So far, I have stayed out of the petty, stupid discussions
about making the name of the national awards an ethnic or
racial issue, but I put my foot down when people throw out
inane ideas like changing the name of our football team from
The Soca Warriors to the Soca Chutney Warriors.
The very idea of that name change is offensive to me as an
ancient world history teacher and calypso fan because it shows
how ignorant many people are about T&T history and music.
All Trinidadians and Tobagonians have to do is listen to Ras
Shorty I’s music when he was The Lord Shorty and they
would know that his vision of soca was a mixture of American
soul, calypso and East Indian rhythms. The late Ras Shorty
I made no bones about his musical vision of bringing all Trinidadians
together under one type of music. He talked about his purpose-driven
ideal of merging East Indian and African music together in
several interviews throughout his entire life.
Don’t people listen to Shorty’s early soca songs:
Om Shanti Om or Endless Vibration? Or is it that people are
so petty and stupid they’re trying to divert positive
attention away from our accomplishment of making the World
Cup and concentrate instead on how to divide us as a people
once again?
I had already sent this week’s column when I opened up
the Express and saw music promoter Randy Glasgow jump on this
inane bandwagon of changing the national football team’s
name. I scrapped my original column to submit this one because
I was so upset.
Now don’t get me wrong. I like Randy. He’s a decent
fellow trying to do something with our music. But Randy, you’re
supposed to know more about soca music and not say things
like “I wanted to make an appeal to (T&T Football
Federation’s special adviser) Jack Warner because chutney
is T&T’s invention and I feel once it is given the
recognition on the world stage…”
I don’t know what happened to the rest of that thought.
It was cut off with a set of ellipses. Anyway, Randy goes
on to say, “it will further help unify our country and
bring all races together. People say it’s a divided society.
It would send a good signal that we living together and we
can work together. I think the soca fraternity will welcome
such as initiative.”
No, Randy. A name change will not make us less divisive. It
will make us a country of idiots who don’t know squat
about our culture. It will send a signal that we are NOT willing
to stand as a unified front for the sake of the football players
and we are not capable of standing up against all the trouble
that faces us today.
Most of the problems we have in this society stem from our
inability to understand ourselves, let along each other. We
don’t know what it means to be a Trinidadian. We want
to sieve the callaloo now and reconstruct the ochroes and
callaloo bush.
What further upsets me is that I’m not hearing any discussion
on the radio setting the record straight about the history
of soca music. Someone—and it’s probably not those
clueless deejays on the radio—must educate people about
their musical history before someone makes an embarrassing
mistake that we have to live with forever.
I don’t know about you but as a history teacher I don’t
want to go down in history for supporting the decision of
changing the national football team’s name because it’s
just a matter of semantics. It will bring no real benefit
to anyone and you know if we don’t reach where we hope
to go in this football World Cup some fool will probably blame
it on the addition of Chutney to the Soca Warriors name.
No, we have to be brighter than that and we have to depend
on the media, historians, calypso connoisseurs and right-thinking
people to educate us about soca music—which is not just
the jump and wine party songs, recycled pop melodies, or hip
hop and reggae wannabe rhythms that define our airwaves today.
Yes, there are individuals making a contribution to soca music
today, but overall we have strayed far from the original melodic
soca songs with scintillating rhythms and lyrics “to
make a politician cringe and turn a woman’s body to jelly”
if I may borrow a line from David Rudder’s Calypso Music.
If you want to know and feel what original soca music felt
like and you can’t get your hands on Shorty or get one
of these radio deejays to be able to spell his name so they
could look up Shorty’s music in the archives, then you
could close your eyes and listen to Shurwayne Winchester’s
new soca chutney song on his album. Don’t ask me what
it’s called because I’ve heard it about 100 times
and I haven’t heard a deejay announce the name yet.
When you think about it, changing the name of the football
team to Soca-Chutney Warriors is actually an insult to the
Indian community. It’s saying Trinidadians of East Indian
descent were NOT part of a defining moment in our musical
history. It’s wiping out a whole ethnic group’s
contribution to soca.
With all due respect, Mr Warner, if you dare to entertain
the thought of changing the name of our national football
team to the Soca-Chutney Warriors I will totally freak out.
In the meantime, I’m calling you, Shurwayne, to ask if
you could please find Rose for me. Get the Winchester ready,
Rose and Shurwayne. We’re heading down the street with
More Tempo for the Soca Warriors.
