Calypso
Calypso is a music that's virtually synonymous with the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean. Over the course of a century, the music developed, and, with the rise of soca, then rapso, appeared to go into a decline. But over the last couple of years there's been something of a renaissance. The Ice label (run by former popster Eddy Grant) has been issuing plenty of classic calypso, and Smithsonian Folkways has started contributing to the rebirth. But, far from breathing its last, calypso is vibrant and very much alive - especially at Carnival time.
"Calypso came from the griots. When Africans came as slaves they brought their traditional songs, and the only way for them to survive culturally was to come together and listen to the griot, who told stories of the community and mocked the slave master." |
Quite where the name calypso came from is a matter of conjecture. To some, it's a derivation of an West African word, kaiso, a shout of encouragement. But there's plenty of debate about the matter.
"It definitely came out of Trinidad, and there are articles about where the name came from," noted historian Ray Funk, "but there's little enough evidence as to where the name originated that it's all academic debate. It's not entirely clear."
As to the music itself, it derives from Trinidad's multi-colonial past: it was owned by Spain, then Britain, and along the way also received a lot of French immigration (the French brought the idea of Carnival with them), all mixed with a large slave population brought from Africa.
"I tend to believe, with Chalkdust, that there's a lot of African retention," said Funk. "That's present in the way Carnival evolved in Trinidad. Francis Hershowitz lived in a small Trinidadian village, and made some interesting field recordings. In 1939 he published "Trinidad Village." A lot of what he was trying to do was talk about the retention of African culture in the New World. Where he lived you could see lots of Yorubas surviving. The first of the recordings, called Peter was a Fisherman, is out on CD now."
To Jean Michel Gibert, head of the Trinidadian label Rituals, "calypso came from the griots. When Africans came as slaves they brought their traditional songs, and the only way for them to survive culturally was to come together and listen to the griot, who told stories of the community and mocked the slave master. A lot of slave masters back then were French, which is why you can find some patois in the original calypso."
According to scholar John Cowley, the word calypso was first used in 1883, to describe a dance. By then the British had already banned candoublay, a native forerunner of Carnival, with stick-fight, bands of drummers, and the chantwells, or singers, whose voice would urge on the participants. The chantwells were the first real calypsonians, entertaining at Carnival time. They had grand names like Hannibal and Boadecia (a tradition that still continues). The relative freedom of Carnival time allowed them their brief outbursts - in 1898 Norman Le Blanc sang out against the repression of the colonial rules with reprisal.
Beginning in 1914, calypso became a recorded form, too, and after that, noted Funk, "there was a transition from the chantwells, with carnival bands parading through the streets with one person leading the singing. In the late ‘20s into the ‘30s, something changed, and the first calypso tents began. Then came the backup bands, and Guyanese bands came in. There were Guyanese vaudeville troupes, with their songs. Bill Rogers was probably the best known of them. Some people suggest that tradition might have had some impact. Certainly some calypsonians appeared with the vaudevillians."
It was the beginning of what might be called calypso's golden age. The time of Roaring Lion, Atilla the Hun, Lord Invader and many, many more.
"Suddenly you had the social commentary thing starting age, with folk who became widely known because they began getting shipped off in 1934 to New York city to record. First Lion and Atilla, then Caresser, and Executor, and several others. Their annual trips resulted in audio documentation of some of the best calypsos of that period."
And the music broadened considerably, in part thanks to Roaring Lion.
"He brought all the new melodies, because there were only 12 melodies," said Grant. "He and Atilla the Hun, his partner, were great experimenters."
Invader had one of his calypsos covered during World War II. The American forces were in Trinidad, and their presence brought about lots of political songs, including "Rum And Coca Cola," which was a U.S. hit for the Andrews Sisters. It took Invader many years and several lawsuits, to see money from the plundering, and he spent much of that time living and performing in America, writing new material which was as topical as ever.
"There's a richness about calypso as a topical song," said Funk. "One of the most famous from the early years of recording is Atilla the Hun's "Graf Zeppelin," which is about the time it came to Trinidad."
"Calypso became a huge fashion in the States in the ‘50s," recalled Gibert, "thanks to Harry Belafonte, who released a Calypso, with some traditional songs, and other West Indian mento songs. It was the first Caribbean album to sell more than one million records."
The music also traveled to England with West Indian immigrants, and throughout the ‘50s and early ‘60s it was far from uncommon to hear calypso from performers black and white. In spite of that, however, "it never worked as well internationally as reggae or salsa," observed Gibert, "in part because Trinidad and Tobago had oil. So they were very rich and didn't try to push the culture abroad or tried to lure tourists. So, unlike Jamaica, they didn't push it - they had Carnival, and that was fine."
And as island music, it flourished. The calypsonians who'd come of age earlier continued to write and perform, and new talents emerged to join them, like Lord Pretender. But while it was still a folk music form, outsiders who thought of it as quaint and amateurish were in for a shock at Carnival time, since "there's a big band with a horn section. All the charts are written out, and have been since the ‘60s," Funk explained. "Many calypsonians will write their song, work out an arrangement in their head, sing it into a tape recorder and take it to one of the arrangers and they'll do the band charts. It's arranged big band music. Before that in the ‘50s it was head arrangements, and before that it was just the singer with guitar. Black Prince still does a very traditional style with just his guitar."
From the mid ‘50s until independence - indeed, well beyond - calypso also became a political force, allying itself with the People's National Movement party. Mighty Sparrow, in particular, was a vocal supporter. Along with Lord Kitchener and Roaring Lion, he made up the triumvirate of truly exceptional calypsonians, and the music of all three celebrated "a mixture of topical and sexually suggestive songs, and carnival spirit, the release," as Funk put it. Calypso wasn't just a male province. Artists like Calypso Rose emerged in the ‘60s (she began as a partner of Kitchener, before establishing herself in her own right).
One of calypso's great traditions is extempo, or improvising songs, "and that's taken a couple of different forms," said Funk. "In the ‘50s, and even in the ‘40s, two singers would trade insults, and that continues in the tents every night, three or four singers exchanging verses. A different type of that occurred with tourists. A segment of calypsonians would sing for tourists. Panther did that in the ‘50s, going out to the boats and at the popular tourist spots. They had a set series of verses they could use. A mark of a good extempo singer was a marker of a good calypsonian. Pretender was the best of his generation. In the last decade there's been a revival of extempo singing, and the modern master is Tipsy. Every year there's a competition. There's an older-style band of six or seven guys. They open an envelope, and inside is a topic, and the contestant has to do four verses. Some fall flat some nights. Gypsy is consistently great. It's gotten popular enough so that last year tow of the best people startted out their show doing some extempo. So it's a real living part of calypso."
"Because Trinidad has both East Indian and Afro-Caribbean population, fast Indian rhythms entered calypso, and then the instruments became electrified." |
"Because Trinidad has both East Indian and Afro-Caribbean population, fast Indian rhythms entered calypso, and then the instruments became electrified," observed Gibert. The sound went global with Arrow's "Hot Hot Hot," international hit, and soon other talents, like David Rudder, emerged on the scene.
"Arrow is still living off the song - he gets healthy royalty checks," laughed Gibert. "But it's a perfect example of soca, music for partying, uptempo and joyous, if not very conscious. "Who Let The Dogs Out" is in the same tradition. It was created as a soca song by a Trinidadian Carnival artist, and was in the Top 10 here a few years ago. The Baha Men covered it in a more hip-hop way."
Nor was soca the only outgrowth of calypso. In the late ‘70s came the form known as rapso, a mix of rap and soca, which "was started by Lancelot Layne," according to Grant. "He tried to put spoken word to calypso, and that's continued and grown. A new generation has shown a greater interest in that. But it's more like Jamaica than Trinidad."
"Rapso is when soca became more critical, and took a more conscious style," in Gibert's evaluation. "It can be compared to dub poetry. It's very politically oriented, and with the soca influence. One of the first artists was Brother Resistance, but it's evolved, too, by integrating techno and dancehall. It's a conscious and trendy expression of the youth in some Caribbean islands, mainly Trinidad."
But at Carnival, at least in more recent years, calypso is still the music.
"These days there are several main tents," said Funk, "the Calypso Revue tent, which is Kitchener's tent, then the most commercialized, which is spectacular, then Kaiso House, which is run by the Association of Calypsonians and government-funded. They feature Singing Sandra, Shadow, and Black Stalin. They're the most politically oriented of the three main tents. And you'll find other tents around the island. You go to a tent and pay your $8. Each one has an MC. Early on it was just calypsonians as Mcs, and now it's more of a comic art. The performers usually do one song, with the top half a dozen doing two. And at the end of the evening, there's a soca guy finishing it."
And, he feels, the music remains strong for the future.
"The junior calypso competition is held ever year. Some incredible performers are born there. Great songs are being written, and it's alive and well. Go to Trinidad for Carnival and you can go to six or seven tents and hear 150 different calypsos being performed. And that's just Trinidad - there are competitions in many other Anglophone countries with the explosion of the all the carnivals."
While, as Gibert noted, "calypso is struggling, because the Djs and radio aren't playing it, at least some "young bands are covering material from the calypso repertoire. So the vibe exists."
And at Carnival, it's still on Trinidadian radio. There have been programs, both on TV and radio, about great calypsonians (Shorty died in 2000, Lion in 1999, so while the greats are slowly passing, their memory is still very much alive), so perhaps the island is becoming more aware of a very remarkable musical heritage.
Related Articles in the 'Special Features' Category...
- Editorial
- Lost Classics
- The History of Jamaican Music: Part 1
- The History of Jamaican Music: Part 2
- The History of Jamaican Music: Part 3
- The History of Jamaican Music: Part 4
- The History of Jamaican Music: Part 5
- The History of Jamaican Music: Part 6
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