Pe­ter Ray Blood

Once re­gard­ed the en­gine room of the ca­lyp­so art form, the ca­lyp­so tent is in per­il of be­com­ing an en­dan­gered specie. This has been a con­cern of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and fans for many a year as at­ten­dance to the ca­lyp­so tent has sig­nif­i­cant­ly dwin­dled.

Many rea­sons have been sug­gest­ed by com­men­ta­tors, among these the in­crease in crime and the bards singing songs that reek of racist un­der­tones. How­ev­er, the folk ac­tu­al­ly in the bel­ly of the en­gine room are op­ti­mistic about the cur­rent health and longevi­ty of the art form.

Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) chair­man and Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) board mem­ber Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba (Bro Re­sis­tance) feels that ca­lyp­so tents are in good health and, de­spite chal­lenges, have a bright fu­ture ahead. He said: "Ca­lyp­so tents are alive and well in Trinidad and To­ba­go. How­ev­er, in the gen­er­al Car­ni­val land­scape, they are be­ing mar­gin­alised by ex­ter­nal forces, es­pe­cial­ly high­ly com­pet­i­tive and ag­gres­sive com­mer­cial forces.

"This past decade the Car­ni­val cul­ture has be­come so much fast-paced and com­mer­cialised that the tents have not be­ing able to keep up. In the past decade, the man­age­ment of ca­lyp­so tents have not stepped up their game to cre­ate a greater aware­ness and sup­port for the tent."

Suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have played a ma­jor role in the ca­lyp­so tent busi­ness, es­pe­cial­ly in the area of fund­ing. Said Masim­ba: "There are five tents di­rect­ly owned and man­aged by Tu­co. In ad­di­tion, there are af­fil­i­ate tents like Ka­lyp­so Re­vue and Icons, plus com­mu­ni­ty-based tents which num­ber about ten across the is­land.

The com­mu­ni­ty-based tents are usu­al­ly owned and man­aged by the artistes them­selves, or the Car­ni­val com­mit­tee of the area. The com­mu­ni­ty-based tents are a wel­come phe­nom­e­non in Car­ni­val as it is a cre­ation by the peo­ple, for the peo­ple.

"Gov­ern­ment sup­ports every tent in some way or an­oth­er. No gov­ern­ment has ever in­ter­fered in any ca­lyp­so tent as far as I know and we have been aligned to dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ments since 1998."

Masim­ba ex­pressed pride and sat­is­fac­tion over the suc­cess of his tent, Kaiso House, based in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, this year. He said: "The mar­ket­ing ap­proach and strate­gies of Kaiso House over the past three years is now bear­ing fruit, thus the rea­son for our sold out shows night­ly."

Ex­press­ing op­ti­mism on the fu­ture of ca­lyp­so tents, Masim­ba said: "The ca­lyp­so tent is a tra­di­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion but we must keep apace of the times. Look­ing at William Munro's King­dom of the Wiz­ards, and Spek­taku­la Pro­mo­tions' tent, you re­alise that there is a job to be done by the man­age­ment of all ca­lyp­so tents.

"The mis­sion of Tu­co is to even­tu­al­ly es­tab­lish the ca­lyp­so tent as an in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ty, stand­ing on its own. Even­tu­al­ly, we do not want to re­ly on sub­si­dies from gov­ern­ment."

Vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Short Pants (Llewe­lyn McIn­tosh) ex­pressed a di­ver­gent point of view. He said: "Ca­lyp­so tents are clear­ly not flour­ish­ing as they once did. I agree with a re­cent­ly pub­lished news­pa­per ar­ti­cle by Deb­bie Ja­cob which sug­gest­ed that state fund­ing is cre­at­ing a neg­a­tive ef­fect on ca­lyp­so tents.

"I grew up in the era when men like Jazzy Pan­tin, Syl Tay­lor and Theodore Guer­ra, as busi­ness­men, op­er­at­ed ca­lyp­so tents as pri­vate­ly owned busi­ness­es. This is not to say that they didn't get some as­sis­tance from the state, but, with or with­out as­sis­tance, be­cause of their as­tute­ness as busi­ness­men and their vi­sion, these guys en­sured that their tent would op­er­ate."

"These tents would have 'gen­uine' au­di­tions which was a crit­i­cal facet of the tent. Singers back then knew that he had to come up with a song that would be ac­cept­able to man­age­ment.

"Man­age­ment then had the op­tion of se­lect­ing a va­ri­ety of songs so that they could plan a well bal­anced cast and songs, en­sur­ing va­ri­ety and qual­i­ty of your pro­gramme.

"I am not so sure that is what hap­pens now. What I sus­pect tent man­agers and op­er­a­tors do now is they sit back and wait on a gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion to run their tents.

"If they don't get gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion they will not be able to open a tent.

"In the old days, no­body could tell Jazzy or Syl what they could do. The old adage of 'who pays the piper calls the tune' ap­plies. It is log­i­cal, not to men­tion fair, that if a politi­cian in­vests thou­sands of dol­lars in a ca­lyp­so tent, why should he do so to pay peo­ple who are singing against him or his gov­ern­ment?

"It is al­so stu­pid busi­ness if your in­come can­not cov­er your ex­pens­es and over­heads. There is al­so a trick­le down ef­fect on the sub­si­dis­ing of ca­lyp­so tents by the state.

"As a ca­lyp­son­ian, it is on­ly hu­man na­ture that if I am as­sured of a salary that I do not need to cre­ate any­thing spe­cial from an artis­tic point of view. My pay­cheque is guar­an­teed any­way. This means that the qual­i­ty of song I may cre­ate or per­form may not be of the best."

Con­tender (Mark John), the 1966 and '67 ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch, is the chair­man of Tu­co North Zone. He said that his tent, Klas­sic Ru­so, main­tains

a "healthy re­la­tion­ship" with gov­ern­ment and the pow­ers that be. Last year, the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism ini­ti­at­ed a pi­lot project of chos­ing a ca­lyp­so tent and as­sign­ing ex­perts in var­i­ous en­ter­tain­ment dis­ci­plines to as­sist the tent pro­duce a pro­fes­sion­al­ly run pro­duc­tion. Klas­sic Ru­so was the cho­sen tent for the ex­per­i­ment.

"The pi­lot project was a re­sound­ing suc­cess," said Con­tender. "Peo­ple vis­it­ing the tent this year ex­pressed pleas­ant sur­prise at how pro­fes­sion­al­ly it was run in every facet, from the place­ment of the band on stage to the length of our pro­gramme, and the stage craft and at­tire of our artistes.

"The ex­perts as­signed to Klas­sic Ru­so taught us about decor, wardrobe, punc­tu­al­i­ty and even make up. The am­bi­ence in­side our tent has im­proved and we have con­sis­tent­ly be­gan our pro­gramme prompt­ly 8.30 pm. Oth­er tents have adopt­ed a lot of what we did last year and, for in­stance, the lat­est any tent goes to now is mid­night. They all have tight, well man­aged and en­ter­tain­ing pro­grammes."

Com­ment­ing on the pop­u­lar­i­ty of ca­lyp­so tents, Con­tender said: "At­ten­dances to ca­lyp­so tents are not what they used to be years ago, and there are a num­ber of rea­sons for this. The main fac­tors for this are head­ed by the crime scourge. Sec­ond­ly, the ca­lyp­so pop­u­la­tion has dwin­dled. A lot of the peo­ple who used to come out to the tents have ei­ther died, got­ten too old, or are just scared to be out of their homes at night.

"In the old days, out­side Spar­row's tent, there used to be po­lice on horse­back to con­trol the crowd. To­day, many peo­ple seem to see so­ca mu­sic as a re­place­ment to ca­lyp­so mu­sic. While no suc­ces­sion plan­ning was done to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity of the tent busi­ness, we have a lot of young peo­ple com­ing back in­to singing ca­lyp­so. There is a resur­gence in re­cent years, and there has been in­creased tent pa­tron­age.

Con­tender doesn't share the view that ca­lyp­so or the tents are dy­ing. "Peo­ple want to hear ca­lyp­so," he as­sert­ed. "Imag­ine Kaiso House had a sold out show last Sun­day night."

Com­mend­ing the gov­ern­ment for its as­sis­tance to ca­lyp­so, Con­tender sug­gest­ed vig­i­lance on the part of tent man­agers. He ex­plained: "Tu­co and tent man­agers must al­ways be on guard against be­ing ma­nip­u­lat­ed in­to what a singer can sing, and that the au­thor­i­ties nev­er dic­tate who sings in which tent, and what they can sing."

Re­luc­tant to com­ment on the sub­sidy from gov­ern­ment this year to run the tent, Michael Os­ouna (Sug­ar Aloes) seemed dis­ap­point­ed by the even­tu­al quan­tum of as­sis­tance he re­ceived from the state to op­er­ate the Ka­lyp­so Re­vue for Car­ni­val 2013. Last year when, un­der fire for singing Tar­rus Ri­ley's She's Roy­al to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar on a Peo­ple Part­ner­ship plat­form, the two-time Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch said he did so to mere­ly earn an in­come, and se­cure fund­ing for his Ka­lyp­so Re­vue tent.

Pre­fer­ring to com­ment in­stead on the state of Ka­lyp­so Re­vue for C2K13, Os­ouna said there was nei­ther in­crease or de­crease in at­ten­dance at the SWW­TU Hall ca­lyp­so tent, lo­cat­ed on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. "Ba­si­cal­ly, the same amount of peo­ple at­tend­ed this year as last year."

Os­ouna, claim­ing to be ful­ly re­cov­ered from his ex­clu­sion in Thurs­day night's Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal, ex­pressed con­cern about the fu­ture of ca­lyp­so tents. He said: "It isn't like long ago when peo­ple used to line up to get in­to the tents. The first thing that has to hap­pen is that work has to be­gin from the out­side as the main prob­lem is some­thing tent man­agers have no con­trol over.

"Peo­ple need to be as­sured of their se­cu­ri­ty so the au­thor­i­ties need to re­duce crime in this coun­try dras­ti­cal­ly. Long ago, a ca­lyp­so tent pro­gramme could go up to 1.30 am but now I make sure my tent is fin­ished no lat­er than 12.30 am. But now, peo­ple are sim­ply scared to come out of their homes. One of the ben­e­fits by me is that I am able to pro­vide a se­cured park­ing lot. For the rest of the week, we are open every night, ex­cept Thurs­day night. On Sat­ur­day night, our fi­nal night, the spe­cial is two pa­trons on one tick­et."

The Young Kings Monarch of 1987, sea­soned ca­lyp­son­ian Bal­ly, doesn't share the view that ca­lyp­so is a dy­ing art­form, or that ca­lyp­so tents are los­ing favour with the pub­lic. He said: "I have been in Ca­lyp­so Re­vue for the past five years so I can speak of our tent. This year we had a few sold out nights and gen­er­al­ly at­ten­dance has been con­sis­tent over the years. I think the qual­i­ty of ca­lyp­soes in any giv­en sea­son is what de­ter­mines whether peo­ple at­tend the tents or not. I think that this year has been the best set of ca­lyp­soes we've had since I joined the Re­vue.

"Over­all, I think the qual­i­ty of ca­lyp­so has been al­right this year. There hasn't been any­thing that re­al­ly grabbed me this year. How­ev­er, the two songs that caught my at­ten­tion were Pro­tec­tor's Lick Them Down and Kurt Allen's Po­lit­i­cal Sin Pho­ny. I have no­ticed a marked im­prove­ment though in the so­ca genre and this year the out­stand­ing song has been Su­perBlue's Fan­tas­tic Fri­day."

Di­ane Dupres, with her sig­na­ture blue tint­ed hair, is one of the most eas­i­ly iden­ti­fi­able ca­lyp­so and pan afi­ciona­does around, and she paints a rather dis­mal opin­ion on ca­lyp­so and the tents. She said: "I at­tend the ca­lyp­so tents but not as of­ten as I used to. Long ago I used to go at least three times to each tent for the sea­son. I even used to at­tend au­di­tions and re­hearsals. But now, I find the ca­lyp­soes are very bor­ing.

"Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans now are ei­ther preach­ing or bash­ing. I can­not pay my hard earned dol­lars to go to lis­ten to stu­pid­ness. I have reached the age where I do not wish to hear many of those old fel­las. Thank good­ness though there are some young peo­ple out there now who are re­al­ly tal­ent­ed, with good voic­es and good de­liv­ery. What wor­ries me about to­day's lot though is that you can hear a ca­lyp­so and know ex­act­ly who the com­pos­er of the song was. It seems as though the ca­lyp­son­ian no longer seems to write his own song. To­day, when you go to the tents, you are ac­tu­al­ly hear­ing ca­lyp­so singers not ca­lyp­so­ni­ans."

Ca­lyp­so tents

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Kaiso House–Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain

Ka­lyp­so Re­vue–SWW­TU Hall, Wright­son Road,

Port-of-Spain

Klas­sic Ru­so–City Hall,

Port-of-Spain

Kaiso Kar­a­van–La Joya, EMR, St Joseph

Kaiso Showkase–Palms Club, San Fer­nan­do

D Di­vas Cabaret In­ter­na­tion­al–De Nu Pub, Wood­brook

Unique–Bel­mont

Gen­er­a­tion Next–CWU Hall, Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain

Yan­gatang–Port-of-Spain

Ju­nior Rov­ing Tent

CDC Tent–Hen­ry Street

Cen­tral Rain­bow–Ch­agua­nas

The Birds–Siparia

The Voice–Ma­yaro

Mis­sion­aire–Princes Town

Mag­nif­i­cent Glow–To­ba­go