Dara E Healy
This is Trinidad and Tobago, yuh better know
This is we island and we will fight to keep its soul
Out of the darkness and the violence come with me
Hand in hand together, come leh we wake up sweet T&T.
– Neval Chatelal, Vibration
IN 1991, SuperBlue strutted onto the Savannah stage. He took his time, confident in his blue and red tracksuit and blue head tie. In a perfect display of musical foreplay, he teased and moved towards the popular refrain, “Get something and wave!” The crowd sang and cheered; light bulbs flashed. The song that would become Road March was more than an anthem of freedom and release after the failed 1990 coup – it was a song of unity.
What a month we are having. A new Prime Minister installed in the midst of commemorations of Phagwa, Lent and Ramadan, at the tail end of Carnival, while looking forward to Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day.
Undoubtedly, Carnival 2025 embodied strength through diversity as artists intentionally infused a spirit of love and national pride into the festival.
For instance, in the Chutney Soca Monarch competition Neval Chatelal welcomed artists like Marge Blackman, Egbe Omo Oni Isese Traditional African Association, pannist Johann Chuckaree, Prema Shakti Dancers, and the Signal Hill Alumni Choir.
The heightened focus on pan has helped move us closer to better visibility for our national instrument. Increasingly, artists are including pan on stage as part of their live performances or in their backing tracks.
This year, young people practically took over the pan competition, taking another step towards Lloyd Best’s vision for the panyard as a transformative space. How do we ensure they fully understand what they are claiming? How can we ensure that this interest and connection extend beyond Carnival?
We can often connect an increase in patriotic music to traumatic events on a national or global scale. In 1984, calypsonian Merchant sang, almost pleaded, for citizens to co-operate in his powerful Let Us Build a Nation Together: “Now the election bacchanal die away/In short, this is what I have to say/Let us forget spites and grudges and concentrate/Come, let us sit and try to relate/Because now, more than ever/We must show Discipline, Tolerance and Production/To build a strong and better nation/I say that is the main foundation.”
In many ways, 1984 was a tumultuous year. TT sent a contingent to the Olympics in Los Angeles which was boycotted by Russia. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher dominated the political news, while Ethiopians endured famine. Michael Jackson was shaking the world with his creative genius. Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated. And in South Africa, non-whites struggled under apartheid, an oppressive legal system of racial segregation and discrimination.
At the same time, the Caribbean was still dealing with the pain of the murder of Maurice Bishop in 1983 and subsequent invasion of Grenada by the US. At home, in the calypso Make Them Alright, Black Stalin made a plea for more respect for
