“Run Wid It” a nightmare for Trinidad Security Minister

Grenadian soca artiste Mr Killa performs his 2019 hit “Run with it” at the I Love Soca series at Bar Code Bar in Scarborough, Tobago, recently.

(Trinidad Guardian) Which one of this sea­son’s ca­lyp­soes might be a “night­mare” for Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young?

Grena­di­an star Mr Kil­la’s Run Wid It is the cul­prit, Young con­firmed at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

Young quipped that it’s giv­ing those in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty “night­mares” since the tune brings to mind peo­ple pick­ing up things and run­ning with it.

But that con­tro­ver­sy apart, if there are con­cerns about this sea­son’s tunes ob­jec­ti­fy­ing women, fe­male ca­lyp­so­ni­ans—like Na­dia Bat­son—are tak­ing up the fight for women with ca­lyp­soes like So Long, says Cul­ture Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly.

Young and Gads­by-Dol­ly spoke about the 2019 ca­lyp­so and so­ca picks dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing when asked their choic­es.

Young said, “If you ask me to name the top five Car­ni­val songs this year, I won’t be able to name them. My head’s been down fo­cus­ing on safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. I did go to the Army fete out of a sense of du­ty, I walked the crowd and left a short while lat­er.”

While Young men­tioned Kees Diefen­thaller’s Sa­van­nah Grass and oth­ers he seemed less par­tial to Run Wid It. But he said he hadn’t heard many songs ob­jec­ti­fy­ing women.

Gads­by-Dol­ly’s im­me­di­ate favourites were Farmer Nap­py’s Hookin Meh and Bat­son’s So Long.

Her take on whether some of this sea­son’s tunes ob­jec­ti­fy women: “Ca­lyp­soes speak about the land­scape. If you look at our ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in terms of fe­male and male, most of our ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are male and a lot on the mind of en­ter­tain­ers at Car­ni­val time may be what they see in the pub­lic and speak­ing of gen­er­al is­sues in T&T, they speak about what’s im­por­tant to them.

“The is­sue of ob­jec­ti­fi­ca­tion may just re­flect the land­scape of the en­ter­tain­ment and the land­scape in T&T. I think I heard an is­sue about ‘Hookin Meh’ and that was an is­sue that res­onat­ed around the Caribbean re­gion. I’ve heard mixed views on it, as there will al­ways be peo­ple who see ob­jec­ti­fi­ca­tion in every­thing that hap­pens and then there are peo­ple who will not see that and see a dif­fer­ent view.”

She added, “I don’t know that there are less songs about women or if there are less songs that seem de­grad­ing to women. There are dif­fer­ent views on what ob­jec­ti­fi­ca­tion is, some of it doesn’t have to be bad and some of it def­i­nite­ly, I think, in the pub­lic view, could be bet­ter in how the song puts across the mes­sages.”

Young com­mend­ed all pro­tec­tive and se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices for the work they’ve been do­ing dur­ing the sea­son.

“We’ve had a very long run-up to Car­ni­val, longer than usu­al in the past few years. So far there’s been no ma­jor in­ci­dents. Dri­ven by in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions, we’ve had quite a suc­cess­ful pe­ri­od up to now,” he said.

“We’re now in the fi­nal stretch and plans are in place. I hope on Ash Wednes­day I can say we had a good Car­ni­val.

“The pro­tec­tive ser­vices will be out in num­bers and we’ll do all nec­es­sary to keep peo­ple safe and se­cure. I hope we have an in­ci­dent-free Car­ni­val. Be aware of your sur­round­ings, walk in groups, care­ful what you drink…and use sun­block.”