In a recent column, I reproduced an article by Guyanese Hubert Williams, once a leading journalism light here, dealing with a recent show in Barbados, put on by the Barbados/Guyana Association, where I performed along with The Mighty Gabby and Red Plastic Bag. Hubert’s very incisive review contained some very interesting observations, including the following sentence: “Yes, today’s calypso offerings, bereft of compositional quality, poetry and deep musicality as they might be, are nonetheless winning rich prizes and wide public acclaim, regrettably, mostly among the youth. So much of the current crop of our calypsonians are like today’s team of West Indies cricketers. They have fallen far from the dizzying heights achieved on a global scale by their predecessors. Those who recognise that our music, much like our cricket, is travelling deeply into the dumps seek solace in nostalgia… and that is why so many Barbadians and Guyanese resident here flocked to the Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Conference Centre last night for the performances by Gabby, Dave Martins and Red Plastic Bag.”
While I am grateful for such warm praise, I have to warn the more erudite among us, such as Hubert Williams, who see the current music as disappointing and hope for a return to what was, that I don’t hold much hope for their aspirations. Our popular music, traditionally, has been largely for contemplation or consideration of this and that, with dancing a secondary part of the equation; that was the purpose in times past, in the era Hubert refers to. But times have changed, as they always do, and now the purpose of popular music, generally, is for partying, or getting on, as the Bajans say, “wukkin up.” So with the function different, the product is different. Bass and drums, essentially rhythm, have come to dominate the music to achieve that “dance-ability”… that is the main course, so the things that examiners like Hubert yearn for—clever lyrics, insight into issues, raising subtle points—are going to be less prominent; different priorities have come to the fore.
This week I was in line at Giftland paying my phone bill, and the mall’s PA system was playing recorded music. It was a long line, and the music being played there reflected perfectly the shift in popular music. In every one of the songs played, the structure was the same, offering very simple arrangements and scant lyrics, and, significantly, with the drum track dominating the music and influencing even the vocals with short phrases sung, as the musicians say, staccato and showing the same emphasis on beat. Again and again, as one listens to the songs, the impulse to dance is clearly the principal intention of the music. On a few occasions, a reggae tune from the Bob Marley era was played, but they were few and far between. Indeed, the Marley material served to illuminate the point because that style of reggae has given way to the dancehall and riddim compositions that make up Jamaican music today. Notice that no popular singers are emulating the Marley style today; his kind of reggae has given way to a more punchy and energetic music, that stirs music patrons to “party,” and there is a similar shift in the music of Trinidad away from the melodic Sparrow fare to the up-tempo soca of artistes, such as Bunji Garlin and Machel Montano mirroring the faster pace and higher energy of life today. In Barbados, Antigua, and St. Lucia, there is generally the same shift.
