved it.
That’s probably the closest thing I had
to any formal training until I came back to
the Bahamas and I got involved with the
Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts,
which was the community theatre of the
time. In the 1980s and 90s, the Dundas
created a repertory season which ran
for five or six months every year. Philip
Burrows was the artistic director. That’s
where anybody over forty who has real
theatre credentials got their training.
Everybody did a bit of everything,
and if you had an affinity for anything,
you tended to take on that task. We
improvised a lot. We couldn’t invest in the
bells and whistles of a really professional
grade theatre, but we made do. It was fun,
and it gave us the sense that you can do
pretty well anything.
In live theatre, you never know what’s
gonna happen. But you know the show
is going to go on. There’s an electricity
there that’s totally addictive. Every night
is different. I like that. I get bored easily.
Own words

I
eventually married Philip Burrows, and
we spent three years on the west coast
of Canada. Every year we would go to
the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which
made a real impression on both of us. It’s
held in a tiny town called Ashland, which
has nothing else. It’s the major economic
contributor to the town. I thought, if
Ashland can do it, surely Nassau can do it.
We came back in 2000 and we formed
Ringplay Productions, mostly with
former members of the Dundas repertory
company, and we concentrated on putting
out a play or two a year. Then I went into
the government to work as Director of
Culture. I learned a lot more about what’s
going on in the Caribbean, and how to
interest people who are gatekeepers
and sponsors. When I left government
in December 2008, I took all of those
contacts and put them into producing
Shakespeare in Paradise, creating the
festival we had imagined.
Every year we have one Shakespeare
production, one Bahamian production,
and three smaller plays. Shakespeare and
the Caribbean, to me, are inextricably
linked, by their time, by their philosophy.
The same ideas that were moving
Shakespeare were impelling people to
come and colonise this so-called New
World. And Shakespeare’s plays are
very close to Caribbean sensibilities.
Elizabethan society had a lot in common
with Caribbean society.
We have a really strong school
outreach — about two thirds of our
audiences are school kids — and their
responses to Shakespeare are pretty
amazing. Part of it is the way we restage
the plays. We don’t change the language
that much, but we set the scenes in spaces
they can recognise.
In last year’s Merchant of Venice we
made Shylock into a Haitian Bahamian,
as opposed to a Jew. His punishment at
the end was exile — he had to go “back”
to Haiti, even though he wasn’t born there.
It inspired discussions among students of
Haitian parentage who were born in the
Bahamas and Bahamian students, as it
addressed head-on issues we never talk
about, but are nonetheless very real to
young people — the fear that even though
you were born and raised here, you are not
accepted and feel always that someone
wants to send you to a “home” you never
knew.
Another year we did Julius Caesar,
because that’s the play every Bahamian at
some point has read, and every Bahamian
politician quotes from, whether they
know it or not. On the last night, all of the
Julius Caesar fans came out and recited
the play from top to bottom, along with
the actors. These are things that make me
feel I’m not wasting my time.
This year is the fortieth anniversary
of Independence in the Bahamas, and the
fifth year of the festival, so we’re reviving
my father’s folk opera, The Legend of
Sammie Swain. It’s based on a folk legend
collected in Cat Island in the 1940s. My
father took the bare bones and wrote first
of all a ballet, and then this folk opera.
He wrote it in what seems like a summer,
when I was five years old. When I went to
bed and when I woke up every morning I
would hear him composing it at the piano.
We had to search for the score, and
old videos of productions from the 1980s
to recreate the choreography. We didn’t
have an actual script. We had to watch
the video and transcribe that. I feel very
strongly that it needs to be passed on to
the next generation.
There is one song that every Bahamian
knows — it’s basically in the public domain
now — but not where it comes from.
“When the Road Seems Rough”: it’s from
Sammie Swain, and it’s my father’s piece.
It’s anthem-like and inspirational. People
sing it at weddings and graduations.
It’s that kind of song. When you’ve borne
enough, don’t faint, don’t sigh, don’t cry,
wonder why, just keep trying. n

Garry Steckles
Photograph by David Corio
I
t’s hardly surprising that Jamaica has produced more
brilliant players of musical instruments — on a per
capita basis, that is — than any nation on earth. The
sheer volume of music coming out of the island, be it
recorded or live, is simply staggering, and has been since
the late 1950s, the era that gave birth to the industry as
we know it today.
Jamaica has given the world a raft of internationally
renowned singers — among them Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff,
Toots Hibbert, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, Buju Banton,
Gregory Isaacs, and Dennis Brown. Somewhat less celebrated
have been the men whose genius has made all of this possible:
the players of instruments. (I say men, by the way, because
this is an almost exclusively male-dominated sphere of the
Jamaican music business.) And it struck me the other day that
a column paying tribute to at least some of these great studio
and stage veterans is long overdue.
So let’s start at the beginning, with unquestionably the
most influential of all the great Jamaican backing bands and
— under the collective name of the Skatalites — a group of
international stature for almost half a century.
The foundation members of the Skatalites were
Tommy McCook, Roland Alphonso, Lester Sterling, Don
Drummond, Jerome “Jah Jerry” Haynes, Jackie Mittoo,
Lloyd Brevett, Lloyd Nibb, and Johnny “Dizzy” Moore. The
first incarnation of the Skatalites lasted just over a year,
Backup
stars
Jamaica’s reggae singers are known around the
world, but their music couldn’t exist without the men
standing behind them on stage and in the studio,
playing their instruments. Garry Steckles pays tribute
to the backup musicians whose sounds are better
known than their names
Roland Alphonso and Tommy McCook of the Skatalites
Riddem rhyme

Caribbean Beat Magazine (#123: September/October 2013)

Caribbean Beat Magazine (#123: September/October 2013)

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