Be­yond his po­et­ic mas­tery (per­haps be­cause of it) the beau­ti­ful mu­sic he shared (and here we must ac­knowl­edge Pel­ham God­dard) his in­sight in­to T&T and as­pects of world civil­i­sa­tion, who is David Michael Rud­der? What have been the dri­ving rhythms of his life, in his mu­sic, his loves, his “groun­da­tions”, his life’s am­bi­tions? What are a few of the im­puls­es which have shaped one of our great­est bards to the world, and what are those things (which) and peo­ple (who) have been im­por­tant to him?

Quite an un­rav­el­ling to at­tempt; for­tu­nate­ly, though, he has and con­tin­ues to give us many in­sights in­to the an­swers to those won­der­ings. I en­gage a first and very pre­lim­i­nary reach in­to the man, through his work of the last 40 years.  

Rud­der is first and fore­most a prod­uct of the post-slav­ery at­tempt at a re­con­struc­tion of self and cul­ture by the African des­per­ate to move away from the plan­ta­tion and to es­tab­lish him­self/her­self in Bel­mont. He has come through gen­er­a­tions of Shango, Or­isha, and the Ra­da com­mu­ni­ty which sought to re-cre­ate the African re­li­gious self in this new land–the in­flu­ences in his mu­si­cal rhythms can­not be missed.

He was in­duct­ed in­to the arts, crafts, and sports of the gen­er­a­tions which fol­lowed Eman­ci­pa­tion. He is the prod­uct of the tam­boo bam­boo (“we drag down from the St Ann’s Hills”) the steel­band, the art of Ken Mor­ris in whose yard he spent time, ob­serv­ing, learn­ing. The Colts foot­ball team of “Di­a­mond” Jim Hard­ing, Ho­race “Pep­per Wine” Lovelace, and Jer­ry Brown gave him a foun­da­tion to con­test against the brown-skin mid­dle class, Maple, and all oth­er com­ers from out­side of his home­town. He is proud of that her­itage and ex­press­es it in his “lyrics”–the art of putting licks on op­po­nents.

King David’s claim of Bel­mont be­ing “the cap­i­tal of the world,” is not a whim­si­cal in­dul­gence; not a kind of show-off thing; it is rather ground­ed in the re­al­i­ty of his ur­ban vil­lage in­clu­sive of Africans, Chi­nese, Por­tuguese, the French-Cre­ole, the In­di­ans, the Dou­glas, and the Arabs, it is for him a rep­re­sen­ta­tive group of the in­ter­na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion–it’s his launch pad.

At the Sound Forge on the evening and notwith­stand­ing his ob­vi­ous African ori­en­ta­tion and its mu­si­cal con­nec­tions, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive group of the races which make up his world is very ob­vi­ous­ly part of the cel­e­bra­tion; he has made them feel a part of his art and that is be­cause he is not ag­gres­sive and an­tag­o­nis­tic to oth­ers; he can­not be as Bel­mont is the city which gives di­rec­tion to the world pop­u­la­tion; and in Bel­mont, there is al­ways space at the ta­ble for the for­eign­er to dish out a plate of pelau.

Rud­der is Mar­tin Luther King, not the ear­ly Mal­colm X.

His cit­i­zen­ship is of the world, but he is “Tri­ni to D Bone … Oh how ah love-up meh coun­try … no mat­ter where I roam, Tri­ni to the bone.” And the bard ac­cepts his coun­try and cul­ture with all its “mad­ness”. One in­ter­est­ing as­pect of his per­son­al life, which I can on­ly sur­mise about, is his de­ci­sion to live in the Cana­di­an north. Does this mean that he is a prag­ma­tist, keen­ly com­mit­ted to seek­ing out the best for his fam­i­ly?

Beat­ing in his heart though is the plea for “So­ca Mu­sic … take me back to my is­land.”

Rud­der dis­played much about him­self in his ap­proach to be­com­ing a ca­lyp­son­ian. He spent a num­ber of years in the tents singing cho­rus, get­ting an un­der­stand­ing and feel for what was re­quired to en­ter the gayelle, one which can un­mask the char­la­tan.

His Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic demon­strat­ed not on­ly that he was ready but that he had gained an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of  the his­tor­i­cal roots of ca­lyp­so: “a liv­ing vi­bra­tion root­ed deep with­in my Caribbean bel­ly” and the path he in­tend­ed to fol­low, one laid down by At­ti­la, Tiger, Li­on, Ex­ecu­tor, In­vad­er, Kitch­en­er, Be­gin­ner, Ter­ror, Spoil­er, Spar­row–“when Slinger done with they tail ….” At the Sound Forge he sig­nalled his recog­ni­tion of what “Har­ry”–did for ca­lyp­so: “Dayo”.

Rud­der there­fore gives us a wide view of him­self, his be­liefs and prin­ci­ples as he en­ters the ring, and where he in­tends to take his reper­toire giv­en what was set down for him by his an­ces­tors. Not too in­ci­den­tal­ly, on the evening of his last ma­jor per­for­mance, he showed re­spect for and gave en­cour­age­ment to the gen­er­a­tion of the day by invit­ing a num­ber of them to per­form on his stage. Mi­cal Te­ja gave a glimpse in­to the man when he said he called Rud­der five times and the big man an­swered his phone every time.  

 “Not one name will I call … be­cause to name a few will make oth­ers look small,” Rud­der’s sense of un­der­stand­ing of the cre­ation and de­vel­op­ment of the pan and the men. That uni­ver­sal, non-par­ti­san love and thank­ful­ness are re­flect­ed in song: “Out of a mud­dy pond, ten thou­sand flow­ers bloom.”

His ground­ing in the cul­ture of his an­ces­tors, and his ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the process of his­tor­i­cal de­vel­op­ment are in­ter­wo­ven in his be­ing. I have just be­gun.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er is a free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer tele­vi­sion and ra­dio re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­duc­er and host, and for­mer cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press.