Shereen Ali

What does the Love War­rior have in com­mon with the The Rude Gyal Rap­so Fem­i­nist?

To find out, you'll have to check out the Big Black Box in Wood­brook this Sun­day night. These are two of the new artist per­form­ers about to show and share their tal­ents at one of the hot spots of youth-ori­ent­ed ur­ban oral cul­ture in Port-of-Spain.

As events cel­e­brat­ing the idea of eman­ci­pa­tion mush­room, the Big Black Box is pre­sent­ing a new per­for­mance event this Sun­day, which promis­es to be edgy, provoca­tive and a cel­e­bra­tion of free­dom of self-ex­pres­sion.

Called Free­dom.com For­ev­er, the per­for­mance fea­tures live new mu­sic from the rap­so band 3Canal, and some new artistes and emerg­ing DJ/pro­duc­ing tal­ent. It will be the tenth an­niver­sary of eman­ci­pa­tion con­certs at Big Black Box.

It is al­so al­most 20 years since the band 3Canal first came on the scene in 1997, and true to their com­mit­ment to the pow­er of the word and the pow­er of rap­so mu­sic, they will be per­form­ing four new tracks from their forth­com­ing CD called 3canal­FOR­EV­ER.

"We hope to re­lease the new al­bum lat­er in the year, around Oc­to­ber," said 3Canal's Wen­dell Man­war­ren, in a brief Guardian tele­phone in­ter­view on Wednes­day. Pro­duc­ing this par­tic­u­lar al­bum was a very dif­fer­ent ex­pe­ri­ence for 3Canal, said Man­war­ren, be­cause for the first time, they had their own space at Big Black Box as a pro­duc­tion base. So they took over a year to pull to­geth­er the songs, in be­tween oth­er projects.

"Pro­duc­ing the mu­sic was very or­gan­ic," said Man­war­ren, who cred­it­ed Ke­shav Chan­dra­daths­ingh, aka Laza Beam, and Ki­wan Lan­dreth-Smith as the pro­duc­ers of the al­bum.

The al­bum's work­ing ti­tle was orig­i­nal­ly Time and Space, said Man­war­ren, who ex­plained they want­ed to ex­pand themes from our own home ground to the world. New songs 3Canal will per­form this Sun­day are: For­ev­er (about the en­dur­ing pow­er of mu­sic); As We Pre­pare (about em­bark­ing on new jour­neys and ad­ven­tures, and head­ing fear­less­ly in­to rough wa­ters); Try Your Best (chal­leng­ing peo­ple to do bet­ter); and Some­thing Cook­ing (a song which trig­gered the whole al­bum, said Man­war­ren).

"Free­dom is not some­thing that any­body can be giv­en, free­dom is some­thing peo­ple take and peo­ple are as free as they want to be. One hasn't got to have an enor­mous mil­i­tary ma­chine in or­der to be un­free when it's sim­pler to be asleep, when it's sim­pler to be ap­a­thet­ic, when it's sim­pler, in fact, not to want to be free, to think that some­thing else is more im­por­tant." This quote from writer James Bald­win hints at some of the themes of the event this Sun­day, and is quot­ed on a press re­lease from the pro­duc­ers.

The pro­duc­tion crew for Sun­day's show is in­tro­duc­ing a New Artist Spot­light seg­ment, where the au­di­ence is promised "the sound of the New Un­der­ground." The new artists in­clude Je­lae Stroude Mitchell, al­so known as The Rude Gyal Rap­so Fem­i­nist; Mo­gabi Thomas (the Love War­rior); and singer/song­writer Chalmer John. Al­so fea­tured are emerg­ing DJs Blase Van­guard and DJ Rawkus.

Je­lae Stroude Mitchell, 3Canal says, is the "evo­lu­tion of the mid­night rob­ber­ess...the saucy chantuelle and badass za­nip­welle bring­ing a pow­er­ful mes­sage al­so known as the "rude Gyal an­them."

Mean­while, Mo­gabi Thomas says his mis­sion is "to spread the love and open up the eyes of the blind­ed broth­ers and sis­ters in so­ci­ety to show them that love is all we need and all we need is love to make this world a bet­ter place."

To­ba­go-born singer/ song­writer Chalmer John says he cel­e­brates the high amount of lo­cal tal­ent in T&T, but laments the lack of op­por­tu­ni­ties.

3Canal is re­viv­ing the Mu­sic Lib­er­a­tion Front, which the mem­bers de­scribe as a ve­hi­cle and a plat­form to pro­mote all gen­res of in­dige­nous mu­si­cal ex­pres­sion.

"This one is an Eman­ci­pa­tion Jam ses­sion in cel­e­bra­tion of the pow­er of the mu­sic, new mu­sic, we mu­sic, all kin­da mu­sic, T+T mu­sic, genre de­fy­ing mu­sic, chal­leng­ing lim­it­ed no­tions of self and posit­ing what we may be, when we put heart at the cen­tre and start from the soul and aim for the World," says 3Canal about the event.

�2 MORE IN­FO: What: Rap­so/DJ con­cert: Free­dom.com For­ev­er. Where: The Big Black Box, 33 Mur­ray Street, Wood­brook. When: Ju­ly 31, 9 pm, CON­TACT: BBB at 622-1001, Tick­ets: $100 on­ly. Check BBB from 10.30 am to 6 pm.