NYT
March 9, 2011
Carnival’s Louder Commercial Beat Adds Dissonance
By JOHN ELIGON
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — To some people here, Dean Ackin, 38, with his boyish face, is an inspiration of entrepreneurship, a bearer of this country’s evolving culture. To others, he is a threat to this nation’s most beloved social and cultural treasure: Carnival.
Mr. Ackin runs one of the country’s most popular Carnival bands, the groups of people who don costumes and masquerade — or play Mas, as locals call it — in the raucous annual two-day street parade. The roughly 5,000 spots available in Mr. Ackin’s band, Tribe, sell out every year almost as fast as they go on sale. Demand has been so high since he started Tribe in 2005 that Mr. Ackin just started a second band.
But some say Mr. Ackin and others like him, who have in recent years spun profitable, year-round businesses out of organizing these bands, threaten the existence of Carnival as Trinidadians know it.
By shunning the conservative, traditional costumes for cheaper, skimpier outfits that are sometimes produced outside of Trinidad, these new bands, critics say, are distorting their forebears’ creation and sending work elsewhere at a time when the government and others are trying to turn Trinidadian-style Carnival into a more profitable and exportable industry.
“We call it two-piece and fries, the bikini and the bras,” said Stephen Derek, a traditional costume maker, referring to the skimpy costumes that have become a staple of the new bands. “The costume comes like a fast food. To them, the bottom line is profit. It has nothing to do about country or culture anymore.”
The entrepreneurial bandleaders counter that they are part of a natural evolution, merely offering what people want.
“If you really look at those people who play Mas with the younger bands, or if you talk to a visitor abroad and say: ‘Hey, have you ever heard of Trinidad Carnival? What band would you play with?’ they would call Tribe or they would call one of the younger bands,” Mr. Ackin said. “That says we are reaching out further than the traditional bands. We are reaching out to the international market.”
With few exceptions, the 1.3 million people living on these twin West Indian islands believe that they do Carnival better than anyone in the world. But the generational clash has raised questions over how today’s Carnival is shaping the country.
Is the reliance on mass-produced bikinis — a far cry from the elaborate, hand-crafted costumes Trinidadians had grown accustomed to — stifling the creative works that have been the hallmark of traditional Carnival, which the government of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has been pressing to revive since she took office last year?
Or does it reflect the country’s new energy, representative of a push beyond Trinidad’s reputation for complacency in developing revenue streams beyond oil production?
Read the full post, including photos and video, HERE.
Showing posts with label trinidad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trinidad. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Chicken calypso lawsuit
Chicken Case Goes to Caribbean Court
By PHILIP SPOONER, Associated Press WriterSun Aug 7, 2:44 PM ET
Sixteen years ago, allegations that a farm was supplying questionable chickens to restaurants inspired a flurry of biting calypso songs.
Memories of the "Barbados chicken controversy" still provoke chuckles among locals, but the furor died down and never resonated much off this Caribbean island.
That's about to change.
A libel suit by the farm's owners on Monday will be the unlikely first case to go before a regional appeals court set up to replace the colonial-era Privy Council in faraway London as the final legal arbiter for most former British territories in the Caribbean.
At the same time, the case carries important implications for free speech, and some people worry it could threaten the traditional role of "calypsonians" as the region's political satirists.
The plaintiffs, Ram and Asha Mirchandani, contend the scathing calypso songs forced them to close their farm in 1990 even though allegations by some employees that they were selling sick chickens never were proven.
In 1999, they won a judgment against Barbados Rediffusion, one of the radio stations that played the satirical songs, but the couple has not been awarded damages as the case is appealed.
On Monday, the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice will decide whether to consider the radio station's final attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed. The nine-judge panel has not disclosed when it will rule.
The hearing will offer the first glimpse at the workings of the court, which opened in April but so far has been formally adopted by only Barbados and Guyana as their final appeals tribunal. Other members of the 16-nation Caribbean Community are wrestling with legal obstacles or resistance from critics, who fear the court could be vulnerable to political pressure.
The push for the court arose when Britain's Privy Council began blocking attempts to impose the death penalty in the 1990s, angering people across the Caribbean fearful about a surge in violent crime as their islands became transit points for drug trafficking.
But while the court grew out of worries about criminals, its first case is a test of free speech.
Afro-Caribbean calypso music evolved in Trinidad as a means of spreading news — and of denouncing corruption and other problems. Calypsonians often were the target of censorship during British colonial rule.
"They function like lampoonists," said Gordon Rohlehr, a literature professor at the University of the West Indies who has written about the role of calypso. "The calypsonians are regarded as the people who sniff out the truth and who tell you what the man on the street thinks."
Attorneys for the Mirchandanis and the radio station declined to discuss the chicken controversy, which erupted in 1989 during carnival, a time when calypsonians traditionally debut their most acidic lyrics.
Several employees of the MacDonald Chicken Farm accused the Mirchandanis of processing and selling chickens that had died of illnesses. An explosion of calypso songs about questionable chicken meat flooded the airwaves, while carnival revelers donned chicken costumes or T-shirts with rude slogans about the couple's farm.
"I was concentrating on highlighting the way people were feeling at the time," said Mighty Gabby, Barbados' most venerated calypsonian. "The issue was to voice the people's opinion, not to hurt."
His song on the controversy, "Chicken and Ram," carried lyrics veiled enough that it was one of the few chicken calypsos that radio stations did not drop when the Mirchandanis filed their lawsuit.
Calypsonians say libel judgments involving their music will have a chilling effect on creativity.
"On 'Saturday Night Live,' in the United States, their performers do some things that we can't even think about doing here in Barbados," said Peter Boyce, a performer with the five-member calypso and comedy troupe MADD, whose "Madd Chicken Song" was among those banned because of the lawsuit.
"We need laws that allow for more freedom of expression."
Rohlehr isn't so sure. He believes the threat of censorship and lawsuits has inspired the veiled imagery and double-entendre that make for the best calypso songs.
A victory for the Mirchandanis might "simply make for better and more clever songs," he said.
___
Associated Press reporters Alexandra Olson in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Bert Wilkinson in Georgetown, Guyana, contributed to this report.
By PHILIP SPOONER, Associated Press WriterSun Aug 7, 2:44 PM ET
Sixteen years ago, allegations that a farm was supplying questionable chickens to restaurants inspired a flurry of biting calypso songs.
Memories of the "Barbados chicken controversy" still provoke chuckles among locals, but the furor died down and never resonated much off this Caribbean island.
That's about to change.
A libel suit by the farm's owners on Monday will be the unlikely first case to go before a regional appeals court set up to replace the colonial-era Privy Council in faraway London as the final legal arbiter for most former British territories in the Caribbean.
At the same time, the case carries important implications for free speech, and some people worry it could threaten the traditional role of "calypsonians" as the region's political satirists.
The plaintiffs, Ram and Asha Mirchandani, contend the scathing calypso songs forced them to close their farm in 1990 even though allegations by some employees that they were selling sick chickens never were proven.
In 1999, they won a judgment against Barbados Rediffusion, one of the radio stations that played the satirical songs, but the couple has not been awarded damages as the case is appealed.
On Monday, the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice will decide whether to consider the radio station's final attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed. The nine-judge panel has not disclosed when it will rule.
The hearing will offer the first glimpse at the workings of the court, which opened in April but so far has been formally adopted by only Barbados and Guyana as their final appeals tribunal. Other members of the 16-nation Caribbean Community are wrestling with legal obstacles or resistance from critics, who fear the court could be vulnerable to political pressure.
The push for the court arose when Britain's Privy Council began blocking attempts to impose the death penalty in the 1990s, angering people across the Caribbean fearful about a surge in violent crime as their islands became transit points for drug trafficking.
But while the court grew out of worries about criminals, its first case is a test of free speech.
Afro-Caribbean calypso music evolved in Trinidad as a means of spreading news — and of denouncing corruption and other problems. Calypsonians often were the target of censorship during British colonial rule.
"They function like lampoonists," said Gordon Rohlehr, a literature professor at the University of the West Indies who has written about the role of calypso. "The calypsonians are regarded as the people who sniff out the truth and who tell you what the man on the street thinks."
Attorneys for the Mirchandanis and the radio station declined to discuss the chicken controversy, which erupted in 1989 during carnival, a time when calypsonians traditionally debut their most acidic lyrics.
Several employees of the MacDonald Chicken Farm accused the Mirchandanis of processing and selling chickens that had died of illnesses. An explosion of calypso songs about questionable chicken meat flooded the airwaves, while carnival revelers donned chicken costumes or T-shirts with rude slogans about the couple's farm.
"I was concentrating on highlighting the way people were feeling at the time," said Mighty Gabby, Barbados' most venerated calypsonian. "The issue was to voice the people's opinion, not to hurt."
His song on the controversy, "Chicken and Ram," carried lyrics veiled enough that it was one of the few chicken calypsos that radio stations did not drop when the Mirchandanis filed their lawsuit.
Calypsonians say libel judgments involving their music will have a chilling effect on creativity.
"On 'Saturday Night Live,' in the United States, their performers do some things that we can't even think about doing here in Barbados," said Peter Boyce, a performer with the five-member calypso and comedy troupe MADD, whose "Madd Chicken Song" was among those banned because of the lawsuit.
"We need laws that allow for more freedom of expression."
Rohlehr isn't so sure. He believes the threat of censorship and lawsuits has inspired the veiled imagery and double-entendre that make for the best calypso songs.
A victory for the Mirchandanis might "simply make for better and more clever songs," he said.
___
Associated Press reporters Alexandra Olson in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Bert Wilkinson in Georgetown, Guyana, contributed to this report.
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