MAS ASSASSIN'S TOP TEN TRINIDAD CARNIVAL MOMENTS 2015

For the first time in years I was assigned to the bench for a carnival. The

evil that is chikV caught up with me in January did battle with me for a week went its way and two weeks later came back with a crippling vengeance , I had little choice but to sit quietly and grumble to the virus, well played chikV well played..

So from the bench I watched whatever I could of carnival from the living room TV from social media, and the radio, and it is from there I will call my top ten aspect of carnival 2015.

1)Machel Montano:  

A friend said to me that ‘Machel saved carnival this year’, a feat that is super human in my book but in truth he arguably (if you listen to the 15 tunes the stations played most of the season) released some of the most popular tunes for the season and the hype generated for his concert was exceptional, his soca monarch performance sans all the usual special effects and monkey tricks was still that of a boss truly leaving his rivals still performing in the 1990s it seems.

For the road we all knew ‘like a boss was going home with the title, but it was his duet with Angela Hunte ‘Party done’ that was my favourite I hope she writes and performs with him again.

Hats off to the HD BOSS OF MONKS MM.

2) Destra’s ‘LUCY’:

Now I’m not  the biggest  Destra fan myself, but with one song 'Lucy’ Destra had all my support for one of the sweetest songs for carnival 2015. What made it so sweet in my opinion is that is the story of most of us that love carnival in Trinidad. Destra sang about the character Lucy, but how many of us were good boys and girls until we went to our first school fete or were on the road for jouvay when that spirit, that good vibe of carnival energy combined with the music changed us forever!

‘Lucy' easily could have been a groovy monarch winner, I pictured Destra finally winning an official title with a voice and a song that could not be beaten but at the final hurdle something went wrong,.

You know how some people fall apart at an exam, I get the impression competition does that to Destra, maybe she should forget the stress of soca monarch or get a new team when it comes to competition. But LUCY was indeed a big winner in 2015.

3) The Soca Drome: 

Last year I was totally against the socadrome concept, I felt it represented an anti carnival spirit separating ‘them from us’, a move of an elitist minority that wanted to profit on every aspect of mas. This year after seeing it on TV I think it should stay, the flow of bands at the Queens Park Savannah at least on television was exceptional without the monotonous constipation that is Tribe and Bliss, big and small bands alike crossed the stage early starting as always with Harts at 8am. By midday most  of the big competition guns had already crossed the stage and Minstrels, Gorillas,   Pan sides etc, all what seemed like sufficient time to cross the stage, and perform, on occasion I changed channels to see what the’ drome was saying’  and to me it was exactly what I did not want to see headpieces here and there and masses of flesh with the dash of an individual here and there, seasoned masquerades told me they hated it for the second year running , but for the sake of the viewing audience it’s a good thing, they need to move it to Chaguaramas that will be even better.

4) Olatunji Yearwood,

Last year I went to the soca monarch semis especially to see this artist called ‘Olatunji’,

I loved his Taliban tune and thought this guy could wreck shop if he did it right, however his 2014 performance in Arima for me was a great disappointment. But before the year ended and it seems even before the 2015 season began his song Ola  was had most of us caught up in its groove, this was indeed a big tune that dominated the carnival season all the way to the soca monarch final. Congratulations to Olatunji.

                                               

5) Groovy Soca :

 this was a big year for groovy  but I’m old enough now to now that this does not mean power is dead, it just means that 2015 was a groovy year , to be honest  if the title was around in the 80’s David Rudder would have been a groovy monarch, or Kitch or Lord shorty !

But groovy dominated the airways sweet sounds of Raze, Lucy, Cloud nine, OLatunji  and the list went on gave carnival a laid back vibe that was  a welcomed change to that of a power dominated carnival.

6) The All stars double:

As a child all stars was my favourite band  for two reasons All stars was my uncles favourite band and their name was all stars, the name gave me the idea that the pan side had to have the very best musicians in the country and so were unbeatable!

This year All Stars not only won Panorama but also for the second year won the prestigious carnival title of band of the year, a title I felt they deserved. Watching all-stars cross the stage was a dramatic scene of officers of various ranks, sailors’ big guns pan and powder. A display of mas most of us might have only heard about but never seen, reminds me of a saying to move forward we sometimes have to step back.

6a) Band of the year. Who really won?

The Tribal connection Pawnee section photo via facebook

While it has not exactly made ripples on the face of carnival there is a question among carnivalist as to what band actually won band of the year? Yes the official results placed the Massy All Stars with Ships Ahoy at a French Festival top of the large band category with 2,392 points, thus making them band of the year, however the winner of the ‘Mini ‘band of the year title Tribal Connection Cultural Promotions earned 2,518 points with their presentation ‘From the Dark Hills of Dakota’ earning even more than the overall winners but because of size were not the overall winners, an achievement,and an injustice in the eyes to some. 

7) Television coverage of carnival,

  TV coverage was mediocre this year, being stranded at home I did appreciate the live coverage of fetes and competitions throughout the season. However I was disappointed by absence of kiddies carnival on from the channels, I also understand that live feed s did not always give the international audience what they wanted or value for money at times.

On Monday and Tuesday Ctv Cnc3 and channel 4 all covered the festival, channel four covering the southland mas  and seriously has me considering mas in San-do now as Port of Spain  has become a bit of an old cliché. Coverage of the socadrome was in my opinion just as much a disaster as the venue

Itself people being interviewed could not hear questions because of background noise masqeraders were often lost in shadows, and because everybody wanted to get on camera you had to watch sometimes a section for maybe half an hour so you know I went back to the superior coverage at the savannah. It was good TV but it could be so much better.

Oh yeah Paul Richards of CTV seems to be their go to man for EVERYTING! One will think by now channels can afford specialised experts depending on what is being covered.

photo;Jeff Mayers

8) Queen of carnival 2015 Stephanie Khanai

If Carnival ever had a Cinderella story it was that of Stephanie Khanai in her winning costume

Sweet waters of Africa. In my opinion this moko jumbie queen crossing the sage with such an aquatic flow has not been seen since Minshalls queen of 1995 'Joy to the world' yet the queen of a small band with limited resources and budget  said to be inspired by the music of Ellah Andell effortlessly crossed the stage of the QPS and won the crown proving once again that passion simplicity and creativity can overcome the brute force of big budget any day.

9) The Photography of Maria Nunes, and LeslieRobertson Toney

The warship Bismark Photo by Maria Nunes

Some of the most detailed, dramatic, and visually stimulating photos I’ve seen this season came from the lens of Maria Nunes and Leslie Robertson Toney. Nunes took some iconic photos of all stars crossing the stage that made me wish i was in the midst of it all and Robertson Tony captured from her DSLR and phone moments of traditional and children’s mas that give hope that the culture is far from dead.

10) Arts in Action:

I had the privilege of accompanying the Arts In Action team to see them

perform and teach primary school children about environmental conservation through the performing arts, using almost if not all the disciplines of carnival art to educate and  entertain the younger generations to learn through theatre and group participation the importance of looking after the environment.

I think the use of characters influenced by local myth and legend topass a message on to the younger generations to be a fantastic approach to both cultural preservation and social studies and awareness.  

Arts in Action performances 

The children being edutained

Arts in action Performer. (photo mas assassin)

While chromatics has not made my top ten list this year I’m still going to close of this post with his summary of this season because nobody does it better than Mr Don’t Care!

Carnivals past: Part 2

By Bridget Brereton

 

In my last piece I wrote about the sources we can use to study Carnival before the 20th century, and I examined (as an example) a colonial report about the 1881 Canboulay Riots.

Today, I want to look at Carnival at the end of the 1800s, through two written sources. Both were written by upper-class Trinidadians of this era, but they held different views of the festival, and their documents differed in purpose and scope.

In 1897, EF Chalamelle published a 30-page pamphlet called Some Reflections on the Carnival of Trinidad. I don’t know who he was; but he was well educated—he writes in a flowery, very “literary” style—and may have been a French Creole living in Arima, where the pamphlet was first published.

Chalamelle was writing when the Canboulay had been abolished and Carnival as a whole, especially the more “obscene” type of mas, was coming under much stricter police regulation. But he wanted it to be entirely stamped out—no allowing it to die a “natural” death for him. Since around 1870, he believed, it had “degenerated from an innocent pastime into a foul, disgraceful and indecent proceeding” which was “unfit for a civilized community”.

Chalamelle acknowledged that Canboulay—“a savage and harassing procedure”—had been ended, and obscene costumes like the “Pissenlit”, involving men dressed in female underwear and making sexy moves, had been recently stamped out. But, he wrote, the “lewd and worthless” still carried on as before, “rowdeyism”, obscenity and crime were still basic parts of Carnival.

Above all, Chalamelle argued that Carnival had caused the “ruin” of many “respectable” (read upper and middle-class) girls and women: he wrote that he knew of “many families who have been brought to a state of degradation and sorrow upon the downfall of their daughters, who in deep repentance must own their ruin to the Carnival”.

He implies that many respectable girls used the festival to meet lovers “of low repute and inferior rank in disguise”, resulting in scandal and disgrace, and that otherwise virtuous wives had a fling, with the result that “many a household tie has been broken asunder”. In sensational prose, Chalamelle insisted that Carnival had produced “hundreds” of “ruined girls”, who could have been “virtuous mothers and wives”.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, Chalamelle pointed to the scandalous Carnival songs (calypsoes, probably sung in Patois at this time) which insulted respectable families and “well-bred” women. Any private domestic affairs of decent families might be made “a matter for scandal among the lewd community”.

Clearly, Victorian ideas about sex, women’s sexuality, class and race clashed with the sexual theme of the Carnival, which couldn’t be suppressed even with police action against the “obscene” masques. But Chalamelle’s views were extreme, and probably not typical even within his class and generation.

Chalamelle’s pamphlet was written in order to influence public opinion and to persuade the authorities to put down Carnival.

 A very different kind of source is the autobiography or memoir by Percy Fraser (1867-1951). Fraser belonged to the white Creole upper class (his father was the local historian L M Fraser) and was a public servant all his working life. In his old age, he wrote his autobiography, which was eventually published in 2007.

Fraser looks back to the Carnivals of his youth—the 1880s and 1890s—with nostalgia and affection, quite different to Chalamelle’s disgust and outrage. He agreed that the “Pissenlit” was obscene and was glad that it had been suppressed, but he lovingly described other traditional Carnival characters and bands of this era.

There were the “Schoolgirls” in short white dresses and pink pinafores, carrying slates and books; the “Marchandes” in full Martinique costumes; the doctors, surveyors, policemen, lawyers and judges, all properly dressed and with the appropriate equipment; the “Negre Jardin”, dressed in shabby clothes but skilled stick-fighters; the “Bad Cattle”, men dressed in dry plantain leaves with large bull’s horns on their forehead who terrified children (clearly an African mas); the Moko Jumbies, also African; the Bats, with elaborate and expensive costumes made of velvet and silk; the “Bouriquits”, the donkey mas accompanied by a string musical band playing Spanish tunes, and the Maypole, both introduced from Venezuela.

Fraser especially admired the Pierrot, with his elaborate costume, heavy whip and boastful speech (known in the old days as “Jagoné” according to Fraser). “A fully dressed Pierrot was an imposing sight”, Fraser recalled; “as a very young lad, I was a great admirer of the Pierrots, and together with other boys we would follow a favourite Pierrot everywhere he went”, making sure to run away when he met an adversary and a fight seemed imminent. Fraser felt that the modern version of the Pierrot of his youth, the “Pierrot La Grenade”, was a very inferior substitute, dressed in rags and lacking the former grandeur and glamour.

So Fraser loved the Carnival of the late 1800s, quite unlike Chalamelle’s jaundiced view. Perhaps this was partly nostalgia for his youth; he had a much less rosy view of the festival in the late 1940s, when he was writing his memoirs.

• Bridget Brereton is emerita

professor of history at UWI, St Augustine

SOURCE : Trinidad Express

KANYE WEST, DOPENESS, AND MAS

This Zane Lowe interview of Kanye is a fantastic, as a recording artist, West is loved and loathed by many, but say what you will, no one can deny his genius. In this interview West not only vents his frustrations about the people or organisations that seem bent on preventing him from expanding artistically and financially all his talents, but he also talks about rap and the industry and the mediocrity that now sells as the ‘dopeness’.

“Dopeness is what I like the most , dopeness, people who want to make things as dope as possible, and by default make money from it, the thing that I like the least, are people who only want to make money from things whither there dope or not and especially make money and making things as least dope as possible.” 

“There are plenty musicians that sold the fuck out and changed the art of music where people don’t hold that

to the highest level of genius anymore...If there is a high level visual artist or clothing artist they will be held at a higher level of genius than a musician because the things in music that are selling the most are the least inspired by the most part and the least genius...”

The aspirations and passions that west wants for the industry and himself and the masses that is stunted by the mediocre majority can be paralleled to contemporary mas in Trinidad and her satellite carnivals.

  Mas now lacks the creative passion, that once made it great, single celebrated genius such as Bailey, Berkley and Minshall, and their carnival presentations that not only defined the periods they were produced in and are now established part of Carnivals memory and woven into a nations history, have been replaced by big brands with multiple designers who don’t have a clue of what they are doing. There are no one eyed men in this kingdom of the blind. 

As a child the carnival magazines by Key publications educated and entertained, not the magazines today, you hear stories, see documentaries describing how George Baileys mas changed the way Afro Trinidadians saw Africa and them themselves, I listened as Minshall use the analogy of the panorama competition to explain the transformation of a mas, I learned of the splendour and opulence of the Titanic and the disaster that befell it on the savannah stage via Wayne Berkley’s Titanic. Such was the ‘dopeness’ in mas, the ability to depict, to define and defy, expressing creatively in a language that all understand in mediums we understood.

We have already seen what most of the big bands have to offer for 2014, more of the feathered sameness no dopeness or to paraphrase Kanye West, the things in mas that are selling the most are the least inspired by the most part and the least genius...

 Take in Mr West.