Last Saturday, in our weekly entertainment and culture eight-page supplement The Scene, we carried a report based on an interview with the reigning calypso monarch Mr Geoffrey Phillips – the Mighty Rebel – in which he said that he was foregoing defending his title this year and would not compete again because of what he described as “shabby treatment” meted out to him by the state controlled television station – National Communications Network (NCN).
Over the years, Mr Phillips said, he has been faced with discrimination. He pointed to instances when the state-controlled radio station gave his calypsos no air play because his lyrics – usually risqué and filled with double entendre – bashed the government or politicians aligned with it. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back in this case, he said, was a DVD titled ‘The Best of Mash 2010,’ which had all of the top performers for last year, but excluded him. Mr Phillips felt this deliberate attempt to erase him from the festivities in the production of a DVD, which will no doubt be referred to for posterity, was more than an oversight. He felt slighted. Who wouldn’t? This, on top of all he has endured over the years brought Mr Phillips to the point where he said, no more.
Mr Phillips told this newspaper that he believed NCN produced the DVD and when contacted for a comment, NCN Production Manager Martin Goolsarran denied this. Mr Goolsarran said NCN had not produced the DVD, but he was “willing to take a look at it.” There has been no further word from Mr Goolsarran or NCN on the issue.
Furthermore, Mr Phillips said, the DVD was circulated at the Ministry of Culture’s launch of Mashramani 2011, which was held last October at the Umana Yana. Was the Ministry of Culture then responsible for the production of the DVD? And even if it were not, has no one from the ministry viewed this DVD all these months and noticed the omission of the Mighty Rebel?
Mr Phillips is a veteran local calypsonian. He has been writing and singing calypsos for some 30-odd years in Guyana – just about half of his life. Excluding him from the best of anything to do with local calypso would be downright wrong, but the omission of his song/performance on ‘The Best of Mash 2010’ DVD in the year when he won the calypso monarchy is a slap in the face. It is akin to Trinidad and Tobago putting out a ‘best of’ DVD and excluding a monarch the likes of the Mighty Sparrow or Lord Kitchener. Whoever framed this insult should be called to question. The Ministry of Culture et al should apologise to the ‘Rebel.’ It is actions like the one outlined here that contribute to the decline in the art form in Guyana.
In 2009, officials from the Ministry of Culture, including the Minister Dr Frank Anthony, met calypsonians and examined the reasons for the obvious decline in calypso. Apart from the obvious reasons – stiff competition from reggae, dancehall and hip hop – calypsonians pointed to the “reluctance by the radio station to promote and air local calypsos…”
An association of calypsonians was to have been formed and Dr Anthony had urged the calypsonians present to be more proactive in raising funds to produce their songs, offering them a free venue for concerts and pledging government’s practical and sustained support.
Last year the ministry’s Mash Secretariat said the competition would forge a local revival in calypso. Well how can there be a revival when one of Guyana’s most renowned calypsonians and someone who has contributed so much and still has more to give could be snubbed in this manner?
For his part the singer/songwriter of such rib-ticklers as ‘All Ah We Know De Man,’ which won him the monarchy last year; ‘Desi Yuh Wrong’; ‘Is We Put Yuh Deh’; ‘Ask De President’ and others, magnanimously said he will continue to sing, but not compete. He said he was interested in passing on what he knows to young people or anyone who was interested, and would be proud to sing for his country whenever called upon to do so.
