Gail Alexan­der

“It was al­most mag­i­cal.”

This was the state­ment made by T&T’s mu­sic man ex­tra­or­di­naire David Michael Rud­der af­ter he re­ceived the Or­der of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (OCC) on Wednes­day.

Rud­der re­ceived the re­gion’s high­est award from For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via phone af­ter­wards, Rud­der said he was hap­py to spend the mo­ment with loved ones.

“It feels very good, the whole evening was fine, it was al­most mag­i­cal,” Rud­der said, de­scrib­ing it as a “great mo­ment in time.”

“It was a very good evening, all of my friends, fel­low mu­si­cians, fel­low ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, and fam­i­ly mem­bers were there, it was just a nice to­geth­er time.”

Miss­ing from the cel­e­bra­tion, how­ev­er, was Guardian Me­dia and oth­er news or­gan­i­sa­tions, who were not in­vit­ed. State-owned tele­vi­sion TTT was said to have been at the event.

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry blamed “pub­lic ser­vants” and each oth­er for the ab­sence of the me­dia.

“I was un­der the im­pres­sion it was be­ing record­ed,” Rud­der said when asked if he was aware oth­er me­dia was not present.

In Ju­ly, Rud­der was among four CARI­COM na­tion­als be­stowed with the OCC at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the 43rd Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of CARI­COM in Suri­name. 

Al­so re­ceiv­ing the re­gion’s high­est award were CARI­COM Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, Am­bas­sador Ir­win LaRocque, Crick­et leg­end Sir Vi­vian Richards, and For­mer Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs of Bar­ba­dos Dame Bil­lie Miller. 

The OCC is award­ed by Cari­com to Caribbean na­tion­als who have a phe­nom­e­nal lega­cy in eco­nom­ic, po­lit­i­cal, so­cial and cul­tur­al meta­mor­phoses of Caribbean so­ci­ety.

Rud­der, 69, wasn’t present in Suri­name and arrange­ments were made for him to re­ceive the award in T&T.

Yes­ter­day, Browne be­stowed the gold OCC in­signia and rib­bon of the or­der on Rud­der, who was dressed in red white and black: tie, shirt and suit.

Rud­der’s work with the ca­lyp­so and so­ca gen­res since 1977 has spot­light­ed T&T across the years in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. The Bel­mont-born mu­si­cian, singer, song­writer and pro­duc­er is known to be one of the most suc­cess­ful ca­lyp­so­ni­ans of all time.

Be­gin­ning as lead singer for brass band Char­lie’s Roots, he lat­er stepped out­side of the band to en­ter the ca­lyp­so field as a so­lo artiste in 1986 – cat­a­pult­ing him to fame.

Yes­ter­day’s func­tion was at­tend­ed by Venezuela’s Am­bas­sador to T&T Al­varo Sanchez. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 on Ju­ly 29, is still in iso­la­tion.

En­ter­tain­ment for the func­tion was pro­vid­ed by Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus steel­band. The band was arranged against a back­drop of the na­tion­al colours.

Cari­com ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Rud­der with the state­ment yes­ter­day, say­ing, “Rud­der joins a cadre of dis­tin­guished per­sons who were ho­n­oured for mak­ing out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of the com­mu­ni­ty.”

Since be­stow­al in 1992, the OCC has been con­ferred on 24 dis­tin­guished peo­ple from the re­gion–sev­en from T&T.

Re­cip­i­ents are ac­cord­ed the priv­i­lege of free move­ment among Cari­com mem­ber states and is­sued with a trav­el doc­u­ment of sim­i­lar sta­tus to a diplo­mat­ic pass­port. The right to re­side in and be gain­ful­ly em­ployed in any mem­ber state and the right to ac­quire and dis­pose of prop­er­ty are al­so grant­ed.