For the first time in 30 years, the band 3canal will not be bringing out its J’Ouvert band and, as the mas was such a big part of the band’s identity, its three members have decided to switch things up and try something new: kaiso – TT’s "mother music".
While Wendell Manwarren, Roger Roberts and Stanton Kewley are no strangers to kaiso, and have dipped their toes into the genre several times over the years, rapso has been their mainstay for 28 years.
Speaking to Sunday Newsday at the band’s headquarters, Big Black Box on Murray Street, Woodbrook, Manwarren explained all the music Trinidadians make – calypso, rapso, soca, rapso, parang, chutney, trinibad and zess – evolved from kaiso.
“Sometimes we get very caught up in genre and arguing about what type of music a song is, but if you listen to the history of calypso, and fortunately we can because it’s one of the first recorded music in the world, you can actually hear how it changed yet stayed the same. So that’s one of the ideas we’re exploring.”
He said in Never Ever Worry with the late Lord Pretender, the late Lutalo “Brother Resistance” Masimba declared, “From rapso to kaiso, mix the thing!” They changed the line, saying it was just a question of how the music swings or is mixed.
Roberts added that 3canal performed at the Calypso Spektakula tent for three years, from 1999-2001, and it was a great place to learn how to perform for a calypso audience, to perform with a full band and the importance of style.
Manwarren said performing with D'All Starz, formally known as Roy Cape All Stars, at the Black Stalin legacy concert on October 4, 2024 at the Southern Academy for the Performing Arts, gave them “that feeling” and reinforced the idea of swinging to kaiso.
“We came through the rapso stream but ain’t so far removed to just swing it and find where the kaiso is.”
And so this year, there will be The 3canal Kaiso Show, with the deliberate inclusion of the word “kaiso.”
Not just a concert
In addition to the swing to kaiso, The 3canal Kaiso Show will have several new elements.
Usually, a music production centre, a combination drum machine and sampler, is used in the shows, but not this time. The machine will be removed from play, and the band will be backed by the brand new cut + clear KAISO crew.
Cut + clear’s new drummer Nick Thomas and percussionist Tamba Gwindi will create the rhythm for the band. Instead of one, there will be two guitarists, Dean Williams and Kiwan Landreth-Smith, and there will be an all-new brass section, including Barry Homer on trumpet, Kensa Paul on trombone and Tony Paul on saxophone to give that true kaiso feel. And there will be Simon Mendoza on keyboard and Joanna Husein on bass.
The band also increased the number of backup singers, The Pooyahs (meaning cutlasses or three-canals), from three to six. Kimmy Stoute-Robinson will be the MC, and actors Marvin Dowridge, Arnold Goindhan and Cecilia Salazar will bring the drama, humour and commentary.
To add another element of movement and theatricality, there will
