KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Lord Re­la­tor (Willard Har­ris), Broth­er Valenti­no (Em­rold An­tho­ny Phillip) and the late Black Stal­in (Leroy Cal­liste) have sig­nif­i­cant­ly raised the con­scious­ness of the peo­ple of T&T, ac­cord­ing to Chair­man of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of T&T (ES­CTT) Khafra Kam­bon.

He made the com­ment dur­ing Shikamoo Re­la­tor, an event in ho­n­our of Lord Re­la­tor held at the 2023 Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage on Fri­day night. In Swahili the word Shikamoo means I re­spect you.

“The build­ing of that sense of iden­ti­ty and pride in our African selves in our roots, ca­lyp­so­ni­ans were an im­por­tant part of it,” Kam­bon said.

“They were con­sis­tent, they al­ways went with us to all parts of this coun­try. What they have giv­en to the so­ci­ety a lot of the younger gen­er­a­tion now will not know and un­der­stand, but some­one like me with grey hair who was a part of it, who was in­spired by these ca­lyp­so­ni­ans (will).”

The pop­u­lar Kairi Kaiso fea­tur­ing Mar­va New­town start­ed the event with a med­ley of Lord Re­la­tor’s of­fer­ings from over the years. Vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Broth­er Valenti­no re­ceived the first en­core of the night with his 2017 hit Stay Up Zim­bab­we.

La­dy Adan­na (Mar­sha Charles-Clifton), who worked with the late South African mu­si­cian Hugh Masekela on his last al­bum, en­ter­tained the crowd with her ren­di­tion of Lord Re­la­tor’s Pan on Sesame Street.

The 2023 Ca­lyp­so Monarch Du­ane Ta’zyah O’Con­nor got the sec­ond en­core for the night for his ver­sion of Lord Re­la­tor’s 1980 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch win­ning ca­lyp­so Food Prices, prompt­ing the crowd to chant, “Bring them back, bring them back.”

Up next was 2018 Ca­lyp­so King Helon Fran­cis with Lord Re­la­tor’s 1980 clas­sic Food Prices.

The man of the mo­ment was then ho­n­oured by the ES­CTT. Af­ter be­ing giv­en the mi­cro­phone to de­liv­er a speech, he joked that it would be a first for him, opt­ing to in­stead en­ter­tain the crowd in true form. Re­la­tor asked the crowed what they want­ed to hear. Calls were heard for his Ra­dio Sta­tions which he went on to per­form along with Eat­ing Com­pe­ti­tion.

The show con­tin­ued with Kris­son “Seraphim” Joseph, son of the late ca­lyp­son­ian The Pen­guin and his ren­di­tion of Lord Re­la­tor’s Coun­try Life.

Shikamoo Re­la­tor end­ed with three-time Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal­ist Stacey Sobers per­form­ing Bot­tle and Spoon.

Lord Re­la­tor is revered for his trea­sure trove of ca­lyp­so clas­sics. In essence, he gives life to ca­lyp­soes past, while giv­ing his au­di­ences a his­to­ry les­son through the work done by bards be­fore him. An ac­com­plished gui­tarist and play­er of many stringed in­stru­ments, Lord Re­la­tor is al­so known for his mas­tery of the art of ex­tem­po.

The Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage which was of­fi­cial­ly opened on Fri­day runs un­til Au­gust 1.