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Friday, February 28, 2025

Chutney soca blamed for demise of East Indian culture

by

39 days ago
20250120
Pundit Kries Ramkhelewan of Suriname, left, and cultural affairs chairman of the Hindi Foundation, Surujdeo Mangaroo, at the handing over of Nagara drums to the ISHA Organisation in Freeport yesterday.

Pundit Kries Ramkhelewan of Suriname, left, and cultural affairs chairman of the Hindi Foundation, Surujdeo Mangaroo, at the handing over of Nagara drums to the ISHA Organisation in Freeport yesterday.

SHASTRI BOODAN

Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo, cul­tur­al af­fairs chair­man of the Hin­di Foun­da­tion of T&T has ex­pressed con­cern that the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch (CSM) com­pe­ti­tion con­tributes to the demise of In­di­an cul­ture in T&T.

Man­ga­roo said he has noth­ing against George Singh, pro­mot­er of the event, but is against the bank­rupt lyrics put for­ward by artistes who en­ter the com­pe­ti­tion.

He ex­pressed those views yes­ter­day dur­ing a func­tion at which Suri­namese singer Pun­dit Kries Ramkhele­wan hand­ed over a pair of Na­gara drums to the ISHA Or­gan­i­sa­tion in Freeport.

“I have fol­lowed the CSM from the be­gin­ning; there is a de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in the qual­i­ty of the per­for­mance; they have butchered the lyrics and it’s all about one spe­cial type of song,” he said.

“We have to come up with na­tion-build­ing songs, mean­ing­ful songs, songs that could lift your com­mu­ni­ty, lift the so­ci­ety, not this kind of rum and rum. I don’t like it. I might be crit­i­cised for it, but I don’t mind. A lot of us put a lot of work in­to the pro­mo­tion, sus­te­nance and de­vel­op­ment of In­di­an Cul­ture and that is not one of the av­enues I would want to sup­port.”

Man­ga­roo said artistes who par­tic­i­pate in the CSM have shown that they can come up with bet­ter songs out­side of the com­pe­ti­tion.

He de­clared that “butcher­ing lyrics” is not the way to go” and ap­pealed to chut­ney so­ca artistes to “come bet­ter than that, bring some­thing mean­ing­ful to the so­ci­ety.”

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Singh main­tained that East In­di­an cul­ture is “def­i­nite­ly not on the de­cline” in T&T.

“Both the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch and the Di­vali Na­gar, the two largest an­nu­al In­do events, are grow­ing ex­po­nen­tial­ly,” he said.

“In­ter­est­ing­ly, Mr Man­ga­roo is a vice pres­i­dent of the NCIC, the or­gan­i­sa­tion that pro­motes the Di­vali Na­gar.”

Singh added, “On an­oth­er note, we have been work­ing every year for the last 14 years meet­ing with artistes, do­ing work­shops, dis­cussing the top­ics and lyri­cal con­tent of chut­ney so­ca mu­sic. I want to say un­equiv­o­cal­ly that the lyri­cal con­tent of chut­ney so­ca mu­sic has im­proved dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

“The Chut­ney So­ca Monarch is ac­tu­al­ly on the rise and this year will see the CSM reach glob­al au­di­ences like nev­er be­fore. The CSM has been in­stru­men­tal in cre­at­ing an in­dus­try that nev­er ex­ist­ed be­fore and, to­day, af­fects the lives and liveli­hoods of In­do-Caribbean artistes glob­al­ly. The CSM is now the most im­por­tant In­do-Caribbean event in the world!

“Southex and USA-based In­ter­na­tion­al Film Group have signed a his­toric TV dis­tri­b­u­tion deal for CSM’s 30th An­niver­sary Show. The show will now be dis­trib­uted across mul­ti­ple plat­forms and lin­ear chan­nels around the globe.”


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