Yvonne Webb

En­ter­tain­er Bar­nett Hen­ry (Preach­er) has found him­self in the mid­dle of a po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy over some an­ti-PNM lyrics he penned for the Op­po­si­tion UNC. Preach­er, best re­mem­bered for his com­po­si­tion–Patrick We Step­ping Up With You–which be­came the PNM's an­them in the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tions, has changed his tune for 2010. The Point Fortin bard, who per­formed his hit on the PNM plat­form and was in ne­go­ti­a­tions to do so again, is now singing Get Rid of the PNM.

The grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion came to a boil yes­ter­day morn­ing when a de­mo ver­sion of the song, vo­calised by him, was played on Ra­dio I95.5. The Morn­ing Show hosts, Tony Lee and Dale Enoch, were dis­cussing the de­ci­sion of ca­lyp­son­ian Crazy (Ed­win Ay­oung) to per­form Patrick Has to Go on a UNC plat­form. Crazy de­nied he was a sup­port­er of the UNC, ex­plain­ing he did it just for the mon­ey. Reached by tele­phone in the Unit­ed States, Preach­er said he was very an­gry.

He told the Guardian it was just an un­fin­ished de­mo ver­sion, not a record­ing and he au­tho­rised no one to use it. He said no fi­nan­cial agree­ment was reached to buy the song or for its dis­tri­b­u­tion. "The bot­tom line is that no busi­ness deal was made for that song. I don't know how that song reached the ra­dio and I am speak­ing with my lawyers to en­sure it is not played again," Preach­er said. The song ad­vo­cates get­ting rid of the PNM, point­ing out that it made promis­es, which it did not keep, just to get their votes. It al­so is crit­i­cal of Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning im­port­ing a large num­ber of Chi­nese work­ers while equal­ly skilled lo­cals are out of jobs.

Preach­er ex­plained that sev­er­al months ago he was ap­proached by the UNC (he did not name the per­son who made the ap­proach) to pen a song for them and that was what he did. He said: "I did a de­mo and sent it to them (UNC). I heard noth­ing again from them and there was no fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions fol­low­ing. "I thought that was the end of that un­til this morn­ing when peo­ple heard it and start­ed to re­act. I got calls from peo­ple telling me I was singing for the UNC to get rid of the PNM." Even though he per­formed on the PNM's plat­form, Preach­er de­nied he was a mem­ber of that par­ty. He said: "I am not a PNM. I not for no par­ty. My work is singing and com­pos­ing. If some­body come to me and say to com­pose a song for them, I will do it.

"If next year an­oth­er par­ty come and say the same thing, I will do it. That is my work." Preach­er's man­ag­er Charles "Char­lo" Olivi­er, in a tele­phone in­ter­view, said Preach­er had no in­ten­tion of vo­cal­is­ing the song for the UNC. He said Preach­er al­so wrote a song for the PNM's 2010 po­lit­i­cal cam­paign and was ex­pect­ing to be hired again to per­form "We Vot­ing PNM" on their plat­form this time around. He said the tune was sent back to them to be mod­i­fied. Char­lo said the fact the tune was played and Preach­er was iden­ti­fied as the com­pos­er and singer could have se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for him as an en­ter­tain­er. "This is how he lives. He has no oth­er job," Char­lo stat­ed. "Who­ev­er leaked that to the ra­dio sta­tion had in­ten­tions to dis­cred­it him," Char­lo charged.