Caribbean Beat — January/February 2018 (#149)
A calendar of events; music, film, and book reviews; travel features; people profiles, and much more.
A calendar of events; music, film, and book reviews; travel features; people profiles, and much more.
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Contents<br />
No. 149 <strong>January</strong>/<strong>February</strong> <strong>2018</strong><br />
76<br />
42<br />
EMBARK<br />
19 Datebook<br />
Events around the <strong>Caribbean</strong> in<br />
<strong>January</strong> and <strong>February</strong>, from Bahamas<br />
Junkanoo to Guyana’s Mashramani<br />
to Carnival celebrations up and down<br />
the islands, plus St Lucia’s Nobel<br />
Laureates Festival, a marathon in<br />
Haiti, and the world-famous Havana<br />
Book Fair<br />
26 Word of Mouth<br />
It’s Carnival time! Come on a<br />
panyard lime with Barbara Jenkins,<br />
experience the thrilling, shapeshifting<br />
ritual of J’Ouvert in a poem<br />
by Shivanee Ramlochan, and discover<br />
Carriacou’s unique Shakespeare mas.<br />
Meanwhile, Jamaica celebrates its<br />
musical heritage at Reggae Month<br />
34 the game<br />
Superhero moves<br />
Inspired since childhood by the<br />
Power Rangers TV show, Jamaican<br />
taekwondo champ Akino Lindsay<br />
uses martial arts to change his life<br />
and inspire other young people in<br />
Kingston’s toughest communities,<br />
writes Kellie Magnus<br />
36 Bookshelf, playlist, and<br />
screenshots<br />
This month’s reading, listening, and<br />
film-watching picks, to keep you<br />
culturally up-to-date<br />
IMMERSE<br />
42 closeup<br />
Walk tall<br />
It’s one of the oldest masquerades<br />
in T&T’s Carnival, brought across<br />
the Atlantic from West Africa. The<br />
moko jumbie tradition once seemed<br />
to be dying away, but in recent<br />
years a handful of enthusiasts have<br />
created a moko jumbie revival,<br />
training hundreds of young people<br />
in the art of stilt-walking. Ray Funk<br />
investigates, and explains the power<br />
of these towering figures<br />
57 backstory<br />
How to win the road<br />
T&T’s Carnival is full of rivalries and<br />
competitions, and none is more fierce<br />
than the annual Road March battle.<br />
Mark Lyndersay traces the history of<br />
the musical title that reflects the will<br />
of masqueraders on the street <strong>—</strong> and<br />
we dare to share our picks for the top<br />
ten Road March songs from the 1930s<br />
to the present day<br />
72 own words<br />
“I’m unfinished”<br />
Tobago-born actor Winston Duke,<br />
appearing in the eagerly awaited<br />
Black Panther movie, on his love of<br />
stories and magical realism, how his<br />
village childhood shaped his ethos,<br />
and his love of soca music <strong>—</strong> as told to<br />
Caroline Taylor<br />
ARRIVE<br />
76 Destination<br />
Escape to Tobago<br />
Even at the height of Carnival season,<br />
Trinidad’s sister island maintains its<br />
laid-back, tranquil vibe. Need to<br />
escape from the fetes and frenzy?<br />
Welcome to Tobago’s beaches and<br />
bays, forests and waterfalls <strong>—</strong> a<br />
natural vitamin shot for the soul<br />
94 Neighbourhood<br />
Gustavia, St Barthélemy<br />
The picturesque capital of St Barts<br />
took a beating during Hurricane Irma<br />
<strong>—</strong> but was soon ready to welcome<br />
visitors again, to enjoy its Gallic<br />
charms with a Scandinavian twist<br />
96 round trip<br />
Art in the open<br />
Year-round, across the <strong>Caribbean</strong>,<br />
you can experience art in the street,<br />
in public spaces, out in the open <strong>—</strong><br />
no need to buy a museum ticket.<br />
Here are murals, monuments, and<br />
even an impromptu art gallery in<br />
Port-au-Prince<br />
ENGAGE<br />
106 green<br />
what follows the storm<br />
In September 2017, Hurricane Maria<br />
devastated Dominica’s houses,<br />
businesses, and infrastructure. But the<br />
10 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
<strong>Caribbean</strong><strong>Beat</strong><br />
An MEP publication<br />
96<br />
Editor Nicholas Laughlin<br />
General manager Halcyon Salazar<br />
Design artists Kevon Webster & Bridget van Dongen<br />
Web editor Caroline Taylor<br />
Editorial assistant Shelly-Ann Inniss<br />
Business Development Manager,<br />
Tobago and International<br />
Evelyn Chung<br />
T: (868) 684 4409<br />
E: evelyn@meppublishers.com<br />
Business Development<br />
Representative, Trinidad<br />
Mark-Jason Ramesar<br />
T: (868) 775-6110<br />
E: mark@meppublishers.com<br />
storm also took a toll on the Nature<br />
Isle’s forests and wildlife <strong>—</strong> a major<br />
blow for an economy that depends on<br />
eco-tourism. Paul Crask reports<br />
Business Development Manager<br />
Yuri Chin Choy<br />
T: (868) 460 0068, 622 3821<br />
E: yuri@meppublishers.com<br />
108the deal<br />
Seaweed for sale<br />
For St Lucian Johanan Dujon,<br />
sargassum-covered beaches are’t just a<br />
problem <strong>—</strong> they’re an opportunity. As<br />
Erline Andrews learns, Dujon has his<br />
eye on a regional market for his Algas<br />
Organics line of fertilisers<br />
110 On this day<br />
A distant light<br />
A small speck of land at the northern<br />
end of the Leewards, Sombrero<br />
Island is known to few <strong>—</strong> but has a<br />
surprisngly colourful history. James<br />
Ferguson tells tales of shipwrecks,<br />
guano mines, and the 150-year-old<br />
lighthouse that saved countless sailors’<br />
lives in the dangerous Anegada<br />
Passage<br />
112 puzzles<br />
Enjoy our crossword, sudoku, and<br />
other brain-teasers!<br />
Media & Editorial Projects Ltd.<br />
6 Prospect Avenue, Maraval, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago<br />
T: (868) 622 3821/5813/6138 • F: (868) 628 0639<br />
E: caribbean-beat@meppublishers.com<br />
Website: www.meppublishers.com<br />
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<strong>Caribbean</strong> <strong>Beat</strong> is published six times a year for <strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines by Media & Editorial Projects Ltd. It is also available on<br />
subscription. Copyright © <strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines <strong>2018</strong>. All rights reserved. ISSN 1680–6158. No part of this magazine may be<br />
reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. MEP accepts no responsibility for<br />
content supplied by our advertisers. The views of the advertisers are theirs and do not represent MEP in any way.<br />
Website: www.caribbean-airlines.com<br />
118 onboard entertainment<br />
Music and movies to keep you busy<br />
in the air<br />
120 parting shot<br />
On Union Island, colourful produce<br />
makes a still life of a vendor‘s stall<br />
The <strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines logo shows a hummingbird in flight. Native to the <strong>Caribbean</strong>, the hummingbird represents<br />
flight, travel, vibrancy, and colour. It encompasses the spirit of both the region and <strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines.<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 11
Cover Stephanie Kanhai<br />
of the Touch D Sky moko<br />
jumbie group on the road<br />
at T&T’s Carnival 2017<br />
Photo Maria Nunes<br />
This issue’s contributors include:<br />
Born in Britain and resident in Dominica since<br />
2005, Paul Crask (“What follows the storm”, page<br />
106) is an independent writer, photographer, and<br />
magazine publisher. He is the author of two Bradt<br />
travel guides and the creator of Dominica Traveller<br />
magazine: www.dominicatraveller.com.<br />
Ray Funk (“Walk tall”, page 42) is a mostly retired<br />
Alaskan trial judge who has been passionately<br />
researching Trinidad Carnival arts for two decades.<br />
He writes regularly for the Trinidad Guardian.<br />
Barbara Jenkins (“Pan jumbie”, page 26) immerses<br />
herself in reading and writing, visiting children and<br />
grandchildren, cooking, tending weeds, and in the<br />
calm citrine waters of Macqueripe Bay. Her novel De<br />
Rightest Place will be published in <strong>2018</strong>.<br />
Mark Lyndersay (“How to win the road”, page 55)<br />
is a Trinidadian photographer and journalist. His<br />
BitDepth is the longest running newspaper column<br />
reporting on technology in the country.<br />
Kellie Magnus (“Superhero moves”, page 34) is a<br />
Jamaican author who writes primarily for children.<br />
She also runs the Jamaica Safer Communities<br />
Programme for Fight for Peace International,<br />
an NGO that uses martial arts combined with<br />
education to realise the potential of young people<br />
in communities affected by violence.<br />
Attillah Springer (“How to win the road” page 55)<br />
is a Trinidad-born writer, DJ, and flag woman. She<br />
is one of the conveners of Say Something, a media<br />
advocacy group working on issues of gender-based<br />
violence, and a director of Idakeda, a collective of<br />
women in her family creating cultural interventions<br />
for social change.<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 13
A MESSAGE From OUR CEO<br />
HELLO CARIBBEAN!<br />
delpixel/shutterstock.com<br />
Havana, Cuba <strong>—</strong> <strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines’<br />
newest destination<br />
Hello <strong>Caribbean</strong>, and Happy New Year!<br />
I am delighted to have joined <strong>Caribbean</strong><br />
Airlines at the end of 2017. Leading this<br />
passionate team inspires me, as I see<br />
our tremendous potential to connect the<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> and beyond. As a company,<br />
we are looking forward to executing<br />
the transformation that the airline must<br />
embrace to compete successfully.<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines is an authentic<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> airline, and we provide a<br />
genuine <strong>Caribbean</strong> experience on all our<br />
services. Our professional teams offer<br />
you the warmth of the islands both on<br />
and off the aircraft, and we will continue<br />
to share <strong>Caribbean</strong> culture and energy<br />
with you.<br />
As the airline which knows the region<br />
best, our vision is to connect the <strong>Caribbean</strong><br />
by sharing more of it with you,<br />
and to bring our beautiful islands closer<br />
together. The airline business is about<br />
providing the service that our customers<br />
want, and we have listened to your<br />
feedback. Based on what you have told<br />
us, our campaign to connect the region<br />
more closely begins on 13 <strong>January</strong>, with<br />
the launch of service to Havana, Cuba,<br />
our twentieth destination.<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines will fly twice<br />
weekly from Piarco International Airport<br />
in Trinidad, every Tuesday and Saturday,<br />
with easy connections to and from<br />
Barbados, Grenada, and Guyana. Now<br />
business, leisure, and other travellers<br />
can easily connect to Cuba and enjoy<br />
all that this charming country offers.<br />
Cuba is the <strong>Caribbean</strong>’s largest<br />
island. It is rich in history and culture, with<br />
a captivating mystique. Vintage cars still<br />
cruise the streets, and the beautiful old<br />
buildings of Cuba’s colonial cities evoke<br />
the feel of a country frozen in time. The<br />
island is almost eight hundred miles from<br />
end to end, and it abounds in natural<br />
beauty, with some of the <strong>Caribbean</strong>’s<br />
most dazzling beaches. Cuba’s depth<br />
and diversity make it one of the world’s<br />
most fascinating countries.<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines is also looking<br />
inward, with a laser focus on customer<br />
experience and a view to growing our<br />
business. To enhance our commercial<br />
planning, we will concentrate on<br />
research, route development, and<br />
developing a schedule based on your<br />
needs. You can look forward to new and<br />
exciting developments in key areas as<br />
<strong>2018</strong> unfolds.<br />
<strong>January</strong> and <strong>February</strong> are busy<br />
months in the <strong>Caribbean</strong>, and you<br />
can fly with us to many of the events<br />
taking place. The Mustique Blues Festival<br />
runs from 25 to 31 <strong>January</strong>, at an<br />
exclusive venue overlooking the majestic<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> Sea. You can fly with us<br />
to St Vincent and connect from there.<br />
Grenada Sailing Week takes place<br />
from 29 <strong>January</strong> to 3 <strong>February</strong>: this<br />
regatta is becoming increasingly popular,<br />
and is now a signature event on the<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> calendar.<br />
Other events include the Holetown<br />
Festival in Barbados (11 to 18<br />
<strong>February</strong>) and Mashramani in Guyana<br />
(23 <strong>February</strong>), which is billed as the<br />
most colourful festival of the year<br />
and celebrates Guyana’s becoming a<br />
Republic on 23 <strong>February</strong>, 1970. With<br />
several daily flights to and from Guyana,<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines will certainly get you<br />
there! You can see a detailed <strong>Caribbean</strong><br />
calendar in the Datebook section of this<br />
magazine. Please take a copy home<br />
with you, with our compliments.<br />
At <strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines, it is our<br />
privilege to serve you. Please visit our<br />
website at www.caribbean-airlines.<br />
com; become a fan by liking us on<br />
Facebook at www.facebook.com/<br />
caribbeanairlines; and follow us on<br />
Twitter and Instagram @iflycaribbean.<br />
Best wishes to you and your families<br />
for <strong>2018</strong>!<br />
Garvin Medera<br />
Chief Executive Officer<br />
14 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
datebook<br />
Your guide to <strong>Caribbean</strong> events in <strong>January</strong> and <strong>February</strong>, from<br />
Junkanoo in the Bahamas to Carnival across the region<br />
Don’t miss . . .<br />
Carnival<br />
11 to 14 <strong>February</strong><br />
Martinique<br />
Colour, spontaneity, extravagance, and<br />
wild energy jam through Carnival parade<br />
routes across the French <strong>Caribbean</strong>,<br />
following weeks of events leading up<br />
to the big masquerade. Biguine music,<br />
creole dance moves, and general antics<br />
will put a spring in your step.<br />
T photography/shutterstock.com<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 19
datebook<br />
If you’re in . . .<br />
JAMAICA<br />
MIAMI<br />
St Lucia<br />
PAUL ATKINSON/shutterstock.com<br />
Accompong Festival<br />
6 <strong>January</strong><br />
Marcus Garvey said “a people without<br />
the knowledge of their past history,<br />
origin, and culture is like a tree<br />
without roots.” That isn’t the case<br />
below the wide-spreading Kindah<br />
Tree in Accompong, the headquarters<br />
of the Maroon community in<br />
St Elizabeth, Jamaica. Every year,<br />
hundreds of Maroons and non-<br />
Maroons gather to observe their<br />
independence from the British, and<br />
the honoured Kindah Tree is the main<br />
stage. Storytelling and traditional<br />
dances go down under this sacred<br />
mango tree <strong>—</strong> a symbol of unity.<br />
Before 1739, Captain Cudjoe, the<br />
fierce Maroon leader, held important<br />
meetings and ceremonies there.<br />
Today, in the spirit of<br />
remembrance, the abeng horn <strong>—</strong><br />
once used for communication among<br />
isolated settlements <strong>—</strong> is blown to<br />
commence the festivities. Women<br />
chant and men beat the drums in<br />
procession towards the tree. Prepare<br />
for libations of white rum flicked<br />
into the crowd, to fend off evil spirits<br />
and bring luck. But what good is a<br />
rum shower without food? To end<br />
the ceremony, the crowd gathers for<br />
a meal of unsalted and unseasoned<br />
pork with yams. And, of course, a<br />
sound-system party that continues<br />
until dawn.<br />
holbox/shutterstock.com<br />
Art Deco Weekend<br />
12 to 14 <strong>January</strong><br />
artdecoweekend.com<br />
In downtown Miami, skyscrapers<br />
embrace the horizon, and<br />
architectural elements from various<br />
cultural influences abound. But if you<br />
appreciate the historical phenomenon<br />
of Art Deco, head over the bay to<br />
Miami Beach, which boasts one of the<br />
world’s most celebrated collections<br />
of Art Deco buildings <strong>—</strong> described<br />
as a “modern take on neoclassical,<br />
one that is equally historic, retro,<br />
and fabulous.” Over eight hundred<br />
structures built between 1923 and<br />
1943 make up the Miami Beach Art<br />
Deco Historic District <strong>—</strong> including a<br />
row of lavishly refurbished, rainbowhued<br />
hotels with prime views of the<br />
Atlantic.<br />
And even if you’re not into the<br />
architecture, but just want to shake a<br />
leg and be entertained, the Miami Art<br />
Deco Weekend programme will keep<br />
you on your feet.<br />
“Art Deco Around the World” is<br />
the <strong>2018</strong> festival’s theme, and over<br />
150,000 people will be on Ocean<br />
Drive in Miami Beach for educational<br />
events organised by the Miami<br />
Design Preservation League. There’s<br />
something for everyone <strong>—</strong> theatre<br />
shows, Hollywood movie tours, classic<br />
car shows, dog shows, fashion shows,<br />
culinary delights, and activities for<br />
children. Arrive early, as many of the<br />
events are free.<br />
Nobel Laureate Festival<br />
Last two weeks of <strong>January</strong><br />
Venues around St Lucia<br />
Hear ye, hear ye, all devoted<br />
followers of <strong>Caribbean</strong> literature:<br />
St Lucia’s highly anticipated Nobel<br />
Laureates Festival has returned, and<br />
as usual it coincides with the shared<br />
birthdate of St Lucia’s two luminaries:<br />
Sir Arthur Lewis and Sir Derek<br />
Walcott. In 1979, Lewis won the<br />
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics,<br />
while Walcott received his Nobel<br />
Prize in Literature in 1992. A year<br />
later, a captivating and prestigious<br />
festival celebrating the achievements<br />
of these achievers was launched, and<br />
has been a significant literary affair<br />
in St Lucia’s calendar ever since.<br />
Music, theatre, and visual arts<br />
events always feature on the<br />
programme, with distinguished<br />
lectures dedicated to Lewis and<br />
Walcott being popular highlights.<br />
Academics and cultural luminaries<br />
such as the late Professor Rex<br />
Nettleford from Jamaica, Barbadian<br />
author George Lamming, Haitian<br />
filmmaker Raoul Peck, and many<br />
others have delivered the featured<br />
address at the annual lectures <strong>—</strong><br />
impressing audiences and forming<br />
loyal returnees. This is the first year<br />
of the festival since Walcott’s death in<br />
2017. Expect the organisers to pull out<br />
all the stops.<br />
Event previews by Shelly-Ann Inniss<br />
courtesy farrar, straus and giroux<br />
20 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
@eldoradorums<br />
eldorado_rum<br />
@eldoradorums
datebook<br />
Jump into <strong>January</strong><br />
New Year’s Day Junkanoo Parade<br />
Downtown Nassau, Bahamas<br />
bahamas.com<br />
Join the “rush” as large groups parade along<br />
Bay Street in Nassau with elaborate costumes,<br />
dances, horns, bells, and whistles<br />
[1 to 2]<br />
jo Crebbin/shutterstock.com<br />
The Next Stage Theatre Festival<br />
Venues around Toronto, Canada<br />
fringetoronto.com<br />
The best of the fringe festival performers<br />
return to the Factory Theatre, giving<br />
new life to hit shows and artists from<br />
previous years<br />
[3 to 14]<br />
30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15<br />
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31<br />
22 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
courtesy bequia mount gay music fest<br />
Bequia Mount Gay Music Fest<br />
Venues around Bequia<br />
bequiamusicfestival.com<br />
The most anticipated music festival on<br />
the island is back, featuring a thrilling<br />
lineup making you groove to the<br />
blues in a cozy, intimate atmosphere<br />
[18 to 21]<br />
Cayman Cookout<br />
Venues around Grand Cayman<br />
visitcaymanislands.com<br />
Tastings, tours, dinners, pairings,<br />
and unique epicurean experiences<br />
in a relaxed setting of fun,<br />
friendship, and barefoot elegance<br />
[10 to 14]<br />
Port-au-Prince Half Marathon<br />
Haiti<br />
lghmarathon.org<br />
Shoe drives, fitness expos <strong>—</strong> and, of<br />
course, marathon day <strong>—</strong> unite runners<br />
from over sixteen countries in the<br />
Haitian capital<br />
[20 to 25]<br />
KSK Imaging/shutterstock.com<br />
30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15<br />
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 23
datebook<br />
<strong>February</strong> fever<br />
Mashramani<br />
Venues around Georgetown, Guyana<br />
Guyana’s rich cultural heritage and<br />
diversity are celebrated on a grand scale<br />
by people from all walks of life<br />
[30 Jan to 23 Feb]<br />
DigiClicks/istock.com<br />
Antigua Superyacht Challenge<br />
Off the coast of Antigua<br />
yachtcharterfleet.com<br />
Excitement and unpredictability are in the air, as incredible<br />
yachts vie in four daily races along Antigua’s south coast<br />
[31 Jan to 4 Feb]<br />
Started 30 <strong>January</strong><br />
Havana International<br />
Book Fair<br />
Havana, Cuba<br />
Authors, publishers, and avid<br />
readers gather for an exciting<br />
festival of poetry, readings, art<br />
exhibitions, and concerts<br />
[1 to 11]<br />
3 14 15<br />
30 31 30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15<br />
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31<br />
24 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Admiral’s Cup Pro-Am Golf Tournament<br />
Golf courses in St Kitts<br />
golfstkittsandnevis.com<br />
A PGA club professional and three amateurs pair<br />
up to compete against other teams from golf clubs<br />
across the US, Canada, UK, and the <strong>Caribbean</strong><br />
[3 to 8]<br />
COURTESY angostura<br />
KaiMook Studio 99/shutterstock.com<br />
Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge<br />
Trinidad<br />
angosturaglobalcocktailchallenge.com<br />
The world’s best bartenders compete to become the House<br />
of Angostura’s next global ambassador. Skills, charm,<br />
cocktail knowledge, and unbridled talent will be on show<br />
[11]<br />
30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14<br />
12 13 14 15<br />
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 3<br />
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WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 25
word of mouth<br />
Dispatches from our correspondents around the <strong>Caribbean</strong> and further afield<br />
Desperadoes, 2016 Panorama<br />
champions , rehearsing for<br />
the finals<br />
Every night I lie down in mih bed<br />
Ah hearing a Bass Man in mih head.<br />
<strong>—</strong> The Mighty Shadow<br />
maria nunes<br />
Pan jumbie<br />
In T&T, Carnival is the season of<br />
steelpan music, and the truest<br />
devotees <strong>—</strong> like Barbara Jenkins<br />
<strong>—</strong> haunt the panyards in the<br />
weeks before the Panorama<br />
competition<br />
A<br />
bassman. A woman on the<br />
bass. Tenor man, double<br />
seconds woman, guitar-pan<br />
man, cello-pan woman. Engine room.<br />
Haunting you, pan jumbie, when you lie<br />
down in your bed, in those last weeks<br />
before Carnival.<br />
Christmas come. You not taking<br />
that on. Itching for New Year’s to hurry<br />
up. Because. Next is Epiphany. Feast of<br />
Kings. The royalty of your music world<br />
come out to play theyself, and you, into<br />
a frenzied state of distracted joy.<br />
Gillian B quickens to early summons.<br />
You concede a Woodbrook<br />
childhood might have some benefit.<br />
“Belmont You” already take win for<br />
Ken Morris, Jason Griffith, Harold<br />
Saldenah, Dixieland, Burrokeets,<br />
Wayne Berkeley, Wendell Manwarren,<br />
David Rudder . . .<br />
She, camel shawl and Egyptian hat<br />
<strong>—</strong> 22 degrees Celsius is winter here <strong>—</strong><br />
and you, off to Phase II. Park easy on the narrow gap between<br />
modest houses and upscale towers. Next week, week after, is<br />
way-way down Taylor Street. Walk slow. The ground don’t<br />
remember your foot yet. You hearing something. Ting. Ting.<br />
Careful, hesitant notes. Floating beyond. Speed up now. Take<br />
sharp right.<br />
Before you, a shallow basin. Staid Fatima College, looming<br />
One Woodbrook Place frame distant views of Fort George,<br />
Cumberland Hill, Lady Chancellor. Metal pan racks lie scattered.<br />
Banners bearing the faded name of last year’s tune.<br />
Panyard low buzz. Sprinkle of people. The season early still.<br />
You here for the feeling, the vibe <strong>—</strong> confirmation that you<br />
reach where you supposed to be.<br />
Gillian taking a mental roll call. Look Mackie. Shortsleeved<br />
shirt, short pants, polished sockless loafers,<br />
backwards baseball cap. The feller with the walking stick?<br />
Not here yet. Over early weeks, a gradual gathering.<br />
Arrivals noted with nods, brief exchanges, the peculiarly<br />
Trinidadian nonchalant affirmation of a certain class, a<br />
certain generation, who never doubt they belong, be they<br />
foreign-based annual Christmas-to-Carnival returnees or<br />
us, the never-left.<br />
26 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Early pannists already putting down the tune. Stage side<br />
of thirtyish eventually swelling to the Carnival hundred. The<br />
Man, legendary Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Phase II founder,<br />
composer, arranger, emerges, circulates, greets. You relish<br />
this fleeting time. When practice really begins, the tune<br />
rounding, this gentle energy will be gone. Diluted and distracted,<br />
amplified and augmented.<br />
Natasha will be drilling down the sections, mannersing<br />
them with quiet authority. The Chuckaree boy, the Japanese<br />
girls, the brother and sister, still in primary school, the Couva<br />
girl, wee hours heading home, asleep as head hit pillow, waking<br />
up, doing whole day’s work, coming back, eager to take<br />
on this. You bear witness to one of the most adventurous steel<br />
orchestras rehearsing, shaping a tune from scratch to polish.<br />
“Jump High”. All yours. No questions. No entrance fee. No<br />
secret handshake.<br />
Come next week, week after, this yard, every panyard in the<br />
country, will be brightly lit, bleachers overflowing, bar open,<br />
t-shirts selling, people drifting in and out. Groupies, floaters,<br />
musicologists, sightseers, filmmakers. Cognoscenti and ignoranti<br />
all giving voluble opinion on music choice, arrangement,<br />
level of pannist skill. By the way, where the bearded Alaskan?<br />
Pat Bishop, late great pan icon, used to say that Laventille<br />
would not calm down until her Despers, the Desperadoes<br />
Steel Orchestra, returns home up Laventille Hill. Now<br />
nomadic, its pan racks like clean-picked bones of mastodons,<br />
strewn among razor grass fringing the Foreshore, the band<br />
temporarily lodged where a recently razed historic church<br />
stood. In that hallowed space, Despers builds their visceral<br />
music. Dispossessed, itinerant, defiantly brilliant: sell-out<br />
performances in international concert halls, eleven Panorama<br />
titles, latest 2016, “Different Me”. In the belly of this<br />
kind of rebellious beast, pan was conceived. Fire forging<br />
hammer with steel.<br />
Despers beats pan. Into submission. Music exposing scars.<br />
Telling of pain, insults, prohibitions. Hardship endured and<br />
overcome. Revelling in the triumphs of recognition, acclaim,<br />
the fanatical zeal of community supporters. Turfed out again.<br />
Landowner building a mall. Where to find Despers this year?<br />
Must call Chantal.<br />
Night before Prelims, Behind the Bridge relaxes its<br />
edginess for the season. The navel string of your pan passion<br />
buried in All Stars. The Blonde Terror, riding partner,<br />
squeezes her jeep into bare air near Hell Yard. Humanity<br />
solid in the yard. Crush past Jackie. His sketchbook busy.<br />
Come Lent, you will lust after another of his panyard scenes<br />
<strong>—</strong> players, regulars, bar, food booths, merchandise store,<br />
Laventille Hills backdrop, moonlight softening precariously<br />
perched house clusters. Shove forward. Wedge yourself<br />
between man in muscled merino and woman in shapedefying<br />
leopard-print leggings.<br />
Ping, ping, ping-ping-ping-ping. The “Full Extreme” tsunami<br />
of sound rushes towards you, swallows you alive into its<br />
tossing depths, invades every orifice, every pore. You are the<br />
sound and the sound is you. This is what you live for. Why you<br />
persist in being here. In this complex, crazy, extraordinary<br />
little island.<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 27
word of mouth<br />
At Jouvay, it eh matter if you play yourself<br />
or somebody else.<br />
Play your dead eighty-year-old granny,<br />
who had tongue like scorpion pepper,<br />
two foot like twinned fishtail in Caura River,<br />
a smile like a butterknife cutting through hot sada.<br />
Play your living mother,<br />
who made of more parts glitter than flour,<br />
who teach you softness have more than enough space<br />
to leave a cutlass waiting,<br />
glistening between fat folds,<br />
ready to chop yuh from a bed of ample waist.<br />
Play all the dead and all the living in you,<br />
in yuh shortpants,<br />
in yuh badjohn drawers,<br />
in yuh ragged fishnets and curry-gold battyriders,<br />
in yuh half-top, in yuh no-top,<br />
breasts swinging under electric-tape nipples,<br />
panty forgotten in a culvert overflowing with holy water and hell liquor,<br />
your own perspiration sliding between bodies at play<br />
like the wetness from your body is purgatory-unction.<br />
All the<br />
dead, all<br />
the living<br />
Poet Shivanee Ramlochan<br />
on the mystical, carnal,<br />
pre-dawn ritual that begins<br />
T&T’s Carnival<br />
Illustration by Shalini Seereeram<br />
Play yuhself.<br />
Clay yuhself.<br />
Wine en pointe and wine to the four stations of the cross,<br />
dutty angel,<br />
bragadang badting,<br />
St James soucouyant,<br />
deep bush douen come to town<br />
to make a killing in mud and mudder-in-law<br />
on fresh doubles, after.<br />
Play like you eh playing in your public servant office on Ash Wednesday,<br />
calves aching and twitching in sensible slingback heels,<br />
a pulse in your lower back blossoming<br />
each time you bend down to file a papers,<br />
salute a clerk,<br />
say grace before ashes.<br />
You know where you are, really.<br />
Just how you know the clerk is a chantwell,<br />
the office is a concrete antechamber before the final mas,<br />
the pavement is a busshead-convergence,<br />
the parking lot is a gayelle,<br />
the savannah is a arena where paint and abeer might wash,<br />
but spirit does linger.<br />
You eh waiting til next year.<br />
Where you plant yourself this Jouvay<br />
is where your spectral, midnight lagahoo rattling she coffin,<br />
turning wolf<br />
to woman<br />
to wolf again.<br />
28 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
word of mouth<br />
Shakespeare mas in<br />
Hillsborough<br />
Bard vs bard<br />
Paul Crask visits Carriacou and experiences<br />
the unusual spectacle of Shakespeare mas<br />
On the morning of Shrove Tuesday,<br />
people from two villages on the<br />
diminutive island of Carriacou<br />
set off on foot towards the main town of<br />
Hillsborough. One group meanders down<br />
the hillside from the north, the other from<br />
the south.<br />
Some of the men and boys in the<br />
group are dressed in gaudily patterned<br />
flowing cloaks and pantaloons, costumes<br />
that are vaguely reminiscent of<br />
English medieval court jesters. They also<br />
wear hand-painted face masks and wield<br />
wooden sticks. On their slow journey<br />
to town, they recite passages of Shakespeare’s<br />
verse and drop into roadside<br />
rumshops for a fortifying drink or two.<br />
These incongruous processions are the<br />
start of one of the most unusual cultural<br />
customs of the entire <strong>Caribbean</strong> region,<br />
Carriacou’s Shakespeare mas.<br />
Celebrations begin the day before<br />
at J’Ouvert, the traditional opening<br />
of Carnival. By the time the sun rises,<br />
Hillsborough’s Main Street is jampacked<br />
with revellers. Many arrive over<br />
the preceding weekend from Grenada,<br />
filling the Osprey ferry and mail boat,<br />
then squeezing into any and every free<br />
corner of the island’s budget hotel rooms.<br />
J’Ouvert in Hillsborough is bohemian,<br />
wild, and sometimes downright bizarre.<br />
It’s also great fun.<br />
Covering themselves from top to toe<br />
in thick black engine oil, jab-jabs <strong>—</strong> a<br />
name derived from the French patois<br />
for devil <strong>—</strong> often sport a pair of horns<br />
on their head and are loosely fettered<br />
with chains and shackles. Some jabjabs<br />
carry animal skulls, or drag them<br />
around on ropes or in carts. Others<br />
spend J’Ouvert with a fish or octopus<br />
tentacles held half in, half out of their<br />
mouths. For travellers on the morning<br />
ferry from the luxury resorts of<br />
Grenada, these devilish figures might<br />
create a rather unsettling first impression<br />
of a tranquil little island.<br />
paul crask<br />
In stark contrast to the engine oil,<br />
bright paint in either powder or liquid<br />
form is daubed on face, body, and<br />
clothing, and tossed up into the air with<br />
abandon. The music is loud, the jump-up<br />
is frenzied, and the rum is constantly<br />
flowing. Carriacou is an Amerindian<br />
word meaning “land of reefs,” and<br />
J’Ouvert morning comes to a fitting close<br />
with grilled lobster and fish breakfasts,<br />
all prepared street-side.<br />
Hillsborough is a small coastal town,<br />
and the afternoon costume parade fills<br />
up most of it, by the time it’s completed<br />
a first circuit of the two thoroughfares.<br />
It is a colourful, family occasion that<br />
continues into the evening with spontaneous<br />
singing, drumming, and the<br />
kind of string band performances that<br />
are usually associated with the island’s<br />
traditional boat launching ceremonies.<br />
By lunchtime on Carnival Tuesday,<br />
the two groups of villagers who have<br />
been making their way down to Hillsborough<br />
finally meet on Main Street,<br />
where they face off. Women brandish<br />
sticks, ring bells, and bang on pots.<br />
Then battle commences. In turn, men<br />
from each village square up to each<br />
other, stick in hand, and begin quoting<br />
passages from Julius Caesar. If their<br />
opponent hears a mistake, they receive<br />
the swift blow of a stick. Fired up with<br />
village pride and local rum, the contest<br />
often ends up in a brawl, with sticks and<br />
punches flying.<br />
No one seems to have any firm idea<br />
about how Shakespeare mas came<br />
about, but the most common theory is<br />
that English planters of past centuries<br />
forced it upon their enslaved labourers<br />
as a form of entertainment. Wherever it<br />
came from, it has evolved into a unique<br />
and unusual custom on an island that is<br />
rich in cultural heritage <strong>—</strong> including a<br />
Carnival festival that should be on every<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> traveller’s bucket list.<br />
30 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
word of mouth<br />
Catch a fire<br />
There’s nothing like hearing reggae<br />
music performed live in the island of<br />
its birth, says Nazma Muller <strong>—</strong> and<br />
<strong>February</strong> is the month to celebrate<br />
that cultural heritage<br />
The year was 1995, and the place was Priory, St Ann. It was<br />
the opening night of Reggae Sunsplash, and my life would<br />
be changed forever.<br />
For five nights I listened, spellbound, to the sonic history of<br />
the wild child of music <strong>—</strong> from its birth in the form of mento and<br />
its growth and evolution, through the decades, to become ska,<br />
rocksteady, lovers’ rock, and conscious reggae. Thousands of<br />
devotees, local and foreign, were all united in ecstasy under that<br />
star-studded sky, as the high priests of reggae blessed us with<br />
hit after hit. There is something magical about hearing reggae<br />
performed live in the ganja-perfumed air of Jamaica that cannot<br />
be described or replicated. It’s as if the very trees and sky hum<br />
along with this mystical vibration.<br />
On 24 <strong>January</strong>, 2008, the then governor-general of Jamaica,<br />
Professor Sir Kenneth Hall, read an official proclamation declaring<br />
the month of <strong>February</strong> as Jamaica’s Reggae Month. It was<br />
a signal moment in the history of reggae. The time had come<br />
to analyse and reflect on what reggae had done globally and<br />
for Jamaica, and for the island that gave the world this most<br />
beautiful sound to celebrate its pioneers and progenitors. And<br />
peeterv/istock.com<br />
<strong>February</strong> was the ideal month, as two of Jamaica’s<br />
most revered musical sons <strong>—</strong> Dennis Brown, the<br />
Crown Prince of Reggae, and Bob Marley, the<br />
undisputed King <strong>—</strong> were born on 1 and 6 <strong>February</strong>,<br />
respectively.<br />
Jamaica’s Ministry of Culture has led the way in<br />
marketing Reggae Month and making it an international<br />
phenomenon. Activities in that inaugural<br />
year, a decade ago, included the hosting of the<br />
Reggae Academy Awards, the Bob Marley Photographic<br />
Exhibition, an Africa Unite/Smile Jamaica<br />
Youth Symposium, the first annual Bob Marley<br />
Lecture, an African Film Festival, a Reggae Film<br />
Festival, the annual Irie FM Reggae Music Awards,<br />
and the Bob Marley Creative Expression Day.<br />
In 2009, under the theme “Reggae to Di Worl,”<br />
an NGO called the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association<br />
(JaRIA) was given the task of coordinating<br />
events and activities for Reggae Month. That<br />
year, eleven of Jamaica’s music veterans were<br />
honoured and celebrated for their contributions,<br />
including Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation<br />
of Rastafari, who were given a Lifetime Achievement<br />
Award. Pam Hall and Dennis Brown were<br />
also honoured. Other legends celebrated over the<br />
years include John Holt, Gregory Isaacs, Nadine<br />
Sutherland, George Nooks, Sugar Minott, Ernie<br />
Smith, Pablo Moses, and the Heptones.<br />
The Reggae Month Committee has always<br />
emphasised the importance of the reggae music<br />
industry to Jamaica’s economy. Education is<br />
crucial also: every year the committee organises<br />
symposia for high school students in collaboration<br />
with the Bob Marley Foundation and the Jamaica<br />
Cultural Development Commission, to improve<br />
public awareness about the island’s musical<br />
heritage. The committee also works with the Ministry of Education<br />
to host seminars with fifth- and sixth-formers to educate<br />
them about career opportunities available in music, and for<br />
musicians and stakeholders to learn where reggae music fits into<br />
the global music industry.<br />
Most Reggae Month activities are free. And the proceeds of<br />
events with admission fees go towards buying musical instruments<br />
for schools, supporting industry players, and setting up a<br />
music industry foundation. As Reggae Month hits the ten-year<br />
milestone, the <strong>2018</strong> programme <strong>—</strong> its details being confirmed<br />
as this magazine went to press <strong>—</strong> promises to be spectacular,<br />
with the Jamaica Tourist Board and the Ministry of Culture<br />
adding their strength to a planned mega-event, which will no<br />
doubt bring together some of the biggest names in reggae. And<br />
maybe some lucky person in the audience will find her life being<br />
changed <strong>—</strong> as mine was, all those years ago. n<br />
For updates on the <strong>2018</strong> Reggae Month programme,<br />
visit www.jariajamaicamusic.com<br />
32 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
The game<br />
Superhero<br />
MOVES<br />
Jamaican taekwondo champ Akino Lindsay channels the Power<br />
Rangers to change his life and inspire youth in Kingston’s<br />
toughest communities. Kellie Magnus finds out more<br />
Photo by Nickii Kane<br />
“<br />
Who<br />
doesn’t want to be a superhero?”<br />
Akino Lindsay, the reigning<br />
International Sport Kickboxing<br />
Association (ISKA) World Champion,<br />
is defending his love for the<br />
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.<br />
“That show had me. I liked the suits, the fighting, the action.<br />
Everything they did was so cool. I wanted to be the black Power<br />
Ranger.”<br />
The twenty-one-year-old’s love for the TV show may not<br />
be surprising, given its popularity in 1990s Jamaica. The liveaction<br />
superhero series was in heavy rotation, featuring a team<br />
of teenagers with the ability to morph into Power Rangers with<br />
superhuman capabilities.<br />
For Lindsay, the show had a special place in an otherwise<br />
challenging childhood. He grew up in Drewsland, an economically<br />
disadvantaged area in Kingston, where his mother raised<br />
him and his siblings on her own, after his father was killed<br />
violently when Lindsay was only five years old.<br />
“Drewsland wasn’t a place for kids,” says Lindsay. “It was<br />
where my father died, and that put me in a constant state of<br />
unease. I acted out a lot and got into a lot of trouble. Taekwondo<br />
literally saved my life. If I hadn’t started taekwondo, I’d be dead<br />
or in prison.”<br />
The transition from watching small-screen action to participating<br />
in real-life martial arts happened when taekwondo<br />
was introduced at his high school, St George’s College. Initially<br />
attracted to the flips and kicks he’d seen on television, Lindsay<br />
fell in love with the sport’s discipline and camaraderie, and<br />
found in its competitive environment a safe channel for his<br />
energy, anger, and resentment.<br />
“Taekwondo is a way of life,” says Lindsay. “The thrill of competition<br />
pushes me. I want to go all out and give one hundred per<br />
cent. If somebody does something better than me, I want to do<br />
it ten times better.”<br />
There were other moments off the mat that cemented his love<br />
for the sport. “The best experience I’ve ever had in taekwondo<br />
was when my first coach, ‘Sir’ Herbert Stewart, carried me out<br />
for my birthday. He kept calling me son, and that felt good to<br />
me. I had a male figure in my life looking out for me, and I felt<br />
well blessed.”<br />
From his first competition at age seventeen <strong>—</strong> which<br />
resulted in a loss he describes as spectacular <strong>—</strong> Lindsay has<br />
rolled out an impressive string of performances at the national,<br />
regional, and international level. He holds the 2017 ISKA<br />
World Champion title, which he first won in 2015. Last year,<br />
he also won the Jamaica Taekwondo National Invitational<br />
and placed second in the US Open ISKA World Martial Arts<br />
Championship. He’s won gold and silver, respectively, at the<br />
2014 and 2016 Pan American Championships, and was the<br />
2014 International Taekwondo Federation World Champion.<br />
He trains in both the International Taekwondo Federation and<br />
World Taekwondo Federation disciplines, and enters nearly a<br />
“If I’m doing something, I want to<br />
take it all the way”<br />
dozen local and international championships each year.<br />
Lindsay competes in both light contact continuous sparring<br />
and point sparring categories, with a competition schedule that<br />
can include three or more fights a day for consecutive days.<br />
“As an athlete, Akino is very dedicated,” says Michael Rose,<br />
taekwondo black-stripe and long-time friend. “In sparring, he’s<br />
always excited. I try to emulate him and learn from him.<br />
“As a fan, if you’ve ever seen him fight, you’d want to do taekwondo,”<br />
Rose continues. “It’s exciting, dramatic, over the top.<br />
It’s like watching the Power Rangers. The techniques you’d see<br />
in the movies are the things he executes. He does all the moves<br />
that aren’t easy to do, and makes it look fun.”<br />
34 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Five questions for Akino Lindsay<br />
What’s your superhero name?<br />
Shringo, my alter ego. Shringo can block out all<br />
tiredness and pain. But so far I haven’t needed<br />
him to show up yet.<br />
What are your favourite moves?<br />
A tie. Tornado kick (360-degree turning kick):<br />
it’s really cool when you execute it properly.<br />
Reverse turning kick: it’s really hard, but if you<br />
do it properly you can counter most kicks.<br />
What do you do for fun?<br />
Play Pokemon GO, text my girlfriend, play<br />
football.<br />
What’s your training routine?<br />
Taekwondo training for four hours a day, four<br />
days a week. Run once a week.<br />
And your biggest fears?<br />
Planes, elevators, getting old, flying<br />
cockroaches, and getting kicked in the teeth.<br />
Lindsay’s ultimate prize is Olympic gold. “If I’m doing<br />
something, I want to take it all the way,” he says. “It would be<br />
huge for Jamaica.” Kenneth Edwards, who represented Jamaica<br />
in taekwondo in the 2012 Olympics, is the only athlete to do so<br />
to date. Lindsay trains with Edwards on Jamaica’s combined<br />
martial arts team, and is motivated to increase the recognition<br />
of Jamaica’s success in the sport.<br />
But that longstanding dream is now rivalled by a more<br />
personal project: using his skills and talents to transform<br />
the lives of young people in circumstances similar to those<br />
he grew up in. On hiatus from the University of the West Indies<br />
for a year, Lindsay is currently a coach in the Safer Communities<br />
Programme, a multi-partner effort to reduce youth violence in six<br />
volatile communities in Kingston.<br />
The programme is led by Fight for Peace International, a<br />
global NGO that uses boxing and martial arts to transform<br />
young people’s lives. (Full disclosure: I run the Jamaica country<br />
programme.) The SCP communities are<br />
like Drewsland in income levels and levels<br />
of violence, and it’s not hard to see why<br />
Lindsay sees himself in the faces of his<br />
young charges.<br />
“Taekwondo changed my life. It’s<br />
more than the training and the fancy<br />
kicks. Now I see it as a way to help other<br />
people,” he explains. “We’re keeping<br />
children off the street. We’re giving them<br />
a family away from family. My most<br />
important role is to be there for them.”<br />
Lindsay’s dedication as a coach in the SCP earned him a<br />
nomination to the Michael Johnson Young Leaders Course, a<br />
coaching development programme for young coaches around<br />
the world. The programme is now providing funds and coaching<br />
support for Lindsay to develop Math Ninjas, an innovative<br />
approach to integrating math instruction into his taekwondo<br />
lessons, which Lindsay designed when he recognised many of<br />
his young athletes needed help with math.<br />
“I love math and I love taekwondo. I’m fusing the things I<br />
love to solve a big problem in Jamaica. Getting this right is as<br />
important to me now as the Olympics.”<br />
Balancing his commitment to the project with his Olympic<br />
dreams is a challenge, but one that Lindsay is fully ready to take<br />
on. “One thing I’ve learned from ISKA is you always have to find<br />
a way to keep advancing,” he says. The person backing up is the<br />
person losing.<br />
“You never, ever stop fighting.” n<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 35
Bookshelf<br />
The Light in Paint: 50 Years of Watercolours, by Jackie Hinkson<br />
(202 pp, ISBN 9789768244260)<br />
“To get the images I wanted<br />
for this book,” writes Jackie<br />
Hinkson in his acknowledgements,<br />
“I had to borrow,<br />
photograph, and return<br />
scores of paintings.” No<br />
more immediate testament<br />
to Hinkson’s enduring<br />
reputation as a visual artist<br />
need be found. If artists<br />
truly begin to perish when<br />
their paintings fade into<br />
obsolescence, The Light in<br />
Paint proves that Hinkson<br />
is here to stay. These works<br />
adorn staterooms and living<br />
rooms, ampitheatre foyers and art galleries, kitchens and<br />
embassies: they are lived with, observed, pored over. They<br />
are, even in the generous cross-section afforded us in this<br />
book, but a sample of Hinkson’s fifty years of watercolours.<br />
Unsentimental, devoid of florid self-praise, Hinkson<br />
is perhaps well known in T&T circles for getting on with<br />
the business of painting. It is that business on which<br />
this publication trains its<br />
eye: apart from a revelatory<br />
essay by the artist,<br />
and a sensitively wrought<br />
contribution from art historian<br />
and curator Timothy<br />
Wilcox, the book suffuses us<br />
in images.<br />
Ordered both by a basic<br />
chronology of the artist’s<br />
life and by movements in<br />
his career, the pieces in<br />
The Light in Paint command<br />
their own subtle and<br />
magnanimous vocabulary.<br />
That is, they contain in their<br />
depictions of seascapes, Carnivals, still lifes, architecture,<br />
human subjects, and street scenes all they need to make<br />
their multiple meanings seen. No further essays, reviews,<br />
or verbal dissections are required. In washes of colour on<br />
canvas, Hinkson’s The Light in Paint speaks the <strong>Caribbean</strong><br />
world to us all: vibrant, versatile, forever moving between<br />
darkness and its radiant opposite.<br />
Grounds for Tenure, by Barbara Lalla<br />
(University of the West Indies Press, 361 pp,<br />
ISBN 9789766406219)<br />
When a mysterious offer of a<br />
post at an offshore Jamaican<br />
campus crops up, Candace<br />
Clarke seizes it. Clinging to<br />
part-time employment at UWI,<br />
St Augustine, has long lost<br />
even a faint shimmer of appeal.<br />
To the non-academic mind, the<br />
halls of campuses and the<br />
trimmed hedges of university<br />
quadrangles seem like paltry<br />
settings for real drama: yet<br />
Grounds for Tenure teems with<br />
intrigue, fascination, and more than a few outlandish<br />
professors. Clarke is the narrative lynchpin in this subtle,<br />
anecdotally seductive novel from Lalla. We do more than<br />
feel for Candace: we are invited to think alongside her.<br />
“What really occupied her thoughts was how it was possible<br />
to word the wind howling Heathcliff’s anguish, and<br />
whether the letters Man-man inscribed on Miguel Street<br />
were a sign of his madness or some part of the cause.”<br />
Into Candace’s mind of novels, nuisances, and novelties<br />
we go, entering a world of vast imaginations and venial<br />
sins, spun in Lalla’s gently magnetic prose.<br />
The Tryst, by Monique Roffey<br />
(Dodo Ink, 198 pp, ISBN 9780993575860)<br />
Chaste and virginal? Beware:<br />
The Tryst might send you<br />
spiralling straight out of your<br />
demure cocoon, with riveting<br />
results. In this new erotic<br />
novel from the winner of<br />
the 2013 OCM Bocas Prize<br />
for <strong>Caribbean</strong> Literature,<br />
the stakes for a passion-dry<br />
marriage’s survival are high.<br />
Britons Bill and Jane pick<br />
up Lilah, a woman cloaked<br />
in intrigue, whose origins<br />
are far more ancient than the couple know. Lilah, a<br />
character study nonpareil in archetypal, predatory<br />
female divinity, captivates in every scene. Roffey draws<br />
her with bold, unapologetic strokes, revelling in Lilah’s<br />
capacity to raze tepid domesticities. Ripe segments of<br />
this novel read as poetic riffs: “In the mirror I sparkled<br />
and radiated evil. I was lit up by all the loving horrors of<br />
my deeds.” The Tryst encircles you at the wrist, leading<br />
you down the garden path of darkly-tinctured pleasure:<br />
this is ferocious fiction, in any genre.<br />
36 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Collected Poems, 1975–2015, by John Robert Lee<br />
(Peepal Tree Press, 212 pp, ISBN 9781845233518)<br />
In “Line”, written for Derek<br />
Walcott, the St Lucian poet John<br />
Robert Lee asks, “When have I<br />
not measured this land by your<br />
lines? When have I not tracked<br />
blue-smoke pits to their riverstone<br />
roots by your metaphor?”<br />
Lee’s Collected Poems assembles<br />
forty years of his own poems<br />
that lead without calamitous<br />
disharmony, with the steadying,<br />
solid weight of attention, to<br />
the land of St Lucia. Everywhere, light pierces darkness,<br />
waters trouble ships and souls, “mythology parses into<br />
facts,” and the verses do their own careful, robustly<br />
considered mapmaking. What Lee invokes for us is both<br />
a devotion to the St Lucian landscape and an ardent<br />
contemplation of what that landscape might resemble,<br />
if we watered it with deeper, stronger loves. Of the<br />
love that exists, Lee also writes words that compel us to<br />
follow: “all that is left us now is careful patience, that<br />
stubborn heart of love, hope, faith, of the ordering line,<br />
of the turning word.”<br />
The Greatest Films: A Poem, by Faizal Deen<br />
(Mawenzi House, 80 pp, ISBN 9781927494837)<br />
A powerful anti-hymnal to cultural<br />
assimilation, The Greatest<br />
Films explores the brown queer<br />
body’s survival in a post-9/11<br />
world. Faizal Deen <strong>—</strong> author<br />
of the first Guyanese LGBTQI<br />
poetry collection, Land Without<br />
Chocolate <strong>—</strong> leaps and vaults in<br />
experimental flourishes while<br />
never succumbing to careless<br />
indulgence. Rather, the work in<br />
The Greatest Films ricochets to<br />
the percussive power of memory: by summoning movies<br />
and songs, Deen gifts us a personal world of rich meaning.<br />
Gliding suggestively and smoothly between real vistas<br />
and reconstituted dreamscapes, these verses are at their<br />
best when they startle, unsettle, and prompt reflection in<br />
the reader. In these worlds of motion and fusion, Edgar<br />
Mittelholzer brushes up against Christopher Isherwood;<br />
“raleigh’s guiana dabbles in alchemy”; roots of boyhood<br />
origin relocate betwixt Guyana, Canada, and India. The<br />
effects are revivifying: here is a long poem unafraid to<br />
bare its bold, revisionist face.<br />
Reviews by Shivanee Ramlochan, Bookshelf editor<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 37
playlist<br />
R.A.W. Angela Hunte (The Hunted Group/<br />
Therapist Music)<br />
Brooklyn-born Angela Hunte<br />
has receded from her Trinidadian<br />
roots, and her recent<br />
inventions and collaborations<br />
with soca, to rediscover<br />
her other <strong>Caribbean</strong> voice as<br />
a reggae songstress. On her<br />
debut solo album R.A.W. <strong>—</strong><br />
an acronym for “reasoning<br />
and words” <strong>—</strong> she uses the<br />
sound of roots reggae, dub music, and rockers to convey<br />
songs of love beyond the traditional pop music schmaltz<br />
that dominates the global charts. As a Grammy-winning<br />
songwriter, Hunte knows how to create a memorable<br />
hook and an earworm that lives beyond a temporary<br />
listen. With lyrics and production values that resonate<br />
with a digital native generation, this album sparkles as<br />
a daring experiment to move <strong>Caribbean</strong> music forwards.<br />
Collaborations with reggae star Tarrus Riley on “King<br />
& Queen” and reggae DJ and producer Taranchyla on<br />
“Rub Dub” give this album both an island vibe and an<br />
urban feel that suggest that it has cross-genre appeal<br />
beyond borders.<br />
Glass World Rudy Smith Quartet (Stunt Records)<br />
Trailblazing steelpan jazz<br />
virtuoso Rudy Smith has<br />
been fusing the sound of<br />
the pan with bebop and<br />
progressive jazz for nearly<br />
fifty years, premiering the<br />
sound of native invention<br />
and “creole imagination” in<br />
the wider world. Europe has<br />
been his stomping ground<br />
for all those years, and with his eleventh full-length<br />
album Smith serves as a bona fide symbol of music<br />
excellence. Glass World finds Smith back fronting his<br />
Danish jazz band, re-inventing the idea of the steelpan<br />
as a solo instrument for jazz without the feeling of it<br />
being too avant garde. “Plangent” was the word used by<br />
a reviewer to describe the sound of the double second<br />
steelpans used by Smith, but a more apt descriptive<br />
would be “euphonious.” That tone juxtaposes beautifully<br />
within the songs, mainly written by his long-time<br />
collaborator and pianist Ole Matthiessen, to serve up a<br />
new standard in a diminishing marketplace for unique<br />
jazz. Traditional jazz is best served with originality, and<br />
this album delivers.<br />
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38 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Single Spotlight<br />
Plaisance Eddy Grant (Ice Records)<br />
Guyanese singer and songwriter<br />
Eddy Grant returns<br />
to his native “land of many<br />
waters” <strong>—</strong> and specifically his<br />
birthplace village of Plaisance<br />
<strong>—</strong> to contemplate his life<br />
and how that place impacted<br />
his musical and personal<br />
career. The village’s history<br />
highlights the story of its<br />
purchase by sixty-five newly freed Africans in the immediate<br />
post-emancipation period <strong>—</strong> one of the first of several<br />
predominantly African villages in Guyana purchased by<br />
the formerly enslaved with their savings. In this context<br />
of real independence, Plaisance represents a return to<br />
the original unfettered aesthetic of the young Eddy Grant<br />
who successfully blended rock, pop, R&B, and <strong>Caribbean</strong><br />
music tropes to carve a pioneering international career.<br />
Using his trademarked Ringbang <strong>—</strong> more an all-inclusive<br />
philosophy than a genre <strong>—</strong> to elucidate this album, the<br />
songs have a directness unparalleled in <strong>Caribbean</strong> songcraft.<br />
The standout track “Now We’re All Together” lets<br />
Grant’s voice dramatically emote the story of overcoming<br />
and homecoming.<br />
Bodyline Olatunji and System32 (self-released)<br />
With a cheeky stride piano<br />
introduction, Olatunji<br />
Yearwood blows the lid off of<br />
what can be expected in soca<br />
this year, as the genre and the<br />
players make a determined<br />
turn in the direction of global<br />
appeal. “Shake your bodyline,<br />
shake your bodyline,”<br />
the lyrical hook, has Olatunji<br />
singing and scatting over it like a Cab Calloway clone or,<br />
more contemporarily, Kid Creole, to drive party folk and<br />
crowds to the dance floor. Producer System32 has made<br />
magic with the vocals that spit rapid-fire wordplay in<br />
pleasing tones. Add the freewheeling jazz aesthetic of a<br />
Cotton Club big band, and we’re in a new chapter in the<br />
continuing fusion exercise that has been soca in search of<br />
the ultimate crossover. A driving rhythm and synth horn<br />
line says soca, but when that clarinet solo comes in near<br />
the end, we know we are onto something big that begins<br />
and ends with a bang. Tadow!<br />
Reviews by Nigel A. Campbell<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 39
SCREENSHOTS<br />
Woodpeckers<br />
Directed by José María Cabral, 2017, 106 minutes<br />
Love literally knows no bounds in Woodpeckers, an inventive,<br />
at times enthralling prison drama from the Dominican<br />
Republic’s José María Cabral. A precocious filmmaker<br />
(he made his first feature at<br />
twenty), Cabral <strong>—</strong> still shy of<br />
thirty <strong>—</strong> achieved notice in<br />
2012 with Check Mate, a slick,<br />
formulaic thriller. Woodpeckers<br />
<strong>—</strong> which has been submitted to<br />
the upcoming Academy Awards<br />
for best foreign-language film<br />
<strong>—</strong> sees him grappling with<br />
more interesting material, and<br />
for the most part wringing<br />
from it successful results.<br />
Inspired by true events, Woodpeckers was shot on location<br />
in adjacent men’s and women’s prisons, a catastrophe<br />
waiting to happen if ever there was one. Julian (Jean<br />
Jean, wiry and compellingly intense) is sent to the men’s<br />
penitentiary after being convicted of a robbery charge.<br />
Here he encounters an astonishing phenomenon: men<br />
communicating with women in the yard across the way<br />
through a form of sign language known as pecker talk,<br />
the men’s hands when grasping the prison bars mimicking<br />
woodpeckers grasping a tree branch.<br />
Deputised by Manaury (Ramón Candelario), a<br />
convicted murderer temporarily in solitary confinement,<br />
Jean Jean quickly learns this unique language of love in<br />
order to trade messages with Manaury’s girlfriend Yanelly<br />
(a fiery Judith Rodríguez, with<br />
a hairstyle to match). It isn’t<br />
long before Jean Jean and<br />
Yanelly are attracted to one<br />
another, and the film must<br />
contrive ways of bringing the<br />
couple into physical contact<br />
with each other. It also isn’t<br />
long before Manaury begins<br />
to suspect something’s amiss,<br />
and the lovers’ idyll is in<br />
jeopardy.<br />
Woodpeckers has a novel core idea, the director dramatising<br />
it with the panache it deserves. The attendant<br />
plotting might still be rather formulaic, but Cabral is able<br />
to create a tragic denouement of almost Shakespearean<br />
proportions. And the crafty final shot will make you want<br />
to watch the film again.<br />
For more information, visit facebook.com/<br />
carpinterosmovie<br />
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami<br />
Directed by Sophie Fiennes, 2017, 115 minutes<br />
Predictable and conventional<br />
are not words<br />
associated with Grace<br />
Jones. Shot over nearly<br />
a decade by British<br />
documentarian Sophie<br />
Fiennes, Bloodlight and<br />
Bami is an engrossing<br />
portrait of the provocative Jamaican disco icon that<br />
is appropriately neither of those things. Not for the<br />
uninitiated, the film forgoes the usual trappings of<br />
the biographical profile (there isn’t a single archival<br />
photograph or bit of file footage), instead presenting<br />
an intimate, vérité-style look at the current life of the<br />
virtually ageless Jones, in locations ranging from Paris to<br />
Jamaica to New York.<br />
The unvarnished observational sequences are punctuated<br />
by polished concert performances, Jones giving<br />
redoubtable renditions of dance-floor anthems like<br />
“Slave to the Rhythm” and “Pull Up to the Bumper”. Yet<br />
it’s in the often-unguarded moments when Jones is out<br />
of the spotlight that the film attains its power, becoming<br />
a witness to her tenacity, vulnerability, and simple,<br />
affecting humanness.<br />
For more information, visit westendfilms.com<br />
The West Indies Gang<br />
Directed by Jean-Claude Barny, 2016, 90 minutes<br />
Based on actual events,<br />
The West Indies Gang<br />
recounts the deeds of<br />
a group of men from<br />
the French Antilles <strong>—</strong><br />
victims of poverty and<br />
racism <strong>—</strong> who robbed a<br />
string of post offices in<br />
Paris in the 1970s. The protagonist, Jimmy (a sympathetic<br />
Djedje Apali), is a single father to a young daughter.<br />
When Jimmy returns to mainland France after obtaining<br />
weapons from a separatist militia in Martinique, the<br />
gang prepares for its final and most ambitious heist, a<br />
bank job.<br />
Sadly, what could have been a bracingly political crime<br />
thriller flounders amid unreconstructed Blaxploitation<br />
tropes (a scene where a woman is savagely beaten is<br />
particularly disturbing) and a literal lack of firepower.<br />
The film also lacks the courage of its anti-colonial convictions,<br />
when at the end an incarcerated Jimmy puzzlingly<br />
declares that “Our struggle isn’t racial, it’s societal.”<br />
For more information, visit facebook.com/<br />
Legangdesantillais<br />
Reviews by Jonathan Ali<br />
40 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Immerse<br />
Ron Burton / hulton archive / getty images<br />
42 Closeup<br />
Walk tall<br />
57 Backstory<br />
How to win the road<br />
72<br />
Own Words<br />
“I’m unfinished’<br />
With ten wins, the late calypsonian Lord KItchener is T&T’s all-time Road March champion
CLOSEUP<br />
With Port of Spain’s Central<br />
Bank towers in the background,<br />
a member of the Keylemanjahro<br />
School of Arts and Culture shows<br />
off his stiltwalking skills<br />
42 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Walk tall<br />
Towering above the crowds,<br />
striding majestically or dancing<br />
in acrobatic defiance of gravity,<br />
moko jumbies are one of the<br />
most impressive sights in T&T’s<br />
Carnival. A performance art<br />
derived from West Africa, moko<br />
jumbies once seemed to be a<br />
dying tradition <strong>—</strong> but, as<br />
Ray Funk explains, the efforts<br />
of an enthusiastic few have<br />
led in recent years to a bona<br />
fide moko jumbie revival, with<br />
hundreds of young people<br />
learning the art of “getting<br />
high” on stilts<br />
Photography by Maria Nunes<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 43
“<br />
Are you coming up?” they ask you at classes and workshops all over<br />
Trinidad. That’s the question <strong>—</strong> are you joining them up on sticks<br />
today, or just watching?<br />
There is a moko jumbie revolution building momentum in T&T,<br />
with growing numbers of young people <strong>—</strong> and some parents <strong>—</strong> learning<br />
the art of stiltwalking behind this traditional Carnival masquerade.<br />
Even as other forms of traditional mas seem in decline, young people are taking to<br />
stilts and striving to touch the sky.<br />
Almost any public event in Trinidad <strong>—</strong> from government ceremonies to corporate promotions<br />
to tourist shows <strong>—</strong> now has at least a couple of moko jumbies. During Carnival,<br />
they join every competition and every parade. In the past decade, creativity in costuming<br />
and growing acrobatic skill have led to more and more enthusiasm from the public.<br />
A moko jumbie needs to perfect a nimble athleticism. Getting and remaining aloft<br />
require constantly shifting weight and attention. A graceful dismount is also a necessary<br />
skill. No wonder the young and limber are drawn to this revelry.<br />
Like the eager participants in #1000mokos, a group formed by artist Joshua Lue<br />
Chee Kong and designer Kriston Chen. Since early 2017, they have met every Sunday<br />
at the Alice Yard arts space in Woodbrook, west Port of Spain. Free classes strive to get<br />
students up and comfortable on sticks, progressing to increasing heights as they leave<br />
the yard and walk through the streets to practice in local parks.<br />
Artist and architect Michael Lee Poy, who works closely with #1000mokos, has<br />
been smitten with the moko jumbie bug for many years, having previously worked<br />
with them in Peter Minshall’s mas band and at the Cleveland Art Museum. Lee<br />
Poy builds all the #1000mokos stilts himself, experimenting with various woods<br />
and different designs and connectors. For him, moko jumbies are not just about<br />
individual athleticism and performing tricks, but about creating new possibilities in<br />
mas narratives.<br />
Members of the #1000mokos<br />
group performing in downtown<br />
Port of Spain<br />
A moko jumbie needs<br />
to perfect a nimble<br />
athleticism. Getting<br />
and remaining aloft<br />
require constantly<br />
shifting weight and<br />
attention<br />
44 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
But these are the newcomers. Other pioneers have been<br />
training moko jumbies for decades, in some of Trinidad’s<br />
poorer communities. In the north, it is Glen de Souza,<br />
better known as Dragon, who in 1986 founded a cultural yard in<br />
Cocorite, west of Port of Spain, to offer local kids a place to come<br />
after school, free from crime and drugs. Initially, Dragon’s focus<br />
was on dancing and drumming, but he soon noticed it was stilts<br />
that got the kids excited. As one parent commented, “The kids<br />
never want to come back to the ground.”<br />
Over the years, Dragon’s Keylemanjahro School of Arts and<br />
Culture has trained thousands, and his yard has become the safe<br />
haven for a generation of young people. Singlehandedly, he is<br />
the person who really paved the way for many others to take the<br />
moko jumbie in different directions.<br />
German photographer Stephan Falke became fascinated with<br />
Dragon’s work in the mid-1990s, and for seven years he travelled<br />
to Trinidad from New York City to document it. The resulting<br />
oversized book, Moko Jumbies: The Dancing Spirits of Trinidad<br />
(2004), is full of stunning colour photos of the young people who<br />
answered Dragon’s call.<br />
Overlapping with Falke’s time, Mexican-American artist<br />
Laura Anderson Barbata spent five years coming to Dragon’s<br />
yard to make costumes and help with the band in various ways.<br />
Singlehandedly, Glen “Dragon”<br />
de Souza is the person who really<br />
paved the way for many others to<br />
take the moko jumbie in different<br />
directions<br />
Prior to her arrival, the band wasn’t able to afford any level of<br />
costuming, and often relied on body paint, especially bright<br />
reds and blues, to stand out at Carnival. Anderson Barbata’s<br />
work with the Keylemanjahro band created stunning narratives<br />
and new possibilities, such as horse jumbies, scarlet ibis, and<br />
portrayals inspired by the Dogon of Mali.<br />
A 2007 documentary by German director Harald Rumpf, Up<br />
and Dancing: The Magical Stilts of Trinidad, features the drama<br />
of young members of Dragon’s group as they struggle against<br />
family challenges to perform for Carnival. Keylemanjahro moko<br />
jumbies have even made an appearance on Sesame Street. All this<br />
outside support added to the exposure and interest in Dragon’s<br />
work and in moko jumbies themselves. Over the years, Dragon<br />
has faced various challenges, but he perseveres.<br />
In south Trinidad, meanwhile, the moko jumbie catalyst is<br />
Junior Bisnath of San Fernando. After receiving some initial<br />
training from Dragon, Bisnath has gone on to train hundreds<br />
himself with his Kaisokah moko jumbie group, running since<br />
1995. Kaisokah has an active small group hired for numerous<br />
corporate or government events. They’ve travelled to St Lucia,<br />
Zimbabwe, the UK, and Panama to perform and train. Bisnath<br />
even took a contingent of moko jumbies to the 2006 FIFA World<br />
Cup competition in Germany, with the Trinidad and Tobago<br />
national team.<br />
Last year, Bisnath set his eyes on a new milestone. The<br />
Guinness Book of World Records includes several stiltwalkers’<br />
exploits. In June 2009, a total of 1,908 participants got on stilts<br />
across the globe, from the US and Canada to Brazil, Russia, and<br />
Macau, to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Cirque<br />
du Soleil. And in 2011, 957 primary students in the Netherlands<br />
46 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
smashed the record for most stiltwalkers to walk one hundred<br />
metres together.<br />
So the Kaisoca crew issued a call throughout Trinidad and<br />
Tobago to beat the record. On Sunday 10 September, 2017, they<br />
assembled over five hundred moko jumbies, including a small<br />
contingent from Grenada, at Skinner Park in San Fernando.<br />
Bisnath hopes to make this gathering an annual event, and<br />
is confident he will break the record soon, given the growing<br />
numbers of children and adults taking classes. He does hold the<br />
record, he believes, for the youngest person on stilts: his son at<br />
eleven months.<br />
Moko jumbies from the Touch D Sky<br />
group join the Canboulay Riots<br />
re-enactment at Piccadilly Greens on<br />
the Friday before Carnival<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 47
Jhawan Thomas portrays Peter Minshall’s<br />
controversial moko jumbie king, The<br />
Dying Swan<br />
In 2012, Kaisokah members Adrian Young<br />
and Jonadiah Gonzales started their own<br />
moko jumbie group, Touch D Sky, based<br />
in their home village of Tarodale. They were<br />
joined by British artist Alan Vaughan, who<br />
had been coming to Trinidad for many years,<br />
and had designed Young’s king costume, The<br />
Crow, for Kaisokah earlier that year, placing<br />
fourth in the national competition. Together,<br />
they wanted to deepen and extend the<br />
traditional masquerade art form. Vaughan’s<br />
designs for the band find their inspiration in<br />
the richness of Afro-Atlantic culture, and have<br />
proven consistently stunning. He believes the<br />
costumes and characters portrayed by the<br />
moko jumbies should reflect each individual’s<br />
athletic agility, and also express an aspect of<br />
their personal qualities.<br />
In 2015, Touch D Sky’s Stephanie Kanhai<br />
won the national Carnival Queen title, the<br />
first moko jumbie ever to do so. Since then,<br />
the band has become a force at Carnival,<br />
relocating in the weeks before the festival to<br />
temporary quarters near the Savannah stage<br />
at Granderson Lab, an arts incubation space<br />
run by the founders of Alice Yard. Individual<br />
Touch D Sky members have increasing<br />
opportunities to perform around T&T and<br />
even internationally. Young also leads and<br />
trains a new youth team, Future Jumbies,<br />
and he, Vaughan, and other members of<br />
the band have gone to teach in St Martin,<br />
Montserrat, and Dominica, to revive and<br />
strengthen the art in those islands.<br />
But perhaps the best known individual<br />
moko jumbie performer in T&T is Jhawhan<br />
Thomas. He was one of those who grew<br />
up spending every day at Dragon’s Keylemanjahro<br />
yard, and eventually helped train<br />
younger kids. He also joined several dance<br />
companies and worked in Peter Minshall’s<br />
mas camp, and later on in designer Brian<br />
Mac Farlane’s studio. In 2007, in what many<br />
consider Mac Farlane’s finest Carnival band,<br />
India, Jhawan portrayed a stunning moko<br />
jumbie elephant. The following year he<br />
48 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
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won the King of Carnival title for Mac Farlane’s band Earth,<br />
with an abstract costume called Pandemic Rage, engineered by<br />
Michael Lee Poy.<br />
Then in 2016, just a few weeks before Carnival, Minshall <strong>—</strong><br />
Trinidad’s most celebrated mas man <strong>—</strong> called on Thomas to<br />
dance a solo moko jumbie king controversially titled The Dying<br />
Swan: Ras Nijinsky in Drag as Pavlova. Minshall had featured<br />
various moko jumbies in past bands, and indeed his 1988 band<br />
was called Jumbie, with both king and queen on stilts. But this<br />
new Carnival king created a storm in the press and social media:<br />
Thomas performed costumed as a ballet dancer, all in white, with<br />
the stilts themselves carved to look like ballet shoes en pointe.<br />
The Dying Swan is considered a turning point in Russian<br />
ballet. It is a short piece about the end of life, choreographed in<br />
1905 for ballerina Anna Pavlova, to a cello solo from composer<br />
Camille Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals. It became her<br />
signature piece, which she performed over four thousand times.<br />
Pavlova’s equally celebrated contemporary, Vaslav Nijinsky, was<br />
never known to have done The Dying Swan.<br />
On stage, Thomas performed ballet moves on stilts, imagining<br />
one of the great male Russian ballet dancers in the most<br />
famous role of one of his female contemporaries, with the<br />
addition of Rastafarian dreads, and the transfer of the music to<br />
steelpan. It was unlike anything ever seen at Trinidad Carnival.<br />
Filmmaker Christopher Laird’s short film of it is a remarkable<br />
record of a tradition turned on its head.<br />
Around the world, stiltwalking has been going on for<br />
thousands of years, and its origins are shrouded in the<br />
mists of history. Stiltwalkers are depicted on ancient<br />
Greek and Pre-Colombian pottery, and reports from Asia and the<br />
Central American Popol Vuh narrative go far back as well. In some<br />
places, stilts were simply an efficient mode of transport, especially<br />
in hilly or swampy terrain. In nineteenth-century France, sheep<br />
herders used them to keep track of their flocks. From these<br />
practical uses, stiltwalking became a standard feature in circuses<br />
and other public entertainments around the globe.<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> moko jumbies are traced to West African roots that<br />
stretch back centuries, brought over the Atlantic in slave ships.<br />
(Or, as some say, the moko jumbies walked across the Atlantic<br />
following the ships.) The masquerade’s<br />
very name has West African origins.<br />
Scholar Robert Nichols has recorded the<br />
history of moko jumbies across Africa,<br />
largely in sacred functions, often secret<br />
societies. They were completely covered<br />
in masks, hats, and gloves, so their identities<br />
remained hidden.<br />
Stiltwalking has<br />
been going on for<br />
thousands of years,<br />
and its origins are<br />
shrouded in the mists<br />
of history<br />
Touch D Sky moko jumbies heading<br />
through Belmont to the Queen’s Park<br />
Savannah<br />
50 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
A moko jumbie from the Kaisokah group<br />
shows off on Port of Spain’s Ariapita<br />
Avenue<br />
There are historical reports of moko jumbies<br />
throughout the <strong>Caribbean</strong>, and they survive in<br />
limited numbers in many countries. Nichols<br />
reports the earliest known <strong>Caribbean</strong> reference<br />
at a 1791 Christmas event with “a masked moko<br />
jumbie roaming the streets accompanied by<br />
musicians.” In Trinidad, John Cowley notes<br />
a newspaper report from the 1890s of stilt<br />
dancers stalking “through the streets to the<br />
strains of drum and fife.” In 1956, Dan Crowley<br />
described Trinidad moko jumbies as having<br />
brightly painted skirts and satin or velvet jackets,<br />
and peaked hats with feathers <strong>—</strong> but they<br />
were “virtually extinct.” And Trinidad’s great<br />
dancer and choreographer Geoffrey Holder,<br />
who used moko jumbies in his 1978 Broadway<br />
musical Timbuktu, recalled: “I will never forget,<br />
as a child, being frightened and awed by these<br />
gigantic, masked spectres wandering the<br />
streets after the parade.”<br />
In many parts of the <strong>Caribbean</strong>, moko<br />
jumbies survive primarily as part of folklore<br />
Moko jumbies to<br />
the world<br />
Like many other element of culture, moko jumbies have followed<br />
the T&T diaspora around the world. In New York City, a<br />
few individuals and small groups have performed at Labour Day<br />
Carnival and related events for decades. In recent years, the primary<br />
band has been the Brooklyn Jumbies formed in the 1990s<br />
by Ali Sylvester, inspired by Dragon in Trinidad, and working<br />
with Najja Codrington from Barbados, who had gone to Senegal<br />
for moko jumbie training. The Brooklyn Jumbies worked hard to<br />
develop a batch of dancers from all over the <strong>Caribbean</strong> diaspora.<br />
Now that Sylvester has moved to Orlando, Florida, he’s starting<br />
a new troupe there. They explore both African and <strong>Caribbean</strong><br />
traditions, and have performed and trained in Singapore, Japan,<br />
China, the UK, and Costa Rica. Not long ago, a contingent went<br />
with the Something Positive dance troupe to Morocco.<br />
Laura Anderson Barbata, after her experience in Trinidad,<br />
sought out the Brooklyn Jumbies, and has been working closely<br />
with them in a series of projects that have taken them beyond the<br />
NYC West Indian community. In 2007, Anderson Barbata launched<br />
the exhibition Jumbie Camp at an art gallery in<br />
Chelsea in Manhattan. Moko jumbie costumes<br />
were transformed into sculptures for the show,<br />
and the Brooklyn Jumbies paraded on the nearby streets.<br />
The following year, Anderson Barbata and Najja Codrington<br />
of the Brooklyn Jumbies went to Oaxaca, Mexico, where they<br />
connected with a traditional stiltwalking group there, Los Zancudos<br />
de Zaachila. In 2011, when the Occupy Wall Street protests<br />
were at their height, Anderson Barbata staged her Intervention:<br />
Wall Street, for which she created giant oversize business suits<br />
for the Brooklyn Jumbies. Together they rambled through New<br />
York’s Financial District handing out gold-foil-covered chocolate<br />
coins, drawing worldwide press attention.<br />
Another recent project in September 2016, Anderson<br />
Barbata’s Intervention Indigo was a Carnival-style performance<br />
that combined dance, music, costuming, procession, and protest.<br />
Moko jumbies hit the streets of the Bushwick neighbourhood<br />
of Brooklyn dressed in traditional indigo-dyed fabric, echoing<br />
African traditions from the Dogon culture. Anderson Barbata has<br />
also worked closely with choreographer Chris Walker at the University<br />
of Wisconsin, who had a number of solo pieces on stilts at<br />
his October 2017 show Unmasked.<br />
San Fernando’s Kaisokah also has a US branch, founded by<br />
Trinidadian Jason Edwards, who trained under Junior Bisnath,<br />
Continued on page 54<br />
52 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
presentations and tourist shows. Beyond Trinidad,<br />
they currently have a strong presence in the<br />
Virgin Islands, with Wilfred John of St Croix as<br />
a missionary in their cause for forty years. John<br />
runs the Guardians of Culture moko jumbies, who<br />
appear weekly at local hotels, and made a 2009<br />
documentary called Mokolution tracing the roots<br />
of the tradition in the Virgin Islands. John notes<br />
a long tradition of male jumbies dressing in skirts<br />
with petticoats or bloomers, which changed in the<br />
1960s when teacher Ali Paul moved to welcome<br />
women as jumbies, leading to costumes in other<br />
styles. John continues to work with schools to get<br />
more young people to take up the art, exploring<br />
ever more adventurous choreography.<br />
Today’s moko jumbie practitioners, in T&T and<br />
elsewhere, are working not just at preserving cultural<br />
heritage, but broadening and deepening what<br />
is possible, from choreography to design. They are<br />
offering young people, from both under-served<br />
communities and more middle-class backgrounds,<br />
opportunities to develop athletic ability and<br />
artistic skills, while building confidence and selfesteem.<br />
Junior Bisnath’s motto <strong>—</strong> painted on the<br />
side of his home <strong>—</strong> summarises the ethos: “Say yes<br />
to life, get high on stilts!” n<br />
Trinidad, and seeing moko jumbies as part of a<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> aesthetic that could be universal, Pinheiro<br />
has been involved in two decades of Carnival<br />
and other performances, major theatre events, and<br />
lots of workshops.<br />
A Keylemanjahro moko jumbie On the other side of the Atlantic, there is little<br />
ties on his stilts history of moko jumbies at London’s Notting Hill or<br />
other West Indian Carnival celebrations in Britain,<br />
but that is gradually changing. Touch D Sky’s popularity<br />
in T&T has led to an offshoot based in Newcastle-upon-<br />
and two friends. Since 2010, they have run after-school programmes<br />
in Brooklyn and Newark, New Jersey. They have participated<br />
in Kiddies Carnival in Brooklyn (last year, with all the dadian team. They run workshops and now perform with the<br />
Tyne run by Alan Vaughan, together with some of the Trini-<br />
girls costumed as butterflies and all the boys as dragonflies) and Elimu Mas Academy for Notting Hill. This year, Vaughan and<br />
the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. They’ve performed at Adrian Young developed performances working with contemporary<br />
dancers, an art performance called The Isle Is Full of Noises<br />
events of all kinds <strong>—</strong> birthday parties, weddings, political rallies,<br />
and even the funeral of a prince from Nigeria.<br />
(based on Shakespeare’s play The Tempest), and, in collaboration<br />
with choreographer Martin Hylton, the performance work<br />
The Universoul Circus, which started in 1994 and travels the<br />
United States, reflects black culture through circus arts. For many My Knowledge Increase, My Memories Reflect, a celebration of<br />
years, it has featured both limbo dancers and moko jumbies Martin Luther King, Jr, and the Civil Rights Movement.<br />
from Trinidad, offering perhaps the only full-time professional In 2016, Zak Ové, a British artist of Trinidadian heritage, was<br />
work available for practitioners. They hold auditions in Trinidad commissioned by the British Museum to build two moko jumbie<br />
to get the most accomplished from various groups.<br />
sculptures, seven metres tall, mounted in the museum’s entrance<br />
Meanwhile, in Toronto, Canada, moko jumbies have featured hall in conjunction with an African art exhibit. It was timed with<br />
in the work of the Swizzlestick Theatre, formed back in 1997, Notting Hill Carnival, and members of Touch D Sky performed<br />
growing out of the theatre and performance work of<br />
at the opening. The sculptures were ultimately chosen for the<br />
Christopher Pinheiro. Having worked in Minshall’s mas camp in museum’s permanent collection.<br />
54 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
ADVERTISEMENT
snapshot<br />
There’s no T&T Carnival without music<br />
<strong>—</strong> or without competition. From calypso<br />
monarch to extempo champ, the Carnival<br />
season is full of opportunities for calypso<br />
and soca artistes to match their composition<br />
and performance skills, and rivalries can<br />
persist for lifetimes. But there’s one musical title<br />
that reflects the will of ordinary masqueraders,<br />
and for some performers it’s the ultimate accolade.<br />
Mark Lyndersay looks back at the eight-decade history of<br />
the Road March competition <strong>—</strong> and we share our picks for<br />
the top ten Road March songs of all time<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 57
On Ash Wednesday 2017, MX<br />
Prime <strong>—</strong> the performer formerly<br />
known as Maximus Dan and<br />
christened Edghill Thomas <strong>—</strong><br />
along with his production and<br />
performance team, Ultimate<br />
Rejects, were announced as the winners of Trinidad<br />
and Tobago’s Carnival Road March competition.<br />
Their song, “Full Extreme”, was played 556<br />
times at competition venues around Port of Spain.<br />
The second-place winner, Machel Montano’s<br />
“Your Time Now”, trailed with seventy-two plays.<br />
The Road March competition isn’t like most<br />
popularity contests or talent competitions judged<br />
by the public. Nobody sits at home to make a call<br />
or send a text. To win the Road March, a composer<br />
has to write a song that makes people get up<br />
and dance <strong>—</strong> to be specific, all the people<br />
who celebrate T&T’s Carnival every<br />
year <strong>—</strong> and keep them on their feet for<br />
two days of prancing. To stand any<br />
chance of succeeding,<br />
the modern<br />
Road March must<br />
be the anthem of wining, that rhythmic gyration<br />
of the waist, often done in concert with a partner<br />
or two, that found wider international notice in a<br />
distinctly corrupted form as twerking.<br />
Each year’s Road March and its contenders are<br />
consigned to history along with the masqueraders’<br />
costumes, and it’s a rare song that earns a<br />
play on the road after its year of glory. The first<br />
Road March title was recorded in 1930, Inveigler<br />
(MacDonald Borel)’s “Captain Cipriani”, and a<br />
song has won the accolade every year since then,<br />
even between 1942 and 1945, when Carnival was<br />
officially suspended during the Second World War.<br />
There were, of course, enormously popular<br />
songs before then, songs so entrancing<br />
that they jumped from band to band in<br />
an environment that was quite different from the<br />
mechanised, industrially driven Carnival of today.<br />
Back then, a Carnival band took to the road with<br />
its own live music, the earliest form of which<br />
were long sticks of bamboo rhythmically beaten<br />
to accompany the chantwell <strong>—</strong> the singer leading<br />
the costumed group <strong>—</strong> who considered life, love,<br />
politics, and the bacchanal of the barrack yard in<br />
his composition.<br />
“The first song sung by almost every band on the<br />
road was probably ‘Sly Mongoose’,” says Professor<br />
Gordon Rohlehr, the eminent literary scholar<br />
with a lifelong personal and academic interest<br />
in the genesis of calypso. The song came to<br />
Trinidad and Tobago in 1919, and was<br />
sung in a tent by Houdini in 1921,<br />
becoming popular on the road<br />
in 1923. “It was likely to have<br />
been a Jamaican folk song, but<br />
melodies travelled throughout<br />
the islands and became<br />
songs with different lyrics and<br />
Michele Jorsling courtesy ultimate rejects<br />
The Road March<br />
competition isn’t<br />
like most popularity<br />
contests judged by the<br />
public. Nobody sits at<br />
home to make a call<br />
MX Prime (centre) and Ultimate<br />
Rejects, 2017 Road March champs<br />
58 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
David Rudder, whose<br />
“Bahia Girl” won the 1986<br />
Road March<br />
mark lyndersay/lyndersaydigital.com<br />
arrangements. ‘Captain Cipriani’ was most likely a<br />
melody we know as ‘Ambakaila’.”<br />
That music would evolve along with Carnival<br />
itself. Popular chantwells would host visitors to<br />
their yards as they rehearsed, and eventually a<br />
small fee was asked, beginning a tradition that<br />
would eventually become the calypso tent. In<br />
search of louder rhythms and smoother melodies,<br />
the bands would beat biscuit tins, paint<br />
cans, and eventually steel drums, which would<br />
be shaped and refined to create the modern<br />
steelpan instrument.<br />
In parallel, musicians would accompany the<br />
bands, first bringing small woodwind instruments,<br />
flutes, clarinets, guitars, and violins. These<br />
were eventually joined by full-throated brass,<br />
as saxophones and trumpets provided a path of<br />
influence for big-band jazz music to flow into the<br />
calypsonian’s repertoire.<br />
Railway Douglas (Walter Douglas), who won<br />
the Road March in 1934 with “After Johnny Drink<br />
Meh Rum”, was a key personality in the evolution<br />
of this stage of the calypso as the favoured voice<br />
of the people. “Inveigler was Railway Douglas’s<br />
assistant,” explains Rohlehr, “but Douglas thought<br />
that picong calypsoes were demeaning and a<br />
throwback to slavery days. He would sing topically<br />
about social issues and the scandals of the day.”<br />
Calypso would emerge as a narrative form of<br />
storytelling and commentary, the structure of the<br />
words in balance with the melody, even as live<br />
band music entered a long period of jousting with<br />
the steelband as the preferred soundtrack to drive<br />
bands along the parade route.<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 59
After Sparrow won in<br />
1956, the Road March<br />
competition belonged to<br />
him and his career-long<br />
rival Lord Kitchener for<br />
the next decade<br />
Kingsley LYNDERSAY/lyndersaydigital.com<br />
With eight Road March<br />
wins over three decades,<br />
the Mighty Sparrow is tied<br />
for third place in the overall<br />
Road March rankings<br />
“Rum and Coca-Cola”, Lord Invader (Rupert<br />
Grant)’s 1943 hit, would characterise the sentiments<br />
of the male calypso fraternity, who chafed<br />
at the presence of the American military on the<br />
island and the response of local women to the<br />
prized “Yankee dollar.” That response to the social<br />
circumstances of the day would find their apotheosis<br />
in the Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco)’s<br />
1956 Road March “Jean and Dinah”, a song he later<br />
admitted was created as an advertisement for a<br />
local store that he repurposed into groundbreaking<br />
social commentary, and the first Calypso King<br />
crown of his career.<br />
Sparrow’s emergence was preceded by one of<br />
the oddest Road Marches of the twentieth century,<br />
1955’s “The Happy Wanderer”, a German march<br />
sung by the Obernkirchen Children’s Choir <strong>—</strong><br />
better known by its catchy chorus, “Val-de-ri,<br />
Val-de-ra.” The song, says Rohlehr, “was larger in<br />
structure than a traditional calypso and may have<br />
influenced the form of ‘Jean and Dinah’, which also<br />
had a long chorus.” This was a very different era<br />
for the Road March, one in which any song with<br />
a catchy melody might be popular on the road.<br />
Advertisements for Tisane de Durbon and Nagib<br />
Elias’s lumber business were cheerfully sung<br />
alongside performances by calypsonians.<br />
It wasn’t until 1976 that the popular “Tourist<br />
Leggo” by Antiguan Lord Short Shirt would annoy<br />
calypso’s establishment so much that it would be<br />
banned from official competitions, beginning an<br />
unfortunate era of Road March insularity. Since<br />
then, only performers from T&T have been eligible<br />
for the competition <strong>—</strong> though Short Shirt’s song<br />
went on to win the Antigua and Barbuda Road<br />
March title.<br />
60 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
His ten Road March titles<br />
make the late Lord Kitchener<br />
the all-time champion of the<br />
competition<br />
courtesy rca victor<br />
After Sparrow won in 1956, the Road March<br />
competition belonged to him and his career-long<br />
rival Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts) for the next<br />
decade <strong>—</strong> interrupted only by Lord Christo and<br />
Nap Hepburn, who won a twin competition in 1957<br />
with “Chicken Chest” and “Doctor Nelson”, by<br />
Lord Caruso in 1959 with “Run the Gunslingers”,<br />
and Lord Blakie’s plaintive 1962 “Maria”.<br />
Sparrow and Kitchener’s second ten-year<br />
stretch of Road March dominance, starting in<br />
the 1960s, was interrupted only once by Shadow<br />
(Aldwyn Bailey)’s 1974 “Bass Man”, but that was a<br />
change that fundamentally refocused the competition<br />
on music. The Mighty Shadow was a Tobagoborn<br />
calypsonian who had been working for years<br />
to break into the big times. It happened with “Bass<br />
Man”, which told of a melody gifted to him as he<br />
was about “to give up calypso and go plant peas in<br />
Tobago.” That melody, anchored by a “poom pittity<br />
poom” sung deep from his chest, was nothing less<br />
than a bass run on a steelpan in a song, anchored<br />
by a surprisingly funky bass line.<br />
Shadow <strong>—</strong> an unabashed fan of Teddy Pendergrass<br />
who titled one album If Ah Woulda, I Coulda,<br />
I Shoulda <strong>—</strong> launched a career of songs anchored<br />
by soulful beats and empathic, often psychedelic<br />
lyrics that drifted some distance from the more<br />
commonplace topics favoured by his calypsonian<br />
peers. He dropped the traditional calypsonian’s<br />
superlative soon afterward, shedding a “Mighty”<br />
that was now demonstrably superfluous.<br />
Three years later, Calypso Rose (McCartha<br />
62 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Sandy-Lewis)’s 1977 hit “Tempo” forever ended the<br />
Sparrow-Kitchener axis with a Road March that<br />
was all about melody, and a chorus that echoed<br />
the percussiveness of “Bass Man”. Rose became<br />
the first female champion of the road, singing<br />
triumphantly over a music bed that made liberal<br />
use of modern synthesiser technology.<br />
Kitchener, who understood music in a particularly<br />
deep and profound way, would put his stamp<br />
on the young people’s soca music, by then the<br />
dominant form in play at Carnival parties and on<br />
the road, with 1978’s “Sugar Bum Bum”, but would<br />
have greater success developing complex musical<br />
ideas for the steelband, most notably with “The<br />
Bee’s Melody” and “Pan in A Minor”.<br />
The “revenge”<br />
Road March<br />
The story of the Road March after “Bass<br />
Man” and “Tempo” is a narrative of conflict<br />
between the traditional calypso art form<br />
and soca, its funk-influenced derivative, alongside<br />
the rising importance of the disc jockey as the<br />
preferred delivery mechanism for the music of the<br />
road, eventually overwhelming the role of the live<br />
performing band.<br />
Soca’s hypnotic beat was cemented as the<br />
commanding presence in the Road March between<br />
1977 and 1990, but in 1991 the freshly rechristened<br />
Superblue <strong>—</strong> born Austin Lyons, and formerly<br />
known as Blue Boy <strong>—</strong> would introduce the lyric-ascommand<br />
to the road mix with the urgent chorus<br />
of “Get Something and Wave”. In the twenty-seven<br />
Shadow’s 1974 Road<br />
March, “Bass Man”, was<br />
a game-changer for<br />
Carnival music<br />
The Calypso Monarch<br />
competition once<br />
required finalists to sing<br />
two songs for a marking<br />
system that encouraged<br />
the performance of a<br />
“serious” calypso and<br />
a party number. In<br />
1974, Sparrow won the<br />
competition with a pair<br />
of songs tailor-made<br />
for the requirements of<br />
the competition, “We<br />
Pass that Stage” and<br />
“Miss Mary”. That year,<br />
Shadow performed<br />
“Bass Man” and “I Come<br />
Out to Play”, two songs<br />
popular in parties. From<br />
J’Ouvert on Carnival<br />
Monday, it was clear<br />
that masqueraders were<br />
intent on redressing the<br />
Calypso Monarch judges’<br />
verdict, demanding “Bass<br />
Man” for two days and<br />
making Shadow’s vertical<br />
prance the dance of the<br />
festival.<br />
“That wasn’t revenge<br />
as much as it was<br />
pure street justice,”<br />
recalls Gordon Rohlehr.<br />
“There is an element of<br />
mischievous fun in the<br />
Road March.”<br />
mark lyndersay/lyndersaydigital.com<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 63
The first woman ever to win a Road<br />
March title, Calypso Rose has enjoyed<br />
a long career breaking barriers<br />
Soca’s hypnotic beat was<br />
cemented as the commanding<br />
presence in the Road<br />
March between 1977 and<br />
1990<br />
Frans Schellekens / redferns / getty images<br />
years since then, the explosive, post-curfew release<br />
of the song, which followed the attempted coup of<br />
September 1990, still echoes in soca dance music.<br />
Younger performers <strong>—</strong> including Superblue’s<br />
daughter Fay-Ann Lyons, twice winner of the Road<br />
March title <strong>—</strong> have taken that song and its successors<br />
as the baseline for their own successful songs<br />
for the road.<br />
As Blue Boy, Lyons had already registered two<br />
successive Road March wins in 1980 and 1981<br />
with “Soca Baptist” and “Ethel” when he changed<br />
the pace and focus of the Road March forever with<br />
“Get Something and Wave”. He would infuse that<br />
formula into three more winners, “Jab Jab”, “Bacchanal<br />
Time”, and “Signal to Lara”, characterising<br />
them with sharp chord changes across melodies.<br />
These were songs with music enough for three<br />
tunes, eccentric and easy-to-shout lyrics, and a<br />
profoundly intuitive sense of what makes people<br />
go crazy at Carnival time. Gordon Rohlehr sees<br />
a parallel in the relationship between Superblue’s<br />
interaction with crowds and the long-ago chantwell’s<br />
management of his Carnival band.<br />
The Road March as zeitgeist<br />
There’s an argument to be made that the celebration of<br />
Carnival on Monday and Tuesday has been influenced<br />
deeply by the music of each era of its development. The<br />
shuffling march of the earliest Carnivals proceeded to the<br />
staccato, almost military beat of bamboo percussion. As the<br />
music grew louder and more melodic with the entry of the<br />
steelband, the words of the songs became less of a chant<br />
and more of a sing-along. The celebratory blast of horns<br />
from big bands added the miming of brass playing and the<br />
celebratory raising of arms to mostly sunswept skies.<br />
In this heated competition, what made one song the<br />
Road March and the others merely popular?<br />
The earliest recorded road marches are distinguished<br />
by a subversive wit and topical humour. Between 1935 and<br />
1941, the Roaring Lion (Rafael De Leon) won four of the<br />
six competitions with calypsoes that managed to be both<br />
bawdy and socially concerned. Lord Kitchener’s return<br />
from England was formally heralded with “The Road”, a<br />
song that remains, to this day, the unofficial anthem and<br />
reference point for summarising the annual street party. It<br />
was also a gauntlet thrown down to Sparrow, and for the<br />
next two decades the pair would battle for the attention of<br />
revellers on the road.<br />
Kitchener’s melodies were wildly successful on the<br />
steelpan, and he would increasingly turn his attention to<br />
that instrument as the decisive interpreter of his compositions,<br />
with unparalleled success. His last Road March, “Flag<br />
Woman” in 1976, was both a final coda to the supremacy<br />
of the steelband as the driving force for music on the<br />
road, and a paean to the woman charged with bearing<br />
the band’s standard and clearing a path for the heavy steel<br />
drums as they rolled through crowded streets.<br />
The next year, Calypso Rose would win with “Tempo”, a<br />
song crafted for brass bands, beginning an era that would<br />
run from 1977 to 1990 <strong>—</strong> upbeat songs for dancing that<br />
increasingly abandoned commentary for catchy hook lines<br />
Continued on page 66<br />
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Meanwhile, as the beat has grown faster, the<br />
lyrics have largely abandoned narrative for pop<br />
song hooklines, phrases that can be shouted as<br />
you leap forward on the tips of your toes, twirling<br />
a handy cloth over your head. Several popular soca<br />
hits have lifted chord progressions from well-known<br />
pop songs and layered them into their music, and<br />
the Road March winners of the last seven years<br />
have been influenced by the style and<br />
structure of international electronic<br />
dance music (EDM).<br />
Since the late 1990s, Machel<br />
Montano has emerged as<br />
the most successful architect<br />
of the modern Road<br />
March, blending an<br />
understanding of the<br />
lyric as supporting<br />
framework for the<br />
music with a<br />
master’s touch<br />
in the production of the final work. Montano has<br />
won eight of the Road March competitions since<br />
1997, five of them since 2010.<br />
In <strong>2018</strong>, the traditional calypso tent, once the<br />
stamp of artistic approval for a calypsonian, has<br />
shrunk almost into insignificance, subsisting on a<br />
lifeline of state support. Local radio and the Carnival<br />
party are now where music is auditioned for<br />
public consumption, and the range that’s offered<br />
represents only a fraction of the music actually<br />
created for the festival.<br />
The calypsonian now finds himself in the<br />
position of the chantwell he replaced more than<br />
a hundred years ago, losing ground in Carnival<br />
to a more popular music with aggressive, focused<br />
practitioners. But, as the recent success of Calypso<br />
Rose in Europe demonstrates, the form still has a<br />
lot of life to it. The Road March and the creators<br />
who compose for it once more look to all the music<br />
that makes people dance <strong>—</strong> whatever its origins <strong>—</strong><br />
for its influences.<br />
mark lyndersay/lyndersaydigital.com<br />
Currently tied with Sparrow at<br />
eight Road March wins, Machel<br />
Montano conceivably has decades<br />
ahead of him to break Kitchener’s<br />
record<br />
and tip-of-the-toes prancing.<br />
That trend would go to another level in 1991 with a<br />
resurgent Blue Boy, now singing as Super Blue. His astonishing<br />
troika of winners, “Get Something and Wave”, “Jab Jab”, and<br />
“Bacchanal Time”, put down a template for dance-focused<br />
soca that fundamentally changed the pace and approach of<br />
composers, arrangers, and musicians who would find the fast<br />
time and heated pitch of the songs difficult to maintain on<br />
the road.<br />
It was here that two things happened in the Road March<br />
competition. First, the gulf between the songs that got played<br />
on stage to stoke the bands and the music played on the actual<br />
road grew wider. Then it became clear to bandleaders that<br />
the music, now prepared in special “road mix” recordings, was<br />
more easily played by disc jockeys, who also happened to be<br />
cheaper than full live bands.<br />
That opened the door to more multi-tracking, sharper<br />
cutting on chord changes, and deeper use of electronics in<br />
creating the songs, just when it became possible for almost<br />
anyone to create music on their computer at home.<br />
On its surface, at the level of the lyrics, Road Marches<br />
became instructions to revellers. “Moving to the left,” sang<br />
Nigel Lewis. “Hold on to the big truck,” urged Machel Montano.<br />
“Footsteps . . . on the ground,” demanded the late<br />
Wayne Rodriguez.<br />
On a deeper level, this was music that did more<br />
than invite the listener to get up and dance <strong>—</strong> it was<br />
designed to take people already committed to prancing<br />
to another level of euphoria and excitement.<br />
It isn’t surprising, then, to find elements of electronic<br />
dance music (EDM) showing up in recent Road March<br />
contenders, and to see the influence of dance soca<br />
bleeding back, as it did in 2014’s “Antenna”, the<br />
breakout single by Fuse ODG (Richard Abiona).<br />
66 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Ten for<br />
the road<br />
Of the eighty-plus songs that have won the official Road March<br />
title, some are little remembered, some have become “back-intimes”<br />
favourites, and a few are considered landmarks <strong>—</strong> whether<br />
for their musical qualities or for trends they ushered in. Here are all<br />
the recorded Road March winners up to 2017 <strong>—</strong> and our picks* for<br />
an all-time Road March top ten.<br />
1930<br />
Lord Inveigler<br />
Captain Cipriani<br />
1931<br />
King Houdini<br />
Mr Huggins<br />
1932<br />
King Radio<br />
Tiger Tom Play Tiger Cat<br />
1933<br />
King Radio<br />
Wash Pan Wash<br />
1934<br />
Railway Douglas<br />
After Johnny Drink Me<br />
Rum<br />
1935<br />
Roaring Lion<br />
Dingolay Oy<br />
1936<br />
Roaring Lion<br />
Advantage Could Never<br />
Done<br />
1937<br />
Roaring Lion<br />
Netty Netty<br />
1938<br />
Roaring Lion<br />
No Norah Darling<br />
1939<br />
King Radio<br />
Mathilda<br />
She take meh money and run<br />
Venezuela . . . With a perfect<br />
combination of plaintive<br />
lyrics and jaunty melody,<br />
King Radio (Norman Span)<br />
lamented the unfaithfulness<br />
of a wife or girlfriend who<br />
stole the cash hidden in his<br />
mattress and headed for<br />
the mainland. Nearly eight<br />
decades later, it remains one<br />
of the most immediately recognisable<br />
calypso choruses,<br />
and not just for Trinbagonians.<br />
Harry Belafonte’s 1953<br />
recording became an international<br />
hit, later covered by<br />
performers as unlikely as the<br />
Greatful Dead. Needless to<br />
say, King Radio never saw a<br />
cent in royalties.<br />
1940<br />
Lord Beginner<br />
Run Yuh Run<br />
Philip Sander<br />
1941<br />
Roaring Lion<br />
Whoopsin Whoopsin<br />
Though there were no official<br />
Carnival celebrations from 1942<br />
to 1945, at the height of the Second<br />
World War, informal “Road<br />
March” titles are recognised<br />
for the most popular songs in<br />
calypso tents in those years.<br />
1942<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Lai Fook Lee<br />
1943<br />
Lord Invader<br />
Rum and Coca-Cola<br />
1944<br />
King Radio<br />
Brown Skin Girl<br />
1945<br />
Roaring Lion<br />
All Day All Night, Mary-Ann<br />
1946<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Jump in the Line<br />
1947<br />
King Pharaoh<br />
Portuguese Dance<br />
(Vishki Vashki Voo)<br />
1948<br />
Lord Melody<br />
Canaan Barrow<br />
1949<br />
Roaring Wonder<br />
Ramgoat Baptism<br />
1950<br />
Mighty Killer<br />
In a Calabash<br />
1951<br />
Mighty Terror<br />
Tiny Davis<br />
1953<br />
Vivian Comma / Spit Fire<br />
Madeline Oye / Bow Wow<br />
Wow<br />
Two separate Road March<br />
competitions this year produced<br />
rival winners.<br />
1952<br />
Spit Fire<br />
Post, Post Another Letter<br />
for Thelma<br />
1954<br />
Lord Blakie<br />
Steel Band Clash<br />
1955<br />
Obernkirchen Children’s<br />
Choir<br />
The Happy Wanderer<br />
(German pop song)<br />
1956<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Jean and Dinah<br />
The greatest calypsonian of all<br />
time? The Birdie would certainly<br />
agree. It’s a reign that<br />
started with a bang in 1956,<br />
with the song that won him<br />
both the Calypso King and<br />
Road March titles. Sixty-two<br />
years later, “Jean and Dinah”<br />
is more than a calypso classic<br />
<strong>—</strong> it’s a cultural touchstone<br />
and a symbol of that brash,<br />
confident era between the end<br />
of the Second World War and<br />
Independence in 1962.<br />
Above all, it tells a story of<br />
social evolution. Well, the girls<br />
in town feeling bad, no more<br />
Yankees in Trinidad . . . As US<br />
troops withdrew from the<br />
bases around Port of Spain, a<br />
surging sentiment of nationalism<br />
culminated in the general<br />
elections of September 1956,<br />
which returned Eric Williams<br />
of the PNM as premier and<br />
cleared the path to Independence<br />
negotiations. But Sparrow<br />
portrayed this moment<br />
of change in more personal,<br />
down-to-earth terms. With<br />
the Americans out of the<br />
way, Sparrow and his fellow<br />
“glamour boys” were “back<br />
in control” of Port of Spain’s<br />
nightlife scene. “Jean and<br />
Dinah, Rosita and Clementina,”<br />
the good-time girls who<br />
68 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
had reserved their favours<br />
for the US servicemen, now<br />
had to make do with local<br />
trade. In for a penny, in for a<br />
pound. A tide was turning, in<br />
personal relations as much<br />
as in politics, and Sparrow’s<br />
preening delivery suggested<br />
who he thought would end up<br />
on top.<br />
“Jean and Dinah” was oral<br />
history and penetrating social<br />
commentary, cocky and<br />
risqué, with lyrics deserving<br />
literary analysis and an unforgettable<br />
tune: a calypso to<br />
engage listeners’ wits as much<br />
as their waists. For most<br />
Trinbagonians, it’s as familiar<br />
as the National Anthem, a<br />
song of similar vintage and<br />
asserted confidence. And the<br />
famous last line of the chorus<br />
<strong>—</strong> “Sparrow take over now”<br />
<strong>—</strong> was an accurate prediction<br />
of the Birdie’s calypso dominance<br />
of the coming decades.<br />
Philip Sander<br />
1957<br />
Lord Christo / Nap Hepburn<br />
Chicken Chest / Doctor<br />
Nelson<br />
As in 1953, separate Road<br />
March competitions produced<br />
rival winners.<br />
1958<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Pay As You Earn<br />
1959<br />
Lord Caruso<br />
Run the Gunslingers<br />
1960<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Mae Mae<br />
1961<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Royal Jail<br />
1962<br />
Lord Blakie<br />
Maria<br />
1963<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
The Road<br />
1964<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
This Is Mas<br />
1965<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
My Pussin<br />
1966<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Obeah Wedding<br />
1967<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Sixty-Seven<br />
1968<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Miss Tourist<br />
1969<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Sa Sa Yea<br />
1970<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Margie<br />
1971<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Madison Square Garden<br />
1972<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Drunk and Disorderly<br />
1973<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Rainorama<br />
Only once in the past century<br />
has Carnival’s traditional<br />
connection with the start of<br />
Lent been severed. In 1972,<br />
faced with a polio outbreak,<br />
the government threatened<br />
to cancel the festival <strong>—</strong> then,<br />
faced with public outcry,<br />
postponed it from <strong>February</strong><br />
to May, and from the dry to<br />
the rainy season, so that masqueraders<br />
were predictably<br />
drenched. A year later,<br />
Kitchener’s “Rainorama”<br />
recounted the drama <strong>—</strong> and<br />
won the Grandmaster his<br />
ninth Road March title.<br />
The song’s laid-back<br />
rhythm and sweet melody<br />
almost disguise the fact that<br />
“Rainorama” is an uncompromising<br />
defence of Carnival<br />
and its place in T&T’s national<br />
life, a riposte to those “so and<br />
so hypocrites” who call it an<br />
unneeded distraction or waste<br />
of time. This is calypso as<br />
history lesson and as protest,<br />
but so seductively composed,<br />
it allows no resistance. And<br />
for Kitchener it was such a<br />
big hit that when he built his<br />
dream house in Diego Martin,<br />
on Port of Spain’s western<br />
outskirts, he named it “Rainorama”<br />
<strong>—</strong> proudly declared<br />
in an illuminated sign on the<br />
front lawn.<br />
1974<br />
Shadow<br />
Bass Man<br />
Philip Sander<br />
It was the song that broke the<br />
Sparrow/Kitchener monopoly<br />
on the Road March title.<br />
I wasn’t even born when<br />
“Bass Man” won the Road<br />
March <strong>—</strong> but, growing up in<br />
a house with Shadow being<br />
played constantly, I decided<br />
early on that he is the greatest<br />
thing that ever happened to<br />
music in Trinidad and Tobago.<br />
Although he’s won the Road<br />
March title only twice in his<br />
long career, Shadow’s skill<br />
at storytelling and the way<br />
he plays with melody, his<br />
bizarre vocal range and the<br />
sweet sadness of his musical<br />
arrangements, make him<br />
the most avant-garde street<br />
philosopher we’ve ever had.<br />
In “Bass Man”, Shadow<br />
manages to capture the<br />
frustration of the calypsonian<br />
who can’t make a living from<br />
his art, yet the impetus to create<br />
is greater than the frustration.<br />
I don’t know how this thing<br />
get inside me. Which artist<br />
doesn’t know that truth? This<br />
song is the strong foundation<br />
on which Shadow has created<br />
an entire universe of feeling<br />
in his music: a different<br />
language and energy, a way<br />
to channel all the pain, all the<br />
sadness, all those feelings of<br />
inadequacy into the ability to<br />
have hope and dance in spite<br />
of it all.<br />
Attillah Springer<br />
1975<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Tribute to Spree Simon<br />
1976<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Flag Woman<br />
1977<br />
Calypso Rose<br />
Tempo<br />
Port of Spain too small for the<br />
Carnival . . . T&T’s capital<br />
considers itself ground zero<br />
for the festival, but Calypso<br />
Rose dared sing this infectious<br />
tune about heading<br />
south to San Fernando, and<br />
took her first Road March<br />
title. It was history-making:<br />
for the first time ever, the<br />
Road March was won by a<br />
woman, and Rose successfully<br />
defended the title a year<br />
later, when she also became<br />
the first woman ever to<br />
win the Calypso King title,<br />
which immediately had to<br />
be renamed. After Rose, it<br />
was twenty-one years before<br />
another woman, Sanelle<br />
Dempster, won Road March,<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 69
and only two others <strong>—</strong> Fay-<br />
Ann Lyons and Patrice<br />
Roberts (duetting with Machel<br />
Montano) <strong>—</strong> have taken the<br />
title.<br />
Some say Rose’s Road<br />
March breakthrough should<br />
have come a decade earlier,<br />
with “Fire in Me Wire”. For<br />
years, rumours have had it<br />
that the 1966 Road March<br />
invigilators fudged the<br />
figures, unready for a woman<br />
calypsonian to win. Whatever<br />
the truth, if longevity is the<br />
best revenge, Rose has come<br />
out on top, enjoying a huge<br />
surge of international success<br />
in recent years with her Far<br />
From Home album.<br />
1978<br />
Calypso Rose<br />
Come Leh We Jam<br />
Philip Sander<br />
1979<br />
Poser<br />
A Tell She (Smoke Ah<br />
Watty)<br />
1980<br />
Blue Boy<br />
Soca Baptist<br />
Almost any Road March by<br />
nine-time winner Superblue<br />
<strong>—</strong> formerly known as Blue<br />
Boy <strong>—</strong> could make a top ten.<br />
But his first-ever Road March<br />
does something extraordinary.<br />
Without a single<br />
historical reference, Blue tells<br />
the story of how we masked<br />
our spiritual traditions in<br />
our popular artforms, as his<br />
observation of the Spiritual<br />
Baptists “bacchanal” brings<br />
him to the conclusion that the<br />
ecstatic nature of the doption<br />
is the same as what happens<br />
in the soca fete.<br />
Some loved it for the<br />
music, and some thought<br />
it was another example of<br />
the trivialising of non-mainstream<br />
modes of worship.<br />
But if you’ve ever seen or<br />
heard a gathering of Spiritual<br />
Baptists on a street corner, or<br />
observed that moment in an<br />
Orisa feast when the repetitive<br />
nature of the drumming<br />
and the call and response<br />
of the chants propel some<br />
dancers into a state of possession,<br />
then you understand<br />
that “Soca Baptist” speaks<br />
deep truths about the ecstatic<br />
nature of Carnival music.<br />
When I hear it now, I think<br />
it is a classically non-Western<br />
way of not seeing a distinction<br />
between what is sacred<br />
and what is profane. Indeed,<br />
beyond the perception of the<br />
profanity of jam and wine,<br />
soca is a spiritual encounter.<br />
1981<br />
Blue Boy<br />
Ethel<br />
1982<br />
Penguin<br />
Deputy<br />
1983<br />
Blue Boy<br />
Rebecca<br />
1984<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Doh Back Back<br />
1985<br />
Crazy<br />
Soucoyant<br />
1986<br />
David Rudder<br />
Bahia Girl<br />
Attillah Springer<br />
In his breakthrough year,<br />
David Rudder won it all,<br />
taking the title of Calypso<br />
Monarch with “The Hammer”<br />
and both Young King and<br />
Road March with “Bahia<br />
Girl”. So simple and pure in<br />
its sweetness, this is a classic<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> love song, the<br />
chipping pace perfect for the<br />
road. But the secret to why<br />
“Bahia Girl” is so significant is<br />
in the last verse: Ile Ife Ile Ife,<br />
she make me to understand. Ile<br />
Ife, the mythical home of the<br />
Yoruba people of Nigeria, is<br />
the reason Rudder shares so<br />
much in common with “this<br />
girl from Bahia.” It’s no accident<br />
this was the same time<br />
scholars and spiritual leaders<br />
of the Orisa community were<br />
starting to share information<br />
on shared spiritual retentions<br />
in Brazil, Trinidad, and Cuba.<br />
In the post–Black Power<br />
era, when T&T’s black middle<br />
class started reconnecting<br />
with African spiritual forms<br />
that had been shamed into<br />
secrecy, music became a way<br />
to reclaim what was lost. It<br />
was common to hear stories<br />
of people “ketching power”<br />
when Rudder was on stage,<br />
then ending up in an Orisa<br />
yard soon after to consult<br />
with an elder. It terrified<br />
many and delighted many<br />
more. Still others missed it<br />
completely, distracted by the<br />
infectiousness of the music.<br />
1987<br />
Mighty Duke<br />
Thunder<br />
1988<br />
Tambu<br />
This Party Is It<br />
1989<br />
Tambu<br />
Free Up<br />
Attillah Springer<br />
1990<br />
Tambu<br />
We Ain’t Going Home<br />
1991<br />
Superblue (formerly Blue Boy)<br />
Get Something and Wave<br />
1992<br />
Superblue<br />
Jab Jab<br />
1993<br />
Superblue<br />
Bacchanal Time<br />
1994<br />
Preacher<br />
Jump and Wave<br />
1995<br />
Superblue<br />
Signal to Lara<br />
1996<br />
Nigel Lewis<br />
Movin’<br />
1997<br />
Machel Montano<br />
Big Truck<br />
It was the coming-of-age<br />
song for the generation of<br />
Trini xennials: too young to<br />
remember Black Power, too<br />
young to attend curfew parties<br />
in 1990, but old enough<br />
to remember the disappointment<br />
of 1989’s World Cup<br />
football defeat <strong>—</strong> all defining<br />
moments in T&T history. The<br />
popularity of dancehall in<br />
the 1990s had led to a kind of<br />
apathy towards mainstream<br />
soca and calypso. That<br />
apathy was challenged by<br />
the advent of Kisskidee<br />
Karavan, which advanced a<br />
new frontline of local rapso,<br />
ragga, and hip-hop artists<br />
unfraid of articulating their<br />
reality in their own language,<br />
and also made you want to<br />
dance. What Machel Montano<br />
<strong>—</strong> who himself had grown up<br />
with us <strong>—</strong> was able to do was<br />
take soca and turn it on its<br />
head again, pull it away from<br />
the establishment and open<br />
the way for a whole new era<br />
70 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
of celebratory defiance. “Big<br />
Truck”, the first of eight Road<br />
March titles for Montano<br />
over the next two decades,<br />
set the pace and defined a<br />
generation. The nostalgia<br />
the song evokes for a time of<br />
innocence, adventure, and<br />
experimentation is bittersweet,<br />
hardened by the cynical<br />
jump-and-wave formula<br />
for winning prizes and fete<br />
money. It remains to be seen<br />
if the direction soca has been<br />
going since “Big Truck” is<br />
what the music needs or what<br />
the Carnival deserves.<br />
1998<br />
Wayne Rodriguez<br />
Footsteps<br />
1999<br />
Sanelle Dempster<br />
River<br />
Attillah Springer<br />
2000 (tie)<br />
Superblue / Iwer George<br />
Pump Up / Carnival Come<br />
Back Again<br />
2001<br />
Shadow<br />
Stranger<br />
2002<br />
Naya George<br />
Trinidad<br />
2003<br />
Fay-Ann Lyons<br />
Display<br />
2004<br />
Shurwayne Winchester<br />
Look de Band Comin’<br />
2005<br />
Shurwayne Winchester<br />
Dead or Alive<br />
2006<br />
Machel Montano and Patrice<br />
Roberts<br />
Band of de Year<br />
2007<br />
Machel Montano<br />
Jumbie<br />
2008<br />
Fay-Ann Lyons<br />
Get On<br />
2009<br />
Fay-Ann Lyons<br />
Meet Superblue<br />
2010<br />
JW & Blaze<br />
Palance<br />
It was a song that seemed<br />
to come out of nowhere and<br />
rampaged over all opposition.<br />
Radio DJs Jason “JW”<br />
Williams and Ancil “Blaze”<br />
Isaacs <strong>—</strong>the former skinny<br />
and antic, the latter stocky<br />
and serious <strong>—</strong> looked like a<br />
classic odd couple on stage<br />
and in the wildly popular<br />
video (which inexplicably<br />
featured a man in a Cookie<br />
Monster costume, a triumphant<br />
touch of the absurd<br />
and a reminder that a whole<br />
generation of young Trinbagonians<br />
grew up watching<br />
Sesame Street twice a day on<br />
the state-owned TV station).<br />
“Palance” took its title from<br />
a Trinidadian word meaning<br />
“have a good time,” a concept<br />
exhaustively represented in<br />
our vocabulary. Repeated<br />
endlessly in the chorus,<br />
“palance” was the cue for<br />
fete-goers and masqueraders<br />
to fling themselves from side<br />
to side, arms outstretched, en<br />
masse. It was totally senseless,<br />
and resistance was futile.<br />
2011<br />
Machel Montano<br />
Advantage<br />
2012<br />
Machel Montano<br />
Pump Yuh Flag<br />
2013<br />
Superblue<br />
Fantastic Friday<br />
2014<br />
Machel Montano<br />
Ministry of Road<br />
2015<br />
Machel Montano<br />
Like ah Boss<br />
Philip Sander<br />
2016<br />
Machel Montano<br />
Waiting on the Stage<br />
2017<br />
Ultimate Rejects, featuring<br />
MX Prime<br />
Full Extreme<br />
On the Wednesday before<br />
Carnival 2017, a building<br />
caught fire in downtown Port<br />
of Spain. Pedestrians and<br />
office workers stopped to gape<br />
as firetrucks wailed through<br />
the city. Two blocks to the<br />
west, another crowd gathered,<br />
taking part in a company’s<br />
giveaway game. The speakers<br />
blared as the flames rose<br />
higher: the city could bun down,<br />
we jamming still. Was MX<br />
Prime <strong>—</strong> formerly known as<br />
Maximus Dan and the main<br />
voice of Ultimate Rejects’ “Full<br />
Extreme” <strong>—</strong> poking fun at<br />
Trinbagonians’ inability to take<br />
anything seriously? Maybe.<br />
Undeniably, the song<br />
was the biggest of last year’s<br />
season. Like all great Road<br />
March songs, it captured the<br />
desires and fears of the people<br />
in the most straightforward<br />
language. Ultimate Rejects<br />
sang the ultimate jammette<br />
song <strong>—</strong> a song of defiance<br />
and also a sad understanding<br />
that the systems that exist<br />
in our society are not really<br />
made to benefit the people<br />
anyway. We wine as the city<br />
burns: a prophecy fulfilled.<br />
I stormed Panorama champs<br />
All Stars’ band on Carnival<br />
Tuesday afternoon as they<br />
chipped through town playing<br />
their “Full Extreme”. All<br />
those people, all that rum,<br />
all that choking in the cloud<br />
of talcum powder in a sea of<br />
sailors. It was the most beautiful<br />
non-J’Ouvert Carnival<br />
experience I’ve had in years.<br />
Carnival is the mirror that<br />
reflects that Trinbagonian<br />
ability to seek joy and beauty<br />
even in the worst situations. It<br />
is as much a blessing as it is a<br />
curse.<br />
Attillah Springer<br />
* So how did we choose our ten standout Road Marches? By the not very scientific method of polling all the members<br />
of the <strong>Caribbean</strong> <strong>Beat</strong> team, plus a handful of the magazine’s past and present music writers. Disagree with our picks?<br />
Have your say at www.caribbean-beat.com/roadmarch.<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 71
Own words<br />
“ I’m<br />
unfinished”<br />
Tobago-born actor Winston Duke, appearing in the<br />
upcoming Black Panther movie, on his love of stories, his<br />
sense of being a work in process, and why returning to T&T<br />
keeps him grounded <strong>—</strong> as told to Caroline Taylor<br />
I<br />
left Tobago when I was about ten<br />
years old. My memories of Tobago<br />
are of running up and down on the<br />
beach, exploring my neighbourhood<br />
with friends, and a strong community<br />
of family. Family that always cooked<br />
and laughed together, family that supported<br />
each other, and came over any day they<br />
chose to. I remember freshly baked bread<br />
and sweet bread which my cousin, who<br />
lived about ten miles and four villages away,<br />
would have her teenage son deliver to us<br />
via bicycle. I really remember being part<br />
of something and somewhere <strong>—</strong> knowing<br />
I belonged.<br />
Something in particular which is etched<br />
in my memory is my village’s annual<br />
harvest festival. There was nothing, and<br />
has been nothing in my life ever since,<br />
that compared to that kind of familial<br />
and community interaction <strong>—</strong> my entire<br />
village cooking and opening their homes<br />
for others, including complete strangers,<br />
to freely eat, drink, dance, and converse.<br />
Then I moved to Brooklyn, New York,<br />
and the transition for me was incredibly<br />
hard. It was a huge culture shock. I came<br />
from an extended family in Tobago that<br />
easily spans at least two hundred and fifty<br />
people. So emigrating to a place where<br />
it’s just your mother and sister and little<br />
to no support systems was hard. I think I<br />
retreated deeply within myself.<br />
Brooklyn wasn’t a safe space for me. I<br />
remember our first year living at our new<br />
studio apartment, it was broken into and<br />
all we had was stolen. I often wanted us<br />
to come back home, but I also knew it just<br />
was not the plan. The plan was to build <strong>—</strong><br />
to achieve <strong>—</strong> to gain something different<br />
and valuable.<br />
I wanted to become an actor because<br />
I love stories and I wanted to be a part of<br />
telling great stories to as many people as I<br />
could. I figured out early on that I wanted<br />
to be a part of stories that reflect the lives of<br />
people who don’t always get to have a voice.<br />
My love for storytelling started back<br />
home in Tobago. I would listen to the<br />
older people in my village tell folklore<br />
stories about a gold-toothed donkey that<br />
they believed was a person who could<br />
shape-shift. Or of the douens which were<br />
supposedly the souls of children who died<br />
before they were christened. Or of this old<br />
man, Papa Bois, who lived in the forest<br />
and would protect it from hunters. I would<br />
always ask for those stories to be told to<br />
me every time older family and friends<br />
dropped by our house or restaurant. And<br />
let me tell you, they loved telling me those<br />
stories as well. This, I think, created my<br />
love for the genre of magical realism to<br />
this day.<br />
Landing the role of M’Baku in<br />
Black Panther was incredible. I just<br />
wanted to get in the room. I told my<br />
representation to just get me an audition<br />
and I’d do the rest. I loved [director] Ryan<br />
Coogler’s work <strong>—</strong> I remember being<br />
incredibly moved by Fruitvale Station and<br />
knowing that’s the kind of storyteller I<br />
wanted to work with one day. One with a<br />
clear and distinct voice.<br />
Being on set was something I never<br />
experienced before. Working with my<br />
own personal heroes in that superhero<br />
setting was something poetic and epic.<br />
To be able to meet and work alongside<br />
Angela Bassett, Forest Whittaker, Martin<br />
Freeman, and Chadwick Boseman, to<br />
name a few of this incredible ensemble,<br />
and not end up feeling out of place, was<br />
something I had only ever dreamed of<br />
before this movie. The knowledge that I<br />
was part of something that would allow<br />
people of colour all over the world to<br />
see themselves represented was surreal.<br />
What helped me to stay grounded was<br />
being careful to constantly check in with<br />
who M’Baku was <strong>—</strong> I wanted viewers<br />
to see a strong and impassioned leader<br />
willing to do whatever he has to for the<br />
betterment of his people.<br />
Hollywood is going through a period<br />
where a lot of people are advocating for<br />
inclusion and representation, and I think<br />
that directly correlates to the opportunities<br />
I am getting. Also, people are crying<br />
out for transparency, equality, and equity,<br />
so it’s a space that is empowering artists<br />
72 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Kwaku Alston<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 73
©Marvel Studios <strong>2018</strong><br />
Winston Duke (at centre) as M’Baku in Black Panther<br />
such as myself <strong>—</strong> who, perhaps, do not<br />
fit some of the previously held notions<br />
of leading male or female actor. I am sixfoot-five,<br />
two hundred and thirty pounds,<br />
and I think now is the time when the possibilities<br />
are higher for me to play people<br />
with depth. Not just goons and muscle,<br />
but layered and thinking individuals who<br />
have complex motivations.<br />
I figured out early on that I wanted to be a part<br />
of stories that reflect the lives of people who<br />
don’t always get to have a voice<br />
I believe this creates a huge market<br />
for strong stories that can come from the<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> <strong>—</strong> our folklore, our knack for<br />
great drama and storytelling has its place<br />
now. We just have to create the work. It’s<br />
not like it hasn’t been done before <strong>—</strong> just<br />
think of Euzhan Palcy and Sidney Poitier<br />
as zenith examples. We have beautiful<br />
sub-cultures which can and should be<br />
explored <strong>—</strong> our relationship to the sea<br />
and our fishermen, our mixed, blended<br />
cultures and the trials that come with<br />
that, our richly mixed and painful history<br />
of rebellion, revolution, and discovery<br />
<strong>—</strong> all of these stories are present in our<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> culture, and I would say the<br />
time is now. The world is “smaller” due to<br />
the internet and social media. People are<br />
craving their reflection.<br />
I would like my career to go into<br />
writing and producing stories about the<br />
immigrant experience. I love stories<br />
about outsiders who, through sheer will,<br />
create their own path. I would love to<br />
explore more magical realism, and follow<br />
my personal mission of depicting people<br />
who usually don’t get seen or given the<br />
opportunity to be visible.<br />
I<br />
try to return to Tobago at least once<br />
a year. Most recently I was in T&T<br />
briefly in the days before Carnival<br />
2017, but then had to rush back to set<br />
to complete shooting for Black Panther.<br />
It never works out perfectly to be there<br />
for Carnival, but I try every year. I fail<br />
because Carnival usually falls at one of<br />
the busiest times of year for me. That said,<br />
I love coming home. It charges me up.<br />
There are still a lot of things in process.<br />
Homes get built by people with their bare<br />
hands, with their blocks and cement and<br />
PVC pipes, and things aren’t finished, and<br />
it always feels like me. I’m in process <strong>—</strong><br />
I’m unfinished.<br />
Film, and my current life, are all about<br />
the product and the end result <strong>—</strong> but,<br />
to me, it’s the story in the process that<br />
makes everything worthwhile. So my<br />
focus tends to stay there, and coming<br />
home always reminds me of that. It keeps<br />
me grounded.<br />
I want to say a big shout-out to Bunji<br />
Garlin and Machel Montano <strong>—</strong> because<br />
I listen to their music almost every day.<br />
“Buss Head” <strong>—</strong> I listen to their lyrics of<br />
artistry, patience, process, and integrity.<br />
It reminds me that I come from a place<br />
with beautiful people who create and<br />
know themselves. It makes me further<br />
interrogate who I am and why I do what<br />
I do. n<br />
Black Panther will be released on 9 <strong>February</strong> in the UK, and 16 <strong>February</strong> in<br />
the US. For a longer version of this interview, visit discovertnt.com<br />
74 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
ARRIVE<br />
Photostravellers/shutterstock.com<br />
76 Destination<br />
Escape to Tobago<br />
88 Neighbourhood<br />
Gustavia,<br />
St Barthélemy<br />
96<br />
Round trip<br />
Art in the open<br />
Despite the ravages of Hurricane Irma, St Barthélemy is ready to receive visitors
Destination<br />
The beach is usually a place to relax, but there<br />
are also options to get your blood racing <strong>—</strong> like a<br />
shoreline canter on horseback. As co-founder of the<br />
Buccoo-based NGO Healing with Horses, Veronika<br />
Danzer-La Fortune introduces differently-abled<br />
youngsters to a gentle equine herd for fun and<br />
therapeutic play<br />
76 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Carnival season is bacchanal time in T&T. But<br />
although Tobago has its share of the intense<br />
action, Trinidad’s smaller sister island still manages<br />
to hold on to its tranquil vibe year-round. If<br />
Carnival isn’t your thing, and you’re looking for an<br />
escape option, Tobago’s lush hills and clear, warm<br />
waters beckon <strong>—</strong> as you can see in this photo<br />
essay. Prepare for a dose of true natural beauty<br />
piotrandrewsphotography.com<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 77
The numerous small rivers tumbling down<br />
Tobago’s hillsides create an abundance of<br />
waterfalls <strong>—</strong> some of them popular tourist<br />
spots, others known only to locals. Getting<br />
to Parlatuvier Falls <strong>—</strong> near the village of the<br />
same name on the island’s Leeward Coast<br />
<strong>—</strong> requires an arduous scramble over giant<br />
boulders, but the reward is a pristine pool<br />
surrounded by emerald green foliage<br />
marianne s. hosein<br />
78 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Villas Are Us<br />
Mahi Mahi & Flamboyant<br />
Luciana<br />
Casa La Mancha<br />
We specialize in seaside villa rentals, so call to let us<br />
make your sandy dreams come true!<br />
Tel: (868) 481-5986 / 236-5190<br />
Gillian@TobagoVillasAreUs.com<br />
www.tobagovillasareus.com<br />
a Tobago time...for real<br />
EXPERIENCE THE UNFORGETTABLE GETAWAY TO<br />
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Fax: (868) 665-9236<br />
your ideal location at<br />
CROWN POINT, TOBAGO, W.I.<br />
Tel: (868) 639-8512-3<br />
Fax: (868) 639-9605<br />
great<br />
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tropikistbeachhotelresort@gmail.com • www.tropikist.com<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 79
Tobago has no shortage of pristine blue<br />
bays <strong>—</strong> but, for many locals, Pirate’s Bay near<br />
the island’s northern tip may be the most<br />
treasured of all. On the outskirts of the village<br />
of Charlotteville, it’s accessible only by boat or<br />
footpath, making it an oasis of quiet<br />
‘Life is always Sweeter at the Sugar Mill Suites, Tobago Plantations’<br />
Contact us: (868) 631-1054/639-8000 | E: rentals@tobagoplantations.com<br />
Or visit our website: www.sugarmilltobago.com<br />
80 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
joanne husain<br />
Luxury<br />
Villa Rental<br />
Experience the Grandeur of<br />
Old-Fashioned Nostalgia<br />
Situated on a majestic cliff overlooking Bacolet Beach, Blue Haven<br />
Hotel combines the ambiance of yesteryear with modern living.<br />
BLUE HAVEN HOTEL<br />
Bacolet Bay, Tobago | Tel: 868 660 7400<br />
E: reservations@bluehavenhotel.com<br />
www.bluehavenhotel.com<br />
124 Anthony Charles Crescent,<br />
Bon Accord<br />
info@tomasvillas.com<br />
(868) 765 8602<br />
www.tomasvillas.com<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 81
Over two hundred and forty bird species<br />
have been recorded on Tobago <strong>—</strong> from<br />
shy manakins to gregarious parrots,<br />
impressively large tropicbirds to tiny<br />
hummingbirds, their iridescent plumage<br />
catching the light as they flit among<br />
nectar-filled flowers<br />
DebraLee Wiseberg/istock.com<br />
ADVERTORIAL<br />
Barcode<br />
This Carnival season, Barcode continues to bring premier<br />
entertainment in our “I Love Soca” series. Every Tuesday,<br />
from 2 <strong>January</strong> to 13 <strong>February</strong>, <strong>2018</strong>, Barcode showcases<br />
the best soca artistes from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados,<br />
Grenada, St Vincent, and beyond. Situated on the<br />
Scarborough Waterfront, our bar/club hybrid is unique as<br />
the island itself. Our newly extended outdoor decking is fully<br />
covered, and can easily accommodate three hundred persons<br />
with the extraordinary feel of the southern Atlantic breeze.<br />
Blue Haven<br />
Experience the grandeur of old-fashioned nostalgia!<br />
Situated on a majestic cliff overlooking Bacolet Beach,<br />
romantic Blue Haven provided the idyllic scenery for several<br />
golden-age movies. Splendidly refurbished while retaining<br />
its retro-charm, Blue Haven combines the ambiance and<br />
atmosphere of “yesterday” with modern living.<br />
Guys Autozone<br />
When visiting beautiful Tobago, why not optimise your<br />
exploring by renting a vehicle from Guys Autozone? What<br />
can you expect from this family-owned company? We offer<br />
the most affordable rates on the island and individualised<br />
packages to suit our diverse customers. Continuously aspiring<br />
to remain the best in the auto rental industry, we ensure a<br />
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peace of mind. Our mantra, “excellence matters,” speaks for<br />
itself!<br />
Island Investments<br />
Leading real estate and villa rentals, established for over<br />
thirty years. We are the experts on property ownership and<br />
vacation home rentals in Tobago. Our standards exceed the<br />
rest. See us for property or land acquisition and sales with<br />
personalised, knowledgeable service.<br />
Peeping Fish<br />
“Where beach meets street.” The one-stop shop for the<br />
trendiest local and international brands of swimwear,<br />
resortwear, footwear, and accessories. Our eclectic mix of<br />
specially curated pieces celebrates the individuality of the<br />
adventurous spirit, on or off the beach.<br />
82 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
WE specialize in<br />
• intimate weddings ,<br />
• every day floral arrangements<br />
• bridal bouquets<br />
• coordinating<br />
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Gulf City Lowland Mall | Tobago<br />
(o) 1 868 639 8828/660 8828 | (m) 1 868 360 0179<br />
eyefordesignflowershop@gmail.com<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 83
Viewed from beach level, the jetty at<br />
Pigeon Point and its thatched shed may be<br />
Tobago’s most instantly recognisable and<br />
most photographed landmark. But from<br />
high above it’s barely a speck in the broad<br />
expanse of shallow blue water extending<br />
all the way out to Buccoo Reef<br />
tarique eastman<br />
84 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
An Oasis of Serenity<br />
www.plantationbeachvillas.com<br />
info@plantationbeachvillas.com<br />
Tel: (868) 639-9377<br />
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• Warm friendly service<br />
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• Yoga and massage<br />
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• Live band on weekends<br />
Come home to yourself… come home<br />
to Kariwak… where Tobago begins.<br />
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@kariwakvillage<br />
Coco Reef Resort • Magdalena Grand Beach Resort • Mt Irvine Bay Resort<br />
Tel: 868.631.2626 • E: underseatobagoltd@gmail.com • www.underseatobago.com<br />
Intimate Tobago Weddings<br />
create memories in paradise<br />
Packages include<br />
* Breathtaking Blooms<br />
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(868) 660 7748/395 8330<br />
Black Rock • Tobago • Tel: 868-639-0361<br />
www.stonehavenvillas.com<br />
reservations@stonehavenvillas.com<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 85
As any Tobagonian can tell you, the island’s<br />
Main Ridge is home to the oldest legally<br />
protected forest reserve in the world, dating<br />
to 1776 <strong>—</strong> an early milestone in the history<br />
of conservation. The reserve is home to<br />
hundreds of species of wildlife, and protects<br />
Tobago’s watershed <strong>—</strong> and is criss-crossed<br />
by hiking trails that can take you to the very<br />
heart of the island’s natural splendour<br />
DebraLee Wiseberg/istock.com<br />
86 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Just twenty-five miles long and six wide,<br />
Tobago can feel bigger than its size on<br />
the map, thanks to its rugged terrain<br />
and winding mountain roads<br />
DebraLee Wiseberg/istock.com<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 87
Among villages of modern concrete<br />
houses, a few Victorian-era wooden<br />
gingerbread cottages still survive. Even<br />
the most modest boast hints of elaborate<br />
fretwork, and high-pitched roofs<br />
designed to repel tropical downpours<br />
chris anderson<br />
88 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Bambú<br />
GIFT SHOP<br />
Rare & exotic arts and crafts<br />
made in the <strong>Caribbean</strong><br />
Lovely <strong>Caribbean</strong> wear, collectibles,<br />
accessories and much more...<br />
#199 Milford Road, Crown Point, Tobago<br />
T. 868-639-8133<br />
E: mariela0767@hotmail.com<br />
Tobago<br />
Resort wear<br />
Coco Reef Resort and Spa<br />
(868) 631 5244<br />
Magdalena Grand Beach Resort<br />
(868) 631 0960<br />
Tobago Plantaons, Lowlands, Tobago. Tel: 868 660 4411<br />
Open: Wed to Mon 10am-11pm. Closed on Tuesdays.<br />
GOOD<br />
food<br />
GOOD<br />
prices<br />
Cnr Crompstain & Milford Rds, Crown Point, Tobago<br />
Tel: (868) 639-8660 goodeatstobago<br />
*Across the road from the ANR International Airport<br />
Crown Point, Tobago<br />
Casino/Bar: 868 631-0044/0500<br />
Jade Cafe: 868 6398361<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 89
Goats <strong>—</strong> like these, heading home on a<br />
rural lane <strong>—</strong> are staple livestock in Tobago.<br />
They also become the star attraction at<br />
Easter, when traditional goat-racing brings<br />
out the island’s competitive instincts<br />
chris anderson<br />
ADVERTORIAL<br />
Shaw Park Complex<br />
Home to stunning local art and a stellar events team who<br />
ensure an exceptional and tailored experience for every<br />
guest. The 5,000-capacity Shaw Park Complex is a modern<br />
centre for the arts which features both theatre and<br />
conferencing capabilities.<br />
Skewers<br />
One of the island’s gems, Tobago’s number one Arabic<br />
restaurant, providing a consistently exquisite menu of unique<br />
Middle Eastern food infused with a local flavour, for over ten<br />
years. There’s only one Skewers. 100% Halal.<br />
The Sugar Mill Suites<br />
Nestled in the unsullied Tobago Plantations Beach &<br />
Golf Resort, you can choose between our comfortable<br />
luxurious modern “homes,” our elegant old-fashioned<br />
condo-style units, and our cozy bungalows. These types of<br />
accommodation offer you the convenience and excellent<br />
service you’d expect from a top class-resort. Find out more<br />
about Sugar Mill Condos, Bungalows, and Villas to better<br />
accommodate you.<br />
Tomas Villa<br />
This luxurious villa, recently renovated, is located in the Bon<br />
Accord Development, five minutes from the A.N.R. Robinson<br />
International Airport and the popular beaches of Store Bay<br />
and Pigeon Point. Restaurants, nightlife, and supermarkets<br />
are only minutes away. Tobago is known for its green,<br />
clean, and serene atmosphere. You’ll be enthralled by its<br />
tranquility, diverse cultures, beautiful beaches, and dive sites.<br />
Tropikist Beach Hotel & Resort<br />
Tropikist offers a stunning panoramic view, an ideal location<br />
close to the airport, plus easy access to beaches, local<br />
attractions, and activities. Bask in the sun, then enjoy a<br />
cocktail as the sun sets! Tropikist <strong>—</strong> your tropical destination.<br />
Villas Are Us<br />
We are a small full-service rental agency, offering effortless<br />
vacations and villas which are among the most beautifully<br />
appointed and ideally situated on the island. Our caring staff<br />
is committed to seeing that your every need is met.<br />
90 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 91
Sunset at Mt Irvine Bay, Tobago’s most<br />
popular surfing site<br />
welmoet photography<br />
Spacious, Comfortable, Rustic Community Lane,<br />
Tasty local lunches [from $25]<br />
Mt Pleasant,<br />
Delicious Fireside Curries<br />
Tobago<br />
Well Stocked Bar<br />
(868) 313 2917<br />
(868) 298 5249<br />
Happy Hour Fridays<br />
See our reviews<br />
After-work Specials<br />
on Google Maps,<br />
10 Minutes from Crown Pt Tripadvisor & Facebook.<br />
Steak & Seafood Dinners For more information visit<br />
[from $120]<br />
www.honeysrestaurants.com<br />
92 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Little Tobago<br />
Charlotteville<br />
Tobago Main Ridge<br />
Forest Reserve<br />
Black Rock<br />
Buccoo Reef<br />
Speyside<br />
Pigeon Point<br />
Store Bay<br />
Scarborough<br />
Crown Point<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines operates numerous flights each day between<br />
Trinidad and Tobago<br />
<br />
<br />
Roosserie & Grill PLUS<br />
Roosserie Chicken<br />
Pork Chops | Baby Back Ribs<br />
Garlic Chicken | BBQ Pigtail<br />
Grilled Fish | Jerk Wings<br />
Buffalo Wings<br />
and more<br />
Located at Pelican Plaza,<br />
Milford Road, Crown Point,<br />
Tobago, W.I.<br />
Tel. (868) 639-8563<br />
Sister outlets<br />
ANR Robinson airport<br />
639 5000<br />
Shirvan Plaza<br />
631 1000<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 93
NEIGHBOURHOOD<br />
cdwheatley/istock.com<br />
t:mtcurado/istock.com<br />
Gustavia,<br />
St Barthélemy<br />
The postcard-perfect capital of St Barts<br />
looks like a small French harbour town<br />
transplanted in the Antilles <strong>—</strong> with a<br />
Swedish twist to its Gallic charms<br />
After the storm<br />
Although battered by Hurricane<br />
Irma in September 2017, the<br />
residents of Gustavia got to work in<br />
the immediate aftermath, cleaning<br />
up and rebuilding their town.<br />
By the end of October, St Barts<br />
authorities reported that the island<br />
was ready to receive visitors for<br />
the traditional start of the tourism<br />
season in November.<br />
Streetscape<br />
Gustavia’s U-shape is determined by the<br />
contours of its harbour, hemmed in by<br />
the hills to the east, and watched over<br />
by three Swedish-era forts. Swedish<br />
influence is also evident in the town’s<br />
historic architecture, with its redroofed,<br />
white-painted stone houses, now<br />
scrupulously restored. Look out for the<br />
clock tower on Rue Gambetta, shaped<br />
like a slightly squat obelisk, with an<br />
upper-section of blue-painted timber<br />
<strong>—</strong> the remnant of a church destroyed<br />
long ago in a hurricane. The bell, dated<br />
to 1799, is still rung to mark municipal<br />
celebrations and other momentous<br />
events. Another town landmark is a huge<br />
eighteenth-century anchor discovered<br />
by accident in 1981, thought to have<br />
belonged to a ship of the Royal Navy.<br />
mtcurado/istock.com<br />
94 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
History<br />
When St Barthélemy was claimed by France in 1648, Le Carénage <strong>—</strong> the small,<br />
narrow bay on the island’s west coast, sheltered by volcanic hills <strong>—</strong> was the natural<br />
site for a harbour. In 1784, St Barts was ceded by France to Sweden, beginning a nearcentury<br />
of Scandinavian rule. The Swedes renamed the capital after King Gustav<br />
III, and declared Gustavia a free port, opening an era of highly profitable trade (and<br />
smuggling). Repurchased by France in 1878, the island declined into an economic<br />
backwater until the 1960s, when electricity finally arrived and the construction of<br />
a small airport encouraged the first tourist resorts. High-end tourism is now the<br />
mainstay, as St Barts has developed a reputation as a playground of the international<br />
jet-set, who converge here in their yachts for New Year’s celebrations <strong>—</strong> when locals<br />
retreat to their homes, awaiting the return of the low season.<br />
leonard Zhukovsky/shutterstock.com<br />
Elvira Sa/shutterstock.com<br />
Time for a swim<br />
St Barts’s beaches are deservedly<br />
famous, and the island’s compact<br />
size <strong>—</strong> less than ten square miles <strong>—</strong><br />
means they’re all within easy reach of<br />
Gustavia. Nearest to hand is popular<br />
Anse de Grands Galets, better known<br />
as Shell Beach, just over the hill from<br />
the harbour and below Fort Karl. (As its<br />
name suggests, the beach is strewn with<br />
pink seashells underfoot.) Further out<br />
along the coast, you can take your pick:<br />
does your dream beach have trendy bars<br />
and restaurants like St-Jean on the north<br />
coast, or do you prefer a more isolated<br />
locale, like Gouverneur to the south (with<br />
its view of St Kitts) or rugged Colombier<br />
at the island’s western tip, accessible<br />
only by a hiking trail?<br />
Souvenir<br />
Given the extremely well-heeled<br />
demographic of most St Barts visitors,<br />
it’s no surprise that Gustavia boasts<br />
some of the <strong>Caribbean</strong>’s poshest<br />
boutiques, including branches<br />
of designer shops from the most<br />
fashionable Paris streets. You’ll have<br />
no trouble replacing your Louis Vuitton<br />
luggage, your Hermès scarf, your<br />
Cartier necklace. In a somewhat<br />
less ruinous price range,<br />
you can also find boutiques<br />
with locally made jewellery<br />
and straw hats, and beauty<br />
products from Ligne St Barth,<br />
made with indigenous herbs<br />
and ingredients like mango butter,<br />
frangipani, and pineapple.<br />
Fort to fort<br />
Gustavia is small enough to explore<br />
by foot in a morning, and the town’s<br />
three forts make ideal guideposts.<br />
Start on the eastern side of the harbour<br />
entrance, where the Quai Jeanne d’Arc<br />
is overshadowed by the remains of<br />
Fort Gustav and its almost comical<br />
lighthouse. From here, you can scope<br />
out your entire route: south along the<br />
waterfront to St Bartholemew’s Anglican<br />
Church, then west to Fort Karl, then<br />
north again along the harbour to Fort<br />
Oscar and the Municipal Museum in the<br />
eighteenth-century Wall House, home<br />
to everything from historic artifacts<br />
to natural history specimens and local<br />
craft. Should your stroll rouse a thirst,<br />
you’ll have your pick of chic little cafés<br />
where the atmosphere ranges from<br />
French to very French.<br />
Gustavia<br />
Co-ordinates<br />
17.9º N 62.9º W<br />
Sea Level<br />
St Barthélemy<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> Airlines operates regular flights to Princess Juliana International<br />
Airport in Sint Maarten, with connections on other airlines and via ferry to<br />
St Barthélemy<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 95
Round Trip<br />
It’s a common sight in Port-au-Prince:<br />
informal outdoor galleries set up by<br />
working artists like Baptiste Jonas, who<br />
displays his paintings in the Petionville<br />
neighbourhood, hung salon-style on<br />
a chain-link fence. All are available<br />
for sale, or simply to catch the eyes of<br />
passing traffic<br />
96 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Across the <strong>Caribbean</strong>, Carnival brings astonishing artistry out into the<br />
streets. But all year round there are ample opportunities to experience<br />
art in public spaces, out in the open <strong>—</strong> en plein air, as a painter might<br />
say. From murals to monuments, here’s a regional roundup of outdoor<br />
art that doesn’t require you to set foot in a museum<br />
Hemis / Alamy Stock Photo<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 97
Born in Ciudad Bolívar, the Venezuelan<br />
artist Jésus Soto (1923–2005) is<br />
famous for his interactive Penetrable<br />
sculptures, in which flexible hanging<br />
tubes create geometric forms that<br />
viewers can enter. Like this red sphere,<br />
which floats along the Francisco<br />
Fajardo highway in Caracas<br />
paolo costa/shutterstock.com<br />
98 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
imagebroker/alamystockphoto<br />
Officially known as the 1763<br />
Monument, towering above<br />
Georgetown’s Square of the<br />
Revolution, this sculpture by<br />
pioneering Guyanese artist Philip<br />
Moore (1921–2012) depicts the<br />
rebel leader Cuffy, mastermind of<br />
a rebellion against slavery in the<br />
colony of Berbice. The statue’s<br />
intricately carved surfaces include<br />
West African and Amerindian<br />
symbols of strength and power<br />
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Devised by the Fresh Milk art centre in 2014, the Fresh Stops<br />
project commissioned six young artists to produce original artworks<br />
to be incorporated into roadside benches across Barbados. Works<br />
by Simone Padmore (above) Matthew Clarke (right), Mark King<br />
(below right), Versia Harris (below), and others put provocative<br />
imagery literally behind the backs of commuters across the island<br />
courtesy fresh milk<br />
courtesy fresh milk<br />
COURTESY fresh milk<br />
courtesy fresh milk<br />
100 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
A landmark of the<br />
University of the West<br />
Indies Mona campus in<br />
Jamaica, the mural by<br />
Belgian artist Claude Rahir<br />
(1937–2007) <strong>—</strong> completed<br />
in 1979 <strong>—</strong> adorns the<br />
façade of the Assembly<br />
Hall. Three stories high,<br />
it depicts the university’s<br />
eight faculties alongside<br />
images of children at<br />
school and at play<br />
102 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 103<br />
Jeff Greenberg/UIG via Getty Images
On Martinique’s southwest coast,<br />
the Anse Cafard Slavery Memorial<br />
is an unforgettable reminder of the<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong>’s tragic past. Created by<br />
sculptor Laurent Valére in 1998, the<br />
memorial’s hulking concrete figures<br />
<strong>—</strong> each eight feet tall and staring out<br />
to sea <strong>—</strong> depict a group of Africans<br />
drowned nearby in 1830, shackled<br />
together in the hold of a slave ship. The<br />
figures’ posture suggests a powerful<br />
sorrow, while their rough-hewn faces<br />
project a determination to survive<br />
hemis/alamy stock photo<br />
104 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
ENGAGE<br />
arun madisetti/images dominica<br />
106 Green<br />
What follows the storm<br />
108<br />
The Deal<br />
Seaweed for sale<br />
110<br />
On This Day<br />
A distant light<br />
Recent sightings of Dominica’s national bird, the Sisserou parrot, prove that the endangered species survived Hurricane Maria
Green<br />
WhAT follows<br />
the storm<br />
When Hurricane Maria tore through Dominica<br />
in September 2017, lives were lost, homes<br />
destroyed, and businesses crippled. But the<br />
storm also took a toll on forests and wildlife <strong>—</strong><br />
with major implications for an economy that<br />
depends on eco-tourism. Paul Crask reports<br />
Photography by Paul Crask<br />
In the silent, misty morning after the<br />
hurricane, it both felt and looked<br />
like the end. With sustained winds<br />
recorded at 220 miles per hour, and<br />
gusting off the scale, the devastation<br />
wreaked by Hurricane Maria was so brutal<br />
and stark that it brought me to my knees.<br />
Lush forests were transformed to<br />
naked hillsides of leafless, skeletal shards<br />
that were once trees but now looked more<br />
like ghosts. Some had even had been<br />
stripped of their bark. Around eighty<br />
percent of Dominica’s 25,000 homes<br />
were damaged, with most losing at least<br />
the roof. Businesses were destroyed and<br />
wantonly looted, lives had been lost, and<br />
others were declared missing. A stunned<br />
silence reigned.<br />
While the socio-economic and infrastructure<br />
damage, clean-up, and repair<br />
became the immediate focus of the collective<br />
recovery efforts, the effect of the<br />
storm on the island’s natural heritage was,<br />
understandably, of secondary concern.<br />
It was not until the fourth week of the<br />
aftermath that I happened to hear a local<br />
radio broadcast discussing the impact of<br />
the hurricane on nature.<br />
“Nature takes care of itself,” said one<br />
expert, urging us not to worry about it<br />
too much, yet acknowledging that the<br />
revival of the island’s nature and wildlife<br />
was important for tourism. Increasingly,<br />
Dominica’s natural and cultural heritage<br />
are linked to tourism revenue, rather than<br />
something that ought to be preserved<br />
and celebrated in its own right. With<br />
the advent of destination marketing,<br />
nature has, rather unfortunately, become<br />
regarded as an eco-tourism product.<br />
Dominica’s habitats range from dry<br />
and littoral woodlands on its coasts to<br />
cloud forest atop its many volcanic peaks.<br />
But the predominant habitat, covering<br />
around eighty percent of the island, is<br />
rainforest. The island’s rainforest is home<br />
to a diverse and fragile ecosystem that<br />
includes around two hundred species of<br />
fern and rare birds such as the regionally<br />
endemic rufous-throated solitaire (or<br />
mountain whistler), four species of hummingbird,<br />
twelve species of bat, and the<br />
locally endemic and endangered red-neck<br />
(Jaco) and imperial (Sisserou) parrots.<br />
Hiking trails, often developed from<br />
historic traces used by Kalinago and<br />
Maroons, weave through this habitat in a<br />
vast but hidden network, and have become<br />
a draw for independent travellers with<br />
a love of the outdoors and unexplored<br />
places. Waterfalls, countless rivers, crater<br />
lakes, and one of the densest clusters of<br />
volcanoes beyond the Pacific Rim have<br />
earned the Morne Trois Pitons National<br />
Park UNESCO status, and Dominica<br />
has long branded itself the <strong>Caribbean</strong>’s<br />
“Nature Island.” With most hotels describing<br />
themselves in some shape or form<br />
as eco accommodation, and with many<br />
people employed in the eco-tourism<br />
service sector, nature has indeed become<br />
inextricably linked to earnings.<br />
Nature does take care of itself,<br />
and, thankfully, there’s been no<br />
suggestion anyone should interfere<br />
with its recovery in Dominica. But the<br />
leaves that were beginning to reappear on<br />
trees four weeks after the hurricane were<br />
far from a canopy. And a rainforest really<br />
needs a canopy.<br />
Without a full leaf canopy, the forest is<br />
exposed to full sunlight, and plants that<br />
are opportunistic and sun-loving will tend<br />
to occupy the spaces on the forest floor<br />
that were previously the domain of those<br />
that prefer the shade, and upon which<br />
other plants, mammals, reptiles, birds,<br />
insects, amphibians, and invertebrates<br />
are dependent. Without a canopy, birds<br />
such as the two endemic parrot species<br />
have no natural source of food, and will<br />
seek fruits elsewhere, usually in gardens<br />
or citrus plantations. In the weeks following<br />
the hurricane, people observed the<br />
Jaco parrot foraging in such places. In late<br />
November, there was finally a confirmed<br />
sighting of the Sisserou. Given that it<br />
exists only in Dominica <strong>—</strong> and is the<br />
national bird, appearing on the country’s<br />
flag <strong>—</strong> there is real concern that the species<br />
could be pushed closer to extinction.<br />
Recent studies of the effect of hurricanes<br />
on forests have been made in Brazil,<br />
Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. Conclusions<br />
are varied, as are estimates of how long it<br />
takes for a forest to fully recover <strong>—</strong> ranging<br />
from fifty to four thousand years. But<br />
106 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Dominica’s Trafalgar Falls, a popular<br />
attraction for visitors, before and after<br />
Hurricane Maria<br />
in this kind of habitat are dependent on<br />
animals and birds to disperse seeds. If those<br />
creatures are not there to do that, or their<br />
numbers have been adversely impacted,<br />
new tree growth is reduced, along with<br />
future food sources.<br />
From my porch on the western slopes<br />
of the Morne Anglais volcano, I saw the<br />
landscape transition from brown to green<br />
within four weeks of the hurricane and,<br />
even though I know it is just thin new foliage<br />
painted over much deeper cracks, I see<br />
it as a promising beginning, and no longer<br />
an end. Nature may well recover better<br />
than its dependent eco-tourism sector,<br />
Nature may well<br />
recover better than its<br />
dependent eco-tourism<br />
sector, which has been<br />
very badly hit<br />
none of the studies followed a hurricane<br />
as severe as Maria, and even Dominica’s<br />
own experience after Hurricane David in<br />
1979 is not really comparable, as David<br />
was a weaker storm and predominantly<br />
affected the south of the island. Category<br />
five (plus) Hurricane Maria tracked<br />
through the middle of the island, and so<br />
all habitats were affected.<br />
Having hiked all over Dominica, and<br />
written about it for more than ten years, I<br />
am concerned, but not without hope. I do<br />
fear for the survival of the Sisserou, but<br />
I also know how fertile this island is and<br />
how quickly plants and trees grow. Also<br />
the sheer number of deep valleys and steep<br />
mountain slopes means that leeward-facing<br />
and other slightly more protected sections<br />
of forest perhaps did not suffer quite as<br />
much as those that are more exposed. In<br />
these largely inaccessible habitats, I would<br />
like to imagine the mountain whistler still<br />
sings and the Sisserou finds nourishment.<br />
But around eighty percent of tree species<br />
which has been very badly hit. It is estimated<br />
that around fifty per cent of hotels<br />
in Dominica will require a partial or total<br />
rebuilding period of a year or more, and<br />
(unsubstantiated) estimates of the scale of<br />
migration from the island by people who<br />
need to find a life and an income elsewhere<br />
are already quite disturbing.<br />
As time passes, I am hopeful that the<br />
shade-loving plants will out-muscle the<br />
sun-loving opportunists in Dominica, and<br />
that nature will thrive. But this has to be a<br />
time for fresh, new, creative thinking, and<br />
not simply more of the same. “The same”<br />
doesn’t exist any longer <strong>—</strong> and, with the<br />
obvious effects of climate change, more<br />
extreme weather events like Maria seem<br />
inevitable. The future is not what it used<br />
to be. n<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 107
THE DEAL<br />
Seaweed<br />
When the beaches of St Lucia<br />
were inundated with sargassum,<br />
Johanan Dujon didn’t see a<br />
problem <strong>—</strong> he saw an opportunity.<br />
Under the Algas Organics label, the<br />
young entrepreneur manufactures<br />
a sargassum-based fertiliser, and<br />
his eye is on a regional market.<br />
Erline Andrews learns more<br />
Back in 2011, sargassum seaweed <strong>—</strong> a greenishbrown<br />
mass of vegetation that usually originates<br />
from the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic <strong>—</strong><br />
began piling up on beaches across the <strong>Caribbean</strong>.<br />
It’s not unusual for the seaweed to appear<br />
seasonally, but scientists speculate that because<br />
of warmer temperatures due to climate change <strong>—</strong> plus the effect<br />
of man-made fertilisers and sewage contaminating the sea <strong>—</strong><br />
quantities grew dramatically, becoming a serious challenge for<br />
the <strong>Caribbean</strong>’s tourism and fishing industries, the mainstay of<br />
many islands.<br />
In 2014, the seaweed problem reached a peak. Twentyone-year-old<br />
Johanan Dujon was at a friend’s house when the<br />
conversation turned <strong>—</strong> as it likely did at many gatherings in<br />
St Lucia <strong>—</strong> to the sargassum, which was clogging the engines of<br />
fishing vessels, killing fish and crabs, and emanating a sickening<br />
odour as it rotted on beaches.<br />
“Her mom was mentioning that seaweed can be used as<br />
fertiliser, [and asking] why was nobody doing anything about<br />
it,” Dujon recalls. “That is where the thought came from. If this<br />
material is coming here and we can make something out of it,<br />
then we’d be solving two issues. We’d be creating a product that<br />
we could make money off of, that [also] kept the beaches clean.”<br />
Dujon, by his account, hadn’t been a brilliant science student.<br />
After graduating from the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College<br />
<strong>—</strong> where he studied literature, Spanish, and business <strong>—</strong> he was<br />
a primary school physical education teacher and ran a fishing<br />
supplies business. But he had the foresight to see an opportunity<br />
in the sargassum influx, and the drive and the family support to<br />
carry it out.<br />
For Sale<br />
“When I first came up with the idea, I couldn’t sleep. It was<br />
like a tugging <strong>—</strong> get up and go try something with the seaweed!”<br />
says Dujon. “I finally said to my father, Dad, let’s go and collect<br />
some seaweed to experiment. The average person who said that<br />
to their parents, their reaction would be, What are you doing?<br />
His reaction was <strong>—</strong> he has a pickup that we still use to move the<br />
products around <strong>—</strong> he says to me, OK, let’s go.<br />
“He would go out with me to collect the seaweed. My mom as<br />
well,” Dujon continues. “We would dry the seaweed in the initial<br />
instance and try to sell it off in front of supermarkets <strong>—</strong> and<br />
nobody bought one bag. Nobody. But . . . the point is the support<br />
was there from the onset. It’s still there now.”<br />
Today, Dujon is managing director of Algas Organics,<br />
which produces a liquid fertiliser <strong>—</strong> Algas Total Plant<br />
Tonic <strong>—</strong> made from sargassum. Dujon came up with the<br />
product after months of experimenting. He, his family,<br />
and a small team of part-time employees harvest the sargassum<br />
from affected coastlines and manufacture bottles of the fertiliser<br />
with support from international and local public agencies.<br />
After operating for several years out of the Dujon home, a<br />
processing plant will formally open later this year, and after<br />
selling to retailers and corporate clients in St Lucia, Algas has<br />
begun exporting to Barbados. Dujon hopes eventually to export<br />
to other countries in the region and beyond, and expand manufacturing<br />
operations to other parts of the <strong>Caribbean</strong> affected by<br />
sargassum. In <strong>January</strong> 2017, the St Lucia Chamber of Commerce<br />
named him Young Entrepreneur of the Year.<br />
Giles Romulus runs the UNDP’s Global Environment Facility<br />
Small Grants Programme in St Lucia, which helped fund<br />
Algas’s operations after Dujon agreed to share profits with the<br />
St Lucia Fisherfolk Cooperative Society, an NGO that represents<br />
the fishing community. “He got a lot of support,” Romulus<br />
explains, “and the fact that he’s willing to go into partnership<br />
with a civil society organisation that can benefit and also<br />
give him some guidance <strong>—</strong> that helped. Johanan realised he<br />
couldn’t do it alone.”<br />
Romulus points to Microsoft, Dell, and Facebook. “Many of<br />
the biggest companies in the world started in the university bed-<br />
108 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Marc Bruxelle/shutterstock.com<br />
“Being successful as an entrepreneur<br />
comes from you having the latitude<br />
to fail,” explains Johanan Dujon<br />
Courtesy<br />
Johanan Dujon<br />
room,” he says. “You start small and you look for opportunities<br />
for partnerships. [Algas] is an excellent example of a partnership<br />
that has brought results in a short period of time.”<br />
Romulus said he hopes the project will grow if another<br />
injection of funding is approved. In addition to the manufacturing<br />
plant, he’d like to see Algas set up a research lab. “We<br />
want expansion beyond sargassum,” he says. “St Lucia has a<br />
lot of endemic plants that need to be studied. I believe that<br />
there are chemicals in our plants in the <strong>Caribbean</strong> that are yet<br />
untouched.”<br />
Last year, Dujon was a presenter at the Earth Optimism Summit<br />
organised by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.<br />
The inaugural event was intended to celebrate and share successful<br />
ideas in environmental protection. Dujon was selected<br />
after responding to an invitation for submissions, and may have<br />
been the only representative from the English-speaking <strong>Caribbean</strong>.<br />
“We, in all of the environmental challenges that we’re<br />
faced with, have the opportunity to convert them into profitable<br />
ventures,” he told the audience.<br />
He presented test results that show Algas fertiliser performing<br />
better than the big American brand Miracle-Gro, and touted<br />
its organic nature. “Our product reduces the need for synthetic<br />
chemicals, which leach out into our soils and into our waters<br />
and increases your yield,” he told the summit. “If you match<br />
innovation with funding, mentorship, technical support, and<br />
community and environmental conscience, what you’re going to<br />
get is a revolutionary solution which can stand out at the global<br />
scale,” he concluded.<br />
There’ve been other ideas bandied about for making productive<br />
use of sargassum. A team at the University of the West<br />
Indies St Augustine campus has experimented with turning it<br />
into plastic. Barbadian environmental entrepreneur Mark Hill<br />
has made it into food and particleboard. But Dujon’s project<br />
seems to be the first to really bear fruit.<br />
He’s encountered other people who had the idea to convert<br />
the sargassum into salable fertiliser. “They had the idea but they<br />
couldn’t do it,” he says. “Entrepreneurship is about risks. I am<br />
twenty-something. If I leave my job and this doesn’t work, I can<br />
do something else. Being successful as an entrepreneur comes<br />
from you having the latitude to fail. If you have a mortgage and<br />
children and a wife, it’s not OK to fail. The younger you, are the<br />
easier it should be to take risks.”<br />
The region needs more venture capitalists, he says, to put<br />
money into risky but potentially lucrative start-up businesses.<br />
“Once you have that kind of network, then you would see entrepreneurship<br />
really take off.” n<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 109
on this day<br />
A DISTANT<br />
light<br />
For such a tiny, remote place, Sombrero<br />
Island in the Anegada Passage has had<br />
a surprisingly colourful history <strong>—</strong> from<br />
shipwrecks to a guano-inspired international<br />
incident to the crucial lighthouse that began<br />
service one hundred and fifty years ago.<br />
James Ferguson tells its story<br />
Illustration by Rohan Mitchell<br />
As dusk fell on the evening of 1 <strong>January</strong>, 1868,<br />
Europe-bound ships passing warily through the<br />
infamous Anegada Passage <strong>—</strong> the forty-mile<br />
stretch of water separating the British Virgin<br />
Islands from the northern tip of the Leewards<br />
<strong>—</strong> may have been surprised to see the regular<br />
and reassuring flashes of a distant lighthouse on their starboard<br />
side. A white glow appeared directly across the dark water every<br />
sixty seconds before fading away into the night. Some ships, it<br />
is said, sounded their sirens in appreciation as they headed out<br />
of the <strong>Caribbean</strong> Sea into the Atlantic. Once a dangerous place<br />
of hidden reefs and unpredictable currents, the Anegada Passage<br />
was suddenly a great deal safer.<br />
The site of the beacon was a tiny, arid outcrop at the northernmost<br />
tip of the Leeward archipelago, one of the most remote<br />
of the <strong>Caribbean</strong>’s seven thousand islands and a minuscule<br />
outpost of the British Empire. Named Sombrero Island because<br />
it resembled a Mexican hat in shape, this ninety-acre islet had<br />
no fresh water, almost no vegetation, and a large population of<br />
lizards and seabirds. It was considered part of the (relatively)<br />
larger colony of Anguilla and had belonged to Britain since 1714.<br />
The lighthouse, made of steel girders and shipped across<br />
the Atlantic from London, was assembled and situated on<br />
Sombrero’s highest point, forty feet above sea level. An engraving<br />
of 1875 shows an Eiffel Tower–like construction standing<br />
on a base, topped by a lantern room. It burned kerosene<br />
and was operated by a staff of four lighthouse keepers, who<br />
worked shifts at night to keep the light shining before it was<br />
extinguished at dawn.<br />
Sombrero was undeniably isolated, lying thirty-four miles<br />
northwest of Anguilla, but it had known irregular human<br />
habitation since the early nineteenth century. A British sailor<br />
marooned for stealing beer had survived his ordeal by being<br />
spotted by a passing American ship. It was then discovered<br />
by British geologists that vast accretions of seabird droppings<br />
had formed nitrate-rich guano deposits. News of this find<br />
reached the United States, and in 1856 an American company<br />
began extracting the fertiliser and exporting it back to the<br />
plantations of the South. Workers were required for the gruelling<br />
mining operation, and an exclusively black workforce was<br />
recruited from neighbouring islands. In its heyday, the operation<br />
employed two hundred men, accommodated in ramshackle huts<br />
and reliant on supplies brought from St Martin. As there was no<br />
port or beach, the guano had to be shovelled into barges which<br />
then transferred their cargo to boats lying off the island.<br />
Just like the extraction process, the social situation was<br />
unsustainable. A violent dispute over wages broke out in August<br />
1860, and, according to The New York Times, one of the workers<br />
“hurled a tremendous lump of guano at [a white foreman’s]<br />
head, crushed his skull with the blow, and left him for dead on<br />
the ground.” The workers then took over the island, plundering<br />
the stores, until order was finally restored. Seven years later,<br />
an international court ruled that the US company had illegally<br />
occupied the island, and sovereignty <strong>—</strong> together with the guano<br />
mine <strong>—</strong> was restored to Britain. Extraction continued until<br />
supplies ran out in 1890 and the mine was closed. Little remains<br />
of this nitrate mini-boom, apart from a few scattered industrial<br />
ruins, a worker’s tombstone, and the gouged, cratered landscape.<br />
110 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Little remains of Sombrero Island’s<br />
nitrate mini-boom, apart from a<br />
few scattered industrial ruins<br />
Perhaps understandably for someone who spent thirty-one years<br />
adrift in the middle of the ocean with only four companions, Sam likes<br />
to talk. He was part of a team that consisted of a Principal Keeper, two<br />
assistant keepers and a cook. They would each spend six weeks on<br />
Sombrero and two weeks leave back on Anguilla. According<br />
to Sam, those six weeks flew by. Unless you got to<br />
brooding, that is. “Sometimes it<br />
could get a little boring if you<br />
started to think too much”<br />
. . . For recreation, the keepers<br />
snorkelled and fished.<br />
Once Sam saw a large shark<br />
while snorkelling, which, thankfully,<br />
was not interested in him. They listened<br />
to the radio, played cards or dominoes,<br />
and star-gazed.<br />
For twenty-two years, the lighthouse keepers had shared the<br />
island with a fractious community of miners and overseers,<br />
but now they were left on their own. The lighthouse itself<br />
was administered by Trinity House in London, the organisation<br />
charged with UK maritime safety. In 1931, improvements were<br />
made to its light power and it was given a solid concrete base. This<br />
proved ineffective, however, when Hurricane Donna smashed<br />
into Sombrero in September 1960, and damaged it beyond repair.<br />
It was demolished and replaced by a similar-looking skeletal<br />
structure mounted on a concrete base, inaugurated in July 1962.<br />
It was 126 feet high, requiring the keepers to climb 163 steps to<br />
reach the lantern room at the top.<br />
The lives of the lighthouse keepers from the 1970s are<br />
evocatively recreated in an article entitled “Marooned” by Sarah<br />
Harrison in The Anguillian. Interviewing the recently retired Sam<br />
Richardson in 2013, she captures the strange, lonely existence<br />
of those men:<br />
This way of life was to end, to<br />
Sam’s regret, in September 2001,<br />
when a third, automated lighthouse<br />
was donated to Anguilla’s<br />
government by Trinity House and<br />
installed alongside the now disused concrete<br />
bases of the two previous structures. Looking rather<br />
like a white space rocket ready for take-off, this fifty-foot<br />
unmanned facility emits a white flash every ten seconds, powered<br />
by solar energy.<br />
Sombrero Island continues to provide a vital maritime<br />
service, exactly 150 years after the first London-built lighthouse<br />
began guiding shipping through the feared Anegada Passage.<br />
Today it is uninhabited, visited occasionally for maintenance<br />
checks or by divers or ornithologists, who must climb steep<br />
metal stairs from a dinghy to reach flat ground. The site is eerily<br />
atmospheric, with crashing waves and the noise of breeding<br />
boobies and terns filling the air.<br />
Twenty years ago, in 1998, there were reports that the nowdefunct<br />
Beal Aerospace company wanted to lease the island<br />
as a test rocket launch pad <strong>—</strong> but, thankfully, the plans came<br />
to nothing. And that will probably remain the case, as one of<br />
Sombrero’s distinct disadvantages <strong>—</strong> along with its precipitous<br />
cliffs and lunar appearance <strong>—</strong> is the fact that at only forty feet<br />
above sea level, it is occasionally swamped by large waves during<br />
storms or hurricanes, leaving only the lighthouse standing<br />
above water. n<br />
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 111
puzzles<br />
1 2 3 4 5 6 7<br />
CARIBBEAN CROSSWORD<br />
Across<br />
1 This ultra-hot chilli has a sting [8,6]<br />
9 Magical dexterity [7]<br />
10 Art style newly acquired [7]<br />
11 Something other [4]<br />
12 Borat’s former Soviet Republic [10]<br />
14 A monument, tall and pointy [7]<br />
15 Give generously [6]<br />
18 Apparition [6]<br />
20 Spartan [7]<br />
22 Like some rum barrels [5]<br />
24 Alongside [4]<br />
25 What was borrowed [4]<br />
27 Finish [3]<br />
28 Untruth [3]<br />
29 Like the dodo bird [7]<br />
30 Lord Invader’s most famous calypso hit [3,3,4,4]<br />
9 10<br />
11 12<br />
13<br />
14 15 16<br />
18 19 20<br />
21<br />
22 23 24 25<br />
26<br />
27 28 29<br />
8<br />
17<br />
Down<br />
1 Dominica’s rare national bird [8]<br />
2 When you miss your alarm [9]<br />
3 Books have these [4]<br />
4 Australia’s interior [7]<br />
5 The place to hear steel music [7]<br />
6 Softness and fluffiness [10]<br />
7 Function [5]<br />
8 Bird droppings make good fertiliser [5]<br />
13 Scent to ward off mosquitos [10]<br />
30<br />
16 Jamaican Akino Lindsay is a champ at this martial art [9]<br />
17 Blood feud [8]<br />
19 Blonde child [7]<br />
20 Historic Miami architectural style [3,4]<br />
21 Scandinavian prize [5]<br />
23 Invasive weed [5]<br />
26 Italian volcano [4]<br />
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE<br />
by James Hackett<br />
There are 10 differences<br />
between these two pictures.<br />
How many can you spot?<br />
Spot the Difference answers<br />
Boy on stilts has a different shirt; there is more detail in his head-tie; there is a handkerchief in the boy’s pocket; the left-hand stilts have<br />
grooves; the boy on the ground has a different shirt; there is more grass detail in the right image; the circle on the boy’s cap is bigger on the<br />
right; the boy’s cap has a different bill on the right; the boy on the right has a bandana on his hand; the shadows are different.<br />
112 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
WORD SEARCH<br />
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<strong>Caribbean</strong> <strong>Beat</strong> Magazine<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> <strong>Beat</strong> Magazine<br />
Sudoku<br />
by www.sudoku-puzzle.net<br />
Fill the empty square with numbers<br />
from 1 to 9 so that each row, each<br />
column, and each 3x3 box contains<br />
all of the numbers from 1 to 9. For<br />
the mini sudoku use numbers from<br />
1 to 6.<br />
Sudoku 9x9 - Puzzle 4 of 5 - Medium<br />
Medium 9x9 sudoku puzzle<br />
2 7 1 5<br />
5 6<br />
8 6 2 3<br />
5 2 7 3 6<br />
8 2<br />
3 4 8 9 1<br />
Sudoku 6x6 - Puzzle 3 of 5 - Medium<br />
Medium 6x6 mini sudoku puzzle<br />
1<br />
2 4<br />
1<br />
2 5<br />
If the puzzle you want to do has<br />
already been filled in, just ask your<br />
flight attendant for a new copy of the<br />
magazine!<br />
1 9 7 5<br />
7 4<br />
6 3 5 9<br />
www.sudoku-puzzles.net<br />
3 4<br />
4 6 1<br />
www.sudoku-puzzles.net<br />
www.sudoku-puzzle.net<br />
Solutions<br />
<strong>Caribbean</strong> Crossword<br />
Word Search<br />
U M A N D C O C A C O L A<br />
L Z L A C N D T<br />
N D 28 L I E 29 E X T I N C T<br />
Sudoku<br />
www.sudoku-puzzles.net<br />
Mini Sudoku<br />
Sudoku 6x6 - Solution 3 of 5 - Medium<br />
Sudoku 9x9 - Solution 4 of 5 - Medium<br />
6 4 2 3 5 1<br />
1 3 5 2 4 6<br />
6 2 4 7 3 1 8 5 9<br />
5 1 3 8 9 4 2 7 6<br />
9 7 8 6 5 2 3 4 1<br />
J S T O R E B A Y N O O R A M<br />
E E B H C I N A G R O M C H O<br />
S<br />
1<br />
S<br />
9<br />
C 2 O R 3 P I 4 O N 5 P E 6 P P 7 E R<br />
8<br />
I V A U A L V G<br />
L E I G H T 10 N O U V E A U<br />
1 5 9 2 7 3 4 6 8<br />
4 8 7 5 1 6 9 2 3<br />
2 3 6 4 8 9 7 1 5<br />
3 4 1 9 6 7 5 8 2<br />
7 9 5 1 2 8 6 3 4<br />
8 6 2 3 4 5 1 9 7<br />
www.sudoku-puzzles.net<br />
S R E B Y S N A<br />
E<br />
11<br />
5 1 3 4 6 2<br />
2 6 4 1 3 5<br />
3 5 1 6 2 4<br />
4 2 6 5 1 3<br />
O<br />
14<br />
L S E 12 K A Z A K H S T A N<br />
R L 13 C C R I O<br />
B U E H D 26 E O E<br />
B E L I S K 15 D O N A 16 T E<br />
U E T E A 17<br />
V<br />
N<br />
21<br />
S<br />
18<br />
P I R I T<br />
19 A<br />
20 U S T E R E<br />
O O R S K N<br />
A 23 K E N 24 W I T H 25 O W E D<br />
R<br />
30<br />
E<br />
27<br />
O<br />
22<br />
A N A I H A R B O U R D U A K<br />
N A R Y G U P A N T H E R R O<br />
A C T K N T D O T N D R R V J<br />
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D R S T A B O U S T N T N S M<br />
D R T R E M Y P C E V L T T B<br />
I U C A L L E O H K A E N L I<br />
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CARIBBEAN<br />
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Baggage: + 954 359 4487<br />
Miami<br />
Airport: Miami International<br />
Reservations & information: + 800 920 4225<br />
(toll free)<br />
Ticketing: South Terminal J – departures level (during<br />
flight check-in ONLY – 12 pm to 3.00 pm);<br />
Baggage: + 305 869 3795<br />
Orlando<br />
Airport: Orlando International<br />
Reservations & information:<br />
+ 800 920 4225 (toll free)<br />
Ticketing: Terminal A – departures level<br />
(during flight check-in ONLY – Mon/Fri 11:30 am<br />
– 2.15 pm)<br />
Baggage: + 407 825 3482<br />
New York<br />
Airport: John F Kennedy International<br />
Reservations & information: + 800 920 4225<br />
(toll free)<br />
Ticketing: Concourse B, Terminal 4, JFK<br />
International – open 24 hours (situated at departures,<br />
4th floor)<br />
Baggage: + 718 360 8930<br />
Toronto<br />
Airport: Lester B Pearson International<br />
Reservations & information: + 800 920 4225<br />
(toll free)<br />
Ticket office: Terminal 3<br />
Ticketing available daily at check-in counters<br />
422 and 423. Available 3 hours prior to<br />
departure times<br />
Baggage: + 905 672 9991<br />
SOUTH AMERICA<br />
Caracas<br />
Airport: Simón Bolívar International<br />
Reservations & information:<br />
+ 58 212 3552880<br />
Ticketing: Simón Bolívar International Level 2 –<br />
East Sector<br />
Hours: 7 am – 11 pm<br />
City Ticket Office: Sabana Grande Boulevard,<br />
Building “Galerias Bolivar”, 1st Floor, office 11-A,<br />
Caracas, Distrito Capital<br />
+ 58 212 762 4389 / 762 0231<br />
Baggage: + 58 424 1065937<br />
Guyana<br />
Airport: Cheddi Jagan International<br />
Reservations & information: + 800 744 2225<br />
(toll free)<br />
Ticket office: 91-92 Avenue of the Republic,<br />
Georgetown<br />
Baggage: + 011 592 261 2202<br />
Suriname<br />
Airport: Johan Adolf Pengel International<br />
Reservations & information: + 597 52 0034/0035<br />
(local); 1 868 625 6200 (Trinidad)<br />
Ticket Office: Paramaribo Express, N.V. Wagenwegstraat<br />
36, Paramaribo<br />
Baggage: + 597 325 437
Destination:<br />
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737 onboard Entertainment <strong>—</strong> <strong>January</strong>/february<br />
Northbound<br />
Southbound<br />
J A N U A R Y<br />
Spider-Man: Homecoming<br />
Peter Parker’s attempts to fall back into his normal daily routine<br />
are threatened by the emergence of a new villain.<br />
Logan Lucky<br />
Jimmy Logan leads his siblings, Clyde and Mellie, in an elaborate<br />
scheme to rob North Carolina’s Charlotte Motor Speedway.<br />
Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey, Jr • director: Jon Watts •<br />
sci-fi, action • PG-13 • 130 minutes<br />
Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig • director: Steven Soderbergh •<br />
comedy, drama • PG-13 • 119 minutes<br />
Northbound<br />
Southbound<br />
Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok<br />
Thor must race against time to stop Ragnarok <strong>—</strong> the destruction<br />
of his world and the end of Asgardian civilisation at the hands<br />
of the ruthless Hela.<br />
Murder on the Orient Express<br />
In the most timeless of whodunits, we follow renowned detective<br />
Hercule Poirot as he attempts to solve what would become<br />
one of the most infamous crimes in history.<br />
F E B R U A R Y<br />
Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett • director: Taika Waititi •<br />
sci-fi, action • PG-13 • 130 minutes<br />
Tom Bateman, Lucy Boynton, Kenneth Branagh • director: Kenneth<br />
Branagh • drama, thriller • PG-13 • 113 minutes<br />
Audio Channels<br />
Channel 5 • The Hits<br />
Channel 6 • Soft Hits<br />
Channel 7 • Concert Hall<br />
Channel 8 • East Indian Fusion<br />
Channel 9 • Irie Vibes<br />
Channel 10 • Jazz Sessions<br />
Channel 11 • Kaiso Kaiso<br />
Channel 12 • Steelband Jamboree
parting shot<br />
ISLAND<br />
bounty<br />
In Union Island, southernmost part of<br />
St Vincent and the Grenadines, the centre<br />
of action is Mulzac Square in the small town<br />
of Clifton. Piles of fruit and vegetables in<br />
vendors’ stalls make a series of colourful<br />
still-life scenes, while the brilliant blue water<br />
of Clifton Harbour glistens nearby.<br />
Photography by Nature Picture Library/Alamy<br />
120 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM