An­ge­lo Mar­celle

Since the con­fir­ma­tion of R&B mega star Be­y­once's per­for­mance in Trinidad, con­tro­ver­sy and con­tention have been preva­lent. One group rep­re­sent­ing ca­lyp­so­ni­ans has al­ready start­ed protest­ing. They claim that spon­sors/hosts of the event, bmo­bile, were dis­re­spect­ful to in­dige­nous art forms like ca­lyp­so. The main is­sue aris­ing from this event is the fact that bmo­bile, a pre­dom­i­nant­ly state-owned com­pa­ny, will be redi­rect­ing some monies that are usu­al­ly al­lo­cat­ed for Car­ni­val events, to­wards this con­cert. Ten mil­lion dol­lars is the re­port­ed amount that will be al­lo­cat­ed to the Be­y­once con­cert but sources are claim­ing that twice that amount is a more ac­cu­rate es­ti­mate. Many groups and in­di­vid­u­als against the Be­y­once con­cert are com­plain­ing that the mon­ey be­ing used to host this event could be used in­stead to sup­port lo­cal tal­ent and that too much of the coun­try's mon­ey will be leav­ing the shores.

Dig­i­cel has al­ready gone on record to say that they were ap­proached to host the con­cert since ear­ly 2009, but they de­cid­ed that fo­cus­ing on lo­cal tal­ent for the Car­ni­val sea­son was more of a pri­or­i­ty. What is some­what iron­ic is the fact that while the is­sues of mon­ey leav­ing the coun­try and the pro­mo­tion of a for­eign singer dur­ing Car­ni­val rage, many so­ca and chut­ney singers have Ja­maican reg­gae singers rid­ing their Car­ni­val band wag­on. There is a deaf­en­ing si­lence to this re­al­i­ty. While the Ja­maican singers may be pro­mot­ing so­ca to some ex­tent, they are not singing so­ca, nor are they like­ly to be spend­ing the ma­jor part of their earn­ings in T&T, if any at all.

Reg­gae su­per star Bee­nie Man has been in­volved in Car­ni­val for sev­er­al years and has done en­tire sea­sons with Machel Mon­tano HD and Bun­ji Gar­lin & The Asy­lum Band. How much mon­ey has he tak­en to the banks in Ja­maica and the US? Al­though Bee­nie Man has not been heard do­ing any col­lab­o­ra­tions for C2K10, there is lit­tle doubt that he will be mak­ing a few ap­pear­ances. Dance­hall sen­sa­tion Vy­bz Kar­tel will be at Li­cens­ing Fete and oth­er reg­gae singers will al­so be mak­ing ap­pear­ances at fetes for the Car­ni­val sea­son. Ac­tivist groups who have a prob­lem with the pro­mot­ers of the Be­y­once con­cert should first take up the is­sue among their own col­leagues who are fund­ing Ja­maican singers to per­form at Car­ni­val fetes. So un­til then, per­haps they should leave Be­y­once alone.