Review (2008) of Governing Sound: The Cultural Politics of Trinidad’s Carnival Musics, by Jocelyne Guilbault (original) (raw)
Related papers
Narratives of Resistance in Trinidad’s Calypso and Soca Music
Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry
In Trinidad, the historical, socio-political and economic conditions which gave rise to the birth of Calypso are usually highlighted, in the existing literature, however, there is very little information regarding the oppositional lyrics of current Soca songs. By concentrating on the praxis of cultural resistance exemplified in the narratives of selected Carnival, Calypso and Soca songs, this article expands the existing discourse. Trinidad’s Carnival, post-emancipation, has important societal roles and functions. This article demonstrates that Carnival functions as performative rituals of resistance, individual and community awakening and identity development. Carnival’s established roles, functions and rituals are deliberately designed to disrupt the status quo.
Music, Politics, and Pleasure: Live Soca in Trinidad
Since the 1990s, the commercial value of soca has been widely recognized. Soca's sociocultural and musical accomplishments, however, remain contentious and contested. Soca's so-called light lyrics and its emphasis on sexualized bodies and pleasures, associated in particular with the 1990s onward, have contributed to its dismissal by many. Judged against calypso's sociopolitical commentaries, soca has been criticized by numerous journalists, academics, calypsonians, politicians, and listeners for not engaging the political. At a time of escalating rates of crime and violence and growing fears about personal and public safety in Trinidad, soca is regularly condemned for failing to address the country's social ills. Still, over the past two decades soca has repeatedly succeeded in gathering large crowds, sometimes numbering over twenty thousand, at shows and fêtes. As a participant in some of these audiences, I want to offer an ethnographic perspective on the cultural work that live soca performs. As anthropologist Kevin Birth aptly remarks, "Ethnographic work on contemporary musical performance and consumption can play a complementary role to historically-oriented scholarship on Trinidadian music by capturing dimensions of musical experience that are not readily preserved in the historical record." 1 In this essay I focus on live performances of soca from 1993 onward to highlight their transformative capabilities. My premise is that live performances are effective, that is, do cultural work,
Caribbean Literature in Transition, vol 3, edited by Ronald Cummings and Alison Donnell (Cambridge University Press: 2020), 2020
The intermixing of literary, oral and performance cultures has long been the bedrock of Caribbean writing. Through an analysis of contemporary writing by Anthony Joseph, Nalo Hopkinson, Monique Roffey, Marcia Douglas, Robert Antoni, Nicolás Guillén and Tanya Shirley, this essay demonstrates how contemporary Caribbean writing embraces popular culture to challenge Euro- and American-centric ideologies and destabilize the perceived boundaries between oral and scribal cultures. Popular culture in these texts challenges the writer to experiment with form, language and rhythm rooted in call-and-response, folklore traditions, and Caribbean musical forms such as reggae, calypso, dancehall, mento, zouk, bélé and Afro-Cuban drumming. Drawing from conceptualizations of Caribbean culture in the work of critics Gerard Aching, Antonio Benítez-Rojo, Kevin Adonis Browne, Carolyn Cooper and Kwame Dawes, this essay demonstrates how the oral is always whispering below the surface of the written text as Caribbean authors permeate their writings with soundscapes of Caribbean languages and music. Importantly too, drawing from the rich cultural traditions of the region also becomes a means through which the poetic and literary become explicitly political. These writers fulfil Kamau Brathwaite’s celebrated call in ‘Jazz and the West Indian Novel’ for the Caribbean artist to draw from and acclaim their indigenous, local cultural forms and commu- nity; yet they also adapt and adopt popular culture with a critical eye, particularly in relation to the misogyny and sexism often performed within dancehall and carnival cultures.
Carnival is a rich resource for cultural resistance as well as pleasure A s a huge, Caribbean-led, culturally hybridised, inter-ethnic festival of popular artistic creativity and social critique, the Caribbean carnival deserves much more serious attention than it has so far received. The media tends to reduce carnival to glamorous female bodies, jerk chicken, soca music and outlandish costumes. We aim to demonstrate here that there are elements of Caribbean carnival that carry a radical message, support the display of bodies of every type, and present costumes that carry important social messages, often explaining historical events and commenting on injustice. The interpretation of carnival as performative and playful is incontestable, we suggest, but what is less commonly analysed is the play of power, and resistance to power, within the various performances that constitute carnival. The glittering carnival enthusiastically represented by photographers, advertisers, cultural boosters and tourist agencies is the result of a complex interweaving of power among the organisers; between organisers and funders (public and private); between organisers, participants and the regulatory bodies (particularly the police); between and inside the mas camps (the sites in which carnival masquerades are built); between men and women, young and old; and sometimes, muted but
Caribbean quarterly, 2019
IN THIS SPECIAL ISSUE OF Caribbean Quarterly we focus on Caribbean Carnival cultures. The term “Caribbean Carnival cultures” encompasses an analysis of the cultures of Carnival in the Caribbean and its diaspora, but the scholars and practitioners published here also view Carnival as a unique cultural phenomenon rather than merely a group of Caribbean and diaspora-based events. Caribbean Carnival has not received the scholarly attention it deserves in the UK and, after spending several years researching Carnival, Professor Max Farrar and I created a Caribbean Carnival Cultures (CCC) research network,1 supported by the Centre for Culture and the Arts at Leeds Beckett University. The CCC research network is a unique platform bringing Carnival practitioners and academics together in an aim to kickstart Carnival research in the UK and to support and promote Carnival research across the Caribbean and its diaspora. Central to our approach is the belief that Carnival needs to be taken serio...
Caribbean Quilt
This paper focuses on the history of Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago and how the country molded the event to become a staple of nationalism following independence in the 20th century. It explores the historical beginnings of Carnival, from slavery to indentured servitude to modern-day Trinidad. It looks at how becoming a mascot of Trinidadian culture was achieved in two ways—the representation and rhetoric of the event and how it became a commodity that politicians could use to prove a robust national culture to the world. It takes on central themes of unification, regardless of race, class, or culture, and how the event tells the history of this island, even with the costumes and enthralling music. It touches on how Carnival reflects cultural and political movements throughout the country's history, how it became significant for social changes after independence, and how it could withstand the infiltration of global capitalism and still present a story about Trinidad's cult...
Jump Up! Caribbean Carnival Music in New York City
Caribbean Quarterly, 2020
JUMP UP! CARIBBEAN CARNIVAL MUSIC IN NEW YORK CITY by Ray Allen provides a comprehensive historical account of calypso, soca and steelband music in New York City from the 1920s to 2017. Allen's consistent focus on Carnival music in New York sets this work apart from other studies on diaspora Carnivals (which give little attention to music) or Carnival music in the Caribbean (which hardly consider diaspora). In the first two pages, Allen invokes the contributions of Trinbagonianborn calypsonians The Mighty Sparrow, Calypso Rose, Lord Nelson and others who lived/worked in New York to demonstrate the ways in which Carnival traditions in New York can (and should) be situated within an historical and ongoing transnational network of Caribbean musicians. Although titled "Caribbean Carnival Music in New York City", the book is also a valuable resource for understanding the history of calypso and soca in general because of the effect these transnational networks had on Carnival traditions in Trinidad and Tobago. Particularly noteworthy is his use of the term "Caribbean music" throughout the book to emphasise the pan-Caribbean nature of New York Carnival traditions and the contributions of non-Trinidadians such as Arrow and Granville Straker. With a background in ethnomusicology and American studies, Allen expertly situates historical narratives of Caribbean migrants and musical analysis within the context of New York City. He draws on oral histories, written archived records, discographies and personal experience at Brooklyn's Carnival. His interviews with over fifty prominent musicians and producers provide invaluable first-hand accounts of historical events. While much of the information is historical, he also critically engages concepts related to hybridity, globalisation, diaspora, transnationalism, heritage and participatory/ presentational music. In the first chapter, Allen provides a history of calypso and steelbands in Trinidad and Tobago, showing that these traditions are rooted in processes of hybridisation. This chapter helps to set up both a historical and a theoretical