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8. Cover Washington Redskins
wide receiver Pierre Garçon
is proud of his Haitian roots
— and brings Caribbean
flair to a distinctly American
game
Photo Portrait by Jim
Darling, background by
Olga Bogatyrenko/
Shutterstock.com, digital
imaging by MEP
This issue’s contributors include:
Jamaican Tanya Batson-Savage (“The view from the
Roost”, page 30) is the author of Pumpkin Belly and
Other Stories. Her career has run the gamut of teaching,
cultural criticism, journalism, advertising, and creative
writing. Find more of her writing at www.thebitterbean.wordpress.com and www.susumba.com.
Angelo Bissessarsingh (“City of lights”, page 26) is a
historian from Siparia, Trinidad. He is the founder of
the Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago heritage
resource, and writes a column titled “Back in Time” for
the Trinidad Guardian.
Bahamian Sonia Farmer (“The Popop spirit”, page 52) is
the founder of Poinciana Paper Press, a small fine press
that produces hand-bound limited-edition chapbooks
of Caribbean writing, based in Nassau. Her poems won
the 2011 Small Axe Literary Competition, and have
appeared in various publications. She holds a BFA in
Writing from the Pratt Institute.
Debbie Jacob (“From island to end zone”, page 42) is
a journalist and author of eight books. She is the head
librarian at the International School of Port of Spain,
Trinidad.
Born in Venezuela, Laura Montanari (“Fifty shades of
blue”, page 76) has lived in Spain, Italy, and Anguilla.
She has written for Sint Maarten’s Daily Herald and the
online young adult literary magazine pezlinterna.com.
A passionate traveller in love with the Caribbean, she
currently resides in London.
Melissa Richards (“Making her claim”, page 48) was
born in Trinidad and now lives in London. She is a
former journalist and has worked in publishing in both
London and New York.
12
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13
9. From Team Caribbean Airlines
Visiting relatives in London? Let Caribbean
Airlines fly you there!
W
elcome aboard the best airline
in the Caribbean! It’s that time
of year when families and
friends come together to share in the joy
and festivity of the yuletide season, and
at Caribbean Airlines, there is an air of
excitement as our family ensures that your
travel experience is filled with merriment.
Whatever your plans this season, let us
take you to the destination that you call
home. Whether you’re looking forward to
pastelles and parang in Trinidad, baked
stuffed turkey and ginger beer in Grenada,
or even Christmas carols and ice skating
in London, we can take you there.
Your checked baggage is free, the
meals are on us, and we may even have
some of your favourite seasonal movies in
our in-flight entertainment presentation.
It is a very busy season, and we hope
you also take advantage of our cargo
services to ship all your goodies this
season. From perishables to valuables,
we take care to have your belongings
delivered on time and with utmost care.
If this is your first time travelling with
us, it is our pleasure to boast that we are
officially the Leading Caribbean Airline. Yes!
World Travel Awards has named us Leading
14
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Caribbean Airline for 2013. That’s the fourth
year in a row. And if you are one of our
special loyal Caribbean Airlines travellers,
we’re glad to see you on board again.
It’s a great honour to have you on
board today, and the fact that you chose
us as your carrier reflects the hard work
and dedication of our thousand-plus staff
at our twenty stations system-wide.
It has certainly been a non-stop year
so far, and in that vein, we have recently
started even more non-stop services on our
most popular routes, like Toronto/Guyana
and New York/Port of Spain. Our network
connection is seamless and hassle-free.
The response from our customers has
been very encouraging, and reminds us
of the loyalty we have earned on these
key routes by offering reliable professional
service and all-inclusive value. Caribbean
Airlines has always linked the Caribbean
and its peoples from across the globe,
and we continue to do so.
With our online reservations, booking,
and check-in facilities, plus our great
frequent flyer miles programme, Club
Caribbean benefits, and the most reliable
air cargo services, we are truly the Leading
Caribbean Airline! In addition, the best
pisaphotography/shutterstock.com
The best airline in
the Caribbean
things in life are duty free. Visit our Duty
Free Shop at Piarco International Airport,
Trinidad, where we stock the best brands
of liquor, perfume, and chocolates. Special
purchases for the special people in your life.
Our extensive route map reads like
a GPS locator for the most successful
communities of the Caribbean diaspora.
London, New York, Miami, Toronto: some
of the world’s most vibrant and ethnically
diverse cities, where food, fashion,
and music have exploded through the
collaboration with Caribbean peoples
and our unique energies, flavours, and
natural bubbling warmth. The Caribbean
community has reached out to the world
through us, and we connect them all.
We invite you to sit back, enjoy
reading Caribbean Beat and watching
our customised in-flight video magazine
Caribbean Essence — or relax and start
dreaming of your next flight on the Leading
Caribbean Airline.
We look forward to showing you why
we keep winning accolades.
Season’s greetings from our family to
yours.
Team Caribbean
10. Cal Events
Karlene Thompson (left), Flight Attendant, hands over the
Caribbean Airlines–sponsored door prize
Thanks from Kiwanis
Club in Jamaica
Alicia Cabrera, Senior Marketing Manager, Caribbean Airlines, Brandon Moore, Inflight Purser, and Delia Bennett, Sales Executive, Jamaica, along with Chris Frost,
Vice President, World Travel Awards.
Caribbean Airlines wins Leading
Caribbean Airline award fourth
time in a row
For the fourth year in a row, Caribbean Airlines has been named
the “Caribbean’s Leading Airline” at the annual World Travel
Awards function held in September at Sandals Grande Antigua
Resort Spa.
Accepting the award on behalf of the airline, Alicia Cabrera,
Senior Marketing Manager at Caribbean Airlines, said, “This fourth
win really cements our position as the region’s premier carrier.
That the category is judged based on travel industry professionals’
voting makes it even more prestigious, as our customers and travel
agent partners clearly recognise the tremendous effort put forth by
the staff to make each flight special.”
Caribbean Airlines Invaders
live in concert
Caribbean Airlines Invaders recently held “Versatility”
The Concert at NAPA, Port of Spain, featuring acts such
as former National Calypso Queen Karen Eccles, soca
star Machel Montano, and young guitarist Jacob Tanker.
Led by composer and arranger Arddin Herbert, the steel
orchestra performed a wide repertoire to the delight of
the captivated audience. We salute Caribbean Airlines
Invaders Steel Orchestra on an excellent presentation.
16
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Caribbean Airlines Jamaica recently lent its
support to the Kiwanis Club of Mona for their
Anniversary Wine and Cheese Cocktail event
held at the Vice Chancellery at the University of
the West Indies, Mona campus.
The club has successfully undertaken a
number of major charitable projects which
have had significant impact in the communities
served in the Liguanea, August Town, Standpipe,
Mona, Gordon Town, Barbican, Tavern, and
surrounding areas.
CPL teams travel seamlessly
thanks to Caribbean Airlines
services
Kudos extended to all Caribbean Airlines teams who
worked assiduously, ensuring our Caribbean cricketers
were able to tour during the summer peak for the
Caribbean Premier League games.
11. datebook
jo crebbin/shutterstock.com
Your guide to Caribbean events in November and December — from seasonal
festivals to a cricket tour
The brilliant colours of
Bahamas Junkanoo
B:276 mm
S:260 mm
T:276 mm
We’re honoured to be one
of the most highly awarded
banks in the Caribbean.
BAHAMAS
Feel the rush
But it’s our customers that deserve all the credit.
At Scotiabank, we believe in serving the needs of our customers first. So much so, we were
recently awarded Global Bank of the Year, Best Emerging Markets Bank and Best Internet Bank,
to name a few. We’d like to thank all of our employees who have made these awards possible.
And though the awards are nice, it’s really the success of our customers that we care about the most.
Don’t miss . . .
Trinidad’s Divali Nagar, page 26
To find out more, start a conversation with us today.
Visit a Scotiabank branch
or go to scotiabank.com
TM
Trademark of the Bank of Nova Scotia, used under license (where applicable).
Discover what’s possible
Miami’s international art fair, page 28
Jamaica’s annual pantomime, page 30
The Bahamas comes alive at year-end
with the annual Junkanoo masquerade,
as costumed dance troupes “rush”
through the streets, performing their
complicated routines to the sounds of
cowbells, goatskin drums, whistles, and
horns. Junkanoo festivities typically
begin in the wee hours of the morning,
and end somewhere around 9 am. The
masqueraders’ elaborate and brightly
coloured costumes are made from some
combination of crêpe paper, fabric,
cardboard, and wood, all in an attempt to
capture the title of best Junkanoo group.
While Bay Street in Nassau is said to be the
best place to experience everything firsthand, Junkanoo parades also take place in
Grand Bahama Island, Bimini, the Exumas,
and the Abacos.
When: 26 December and 1 January
Where: Nassau and other venues around the
Bahamas
For more info: visit the Bahamas Tourist Board
at www.bahamas.com
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
19
12. datebook
ST VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
Nine mornings of carolling contests, competitions
for the best illuminated communities and
gardens, and early morning (4 am!) sea baths are
just some of the things you can look forward to
as St Vincent and the Grenadines celebrate their
annual Nine Mornings Festival. And this year
promises to be epic, as 2013 marks one hundred
years of this unique tradition. A hundred-day
countdown started on 7 September, there will
be a special lighted street parade featuring
traditional music, characters, and flambeau
on 1 December, and the actual festival starts
a couple of weeks later. With almost fifty-two
communities involved across the islands, you
can participate in something new each day — a
quadrille, ring games, drama performances —
and just revel in Christmas, Caribbean-style.
Where: venues around St Vincent and the Grenadines
When: 16 to 24 December
For more info: call +784 451 2180 or visit the Nine
Mornings Festival page on Facebook
svg nine mornings committee
Go a-carolling
TRINIDAD
NGC Bocas Lit Fest South Central
When: 16 and 17 November
Where: venues in San Fernando and Chaguanas
What: TT’s literature festival puts on a special weekend-long
programme of authors’ readings, performances, and workshops in the
unofficial capitals of south and central Trinidad
For more info: visit www.bocaslitfest.com
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20
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Call: 1-868-675-7034 or visit our website: www.gotrinidadandtobago.com/trinidad/meetings • email: conventionbureau@tdc.co.tt
13. datebook
nicholas laughlin
Hosay
When: 11 to 17 November
Where: St James and Cedros
What: Shia Muslims parade
tadjahs (replica mausoleums)
through the communities
of St James and Cedros
to commemorate the
assassination of the Prophet
Mohammed’s two grandsons.
It starts with Flag Night (11
November) and ends on Teejah
Day (17 November), when the
tadjahs are destroyed in the
sea.
For more info: visit www.nalis.
gov.tt/Research/SubjectGuide/
Hosay/tabid/565/Default.aspx?
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Dancing the red moon at Hosay
commemorations in St James
BARBADOS
NORTHERN LEEWARDS
Embrace the stage
In past years, the Caribbean Secondary Schools’
Drama Festival has been held in Antigua, Guyana,
and Jamaica. Students from those three countries,
along with peers from Anguilla, Bermuda, and
Trinidad and Tobago, will all participate in the
2013 festival — the seventh one since it was
founded — which takes place in Barbados this
December. Apart from a series of plays by visiting
delegations, says festival co-founder Icil Phillips,
the programme will include “cultural exchanges
with local secondary schools, a teacher’s workshop
on assessing the performing arts, the annual
general meeting of the festival, a workshop on
tuk [Barbados’s indigenous musical genre] and
Landship, and a youth forum that discusses the
state of theatre in the CSME.”
When: 8 to 15 December
Where: Queen’s Park Steel Shed, Bridgetown
For more info: email the Barbados Association of
Drama Educators at drama.educators.bb@gmail.com,
or call +246 238 5625
courtesy Bob Grieser and Jaqueline van de Weijer
TRINIDAD
Golden Rock Regatta
When: 11 to 18 November
Where: St Martin, St Barths, St Kitts, St Eustatius
What: An annual event, the regatta includes seven races between
the four islands. The weeklong programme will kick off with a party
in Philipsburg, and end with a prize-giving dinner at Captain Olivers
Restaurant in St Martin.
For more info: email regatta chairman Juul Hermsen at juul@
goldenrockregatta.com, or call +31 40 2428392
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
23
15. word of mouth
Darren Cheewah
Dispatches from our correspondents around the Caribbean and further afield
City of lights
Angelo Bissessarsingh recounts
the sights and sounds of Trinidad’s
Divali Nagar, an annual grand fair
in the weeks before the Hindu
festival of lights
E
very child in Trinidad and Tobago grows up with a
rudimentary knowledge of the religion, culture, and
customs of her peers, which is probably why this
nation can serve as a model for social tolerance. We all know
about Divali, the Hindu festival of lights, which ostensibly
commemorates the return of Rama, the hero of the Ramayan
epic, to Ayodha after his long exile. The goddess Lakshmi is
also paid homage, in the hope that she bestows prosperity on
her adherents. In Trinidad, however, Divali — which falls this
year on 2 November — has transcended its ethnic and religious
roots to become a national festival that reaches out to the wider
Indo- and non-Indo-Trindiadian community. And long before
the thunder of bursting bamboo echoes through the villages,
and in anticipation of the night when tens of thousands of tiny
oil-lamps called deyas transform the darkness into a palette of
splendour, there is the Divali Nagar.
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The Nagar is best described as a grand fair centred around
Divali that blends the ancient civilisation of India with the
heady pulse and tempo of life that make Trinis world-famous.
Located just east of Chaguanas, the bustling unofficial capital
of central Trinidad, the expansive space that is transformed
annually into the gaudy extravaganza was designated for this
purpose in 1986, after the original location in a shopping mall
car-park proved inadequate. From day one, the Nagar, which
opens a few weeks before the Divali holiday, proved to be a wild
success, with hundreds of vendors flocking to the area. It has
since been upgraded to include a pavilion, an air-conditioned
indoor hall, a magnificent statue, and landscaped grounds. An
old locomotive and bogie cart — silent reminders of the island’s
sugar industry (the original impetus for labour from India in
1845) — stands to the rear of the compound. The National
Council for Indian Culture is the body that oversees the Nagar,
and ensures that the fair opens with a dramatic event that
draws a wide spectrum of people from every walk of life, from
government ministers to the burgesses of Chaguanas.
To the first-time visitor, the Nagar experience assaults the
senses. The aroma of pholourie, aloo pies, and saheenas frying
in coconut oil clashes with the pungent curries being prepared
just a few feet away. The riot of colour is almost psychedelic,
as elegant silk saris, heavy with embroidery, mingle with
delicate filigree jewellery crafted locally or imported from
India. At all times, the fine sounds of classical Indian music
can be heard, occasionally broken into by more invigorating
Indo-Caribbean beats.
It’s an addictive experience, as evidenced by the thousands
of cars and buses which converge every day while the festival is
in session — full of visitors, all with the expectation of imbibing
the essence of the Divali Nagar.
16. word of mouth
The art of
Ocean Drive
Marta Fernandez Campa previews Miami
Art Basel, the biggest contemporary art event
around the Caribbean, and recalls some hits
from recent editions of the fair
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kicked off during the fair. It featured Julien’s
installation videos Baltimore, Vagabondia,
and Paradise Omeros, a combination of
installation and photography paying
homage to Derek Walcott’s Omeros and
St Lucia, home of Julien’s parents. These
works showed a unique sensibility in their
narrative rhythm, which drew you towards
their “silent” stories.
courtesy ebony g. patterson/monique meloche gallery
A
rt Basel Miami Beach — also
known as Miami Art Week — is
a cultural experience true to its
host city: eclectic and heterogeneous. With
the main fair (running this year from 5 to 8
December) and over twenty satellite events
spread across the city, art lovers can easily
feel overwhelmed. Dozens of international
galleries exhibit contemporary artwork by
established and emerging artists, and to
fully appreciate the sheer number of shows,
openings, and other events happening
simultaneously over the four days, you need
your diary at hand and your walking shoes
on. Admittedly, this look may clash with the
trendy attire of many art-fair–goers, but
being selective definitely helps.
Considering Miami’s proximity to the
region, it’s not surprising that Caribbean
artists turn up at the fair. Jamaican Ebony
G. Patterson was featured by Chicagobased gallery Monique Meloche in 2012,
in Untitled, a new satellite fair curated by
Omar Lopez-Chaboud. Untitled grouped
artwork by forty galleries in a tent on the
beach opposite Ocean Drive. Patterson’s
mixed media drawings ref lected the
artist’s distinctive aesthetics and focus
on portraiture of Jamaican male youth
and dancehall culture. Her work will
once again be a focal point of Monique
Meloche’s 2013 Untitled presentation, with
a series of stunning gold-leaf paintings.
Miami’s art museums also introduce
special exhibitions during Art Basel. I
will always remember Isaac Julien’s 2010
exhibition at the Bass Museum of Art, which
Although most of the action is centered
on South Beach, there’s a lot more to be
seen around Miami’s Design District or
Wynwood, whose booming art scene
includes a series of amazing graffiti
murals. And the Little Haiti Cultural
Centre is a key location to appreciate the
work of Latin American and Caribbean
ar tists. Here, Miami-based Haitian
artist Edouard Duval-Carrié has curated
various versions of his Global Caribbean
project. During Miami Art Basel 2011,
this featured artwork by Cuban artist
José Bedia, Dominican artist José GarciaCordero, and Duval-Carrié’s own work.
The cosmological and spiritual visions
of Bedia’s large paintings were set in
conversation with Garcia-Cordero’s dark
paintings of social critique and DuvalCarrié’s mythological focus. The opening
of the show was accompanied by a brief
preview of a Haitian opera based on the
revolutionary hero Makendal.
At this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach,
apart from Ebony G. Patterson’s gold-leaf
pieces, Caribbean art lovers can seek out
new works by Trinidadian Christopher
Cozier, who will be artist in residence at
Untitled Lightz I (2013, mixed media on paper, 8.5 x 6.75 feet), by Ebony G. Patterson
The exhibition also premiered Julien’s
Ten Thousand Waves in the United States.
This audiovisual installation of nine
massive screens tells stories of China’s
past and present, while remembering the
twenty-three Chinese immigrant cocklepickers who died at Morecambe Bay in
England in 2004, trapped by the high
tide. I was completely taken aback by this
installation, its poetic storytelling and
audio-visual lyricism.
the trendy Betsy Hotel in South Beach,
creating a site-specific lightbox installation.
And the Pérez Art Museum Miami will
open its elegant new building with a series
of exhibitions and projects including
Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke’s For
Those in Peril on the Sea, an installation of
dozens of replica boats and ships suspended
in one of PAMM’s new project spaces.
I only wish I still lived in Miami so I
could see them live!
17. word of mouth
The view from
the Roost
t’s called the Roost. Otherwise known
as the nosebleed seats: those perched
at the very top of the Ward Theatre,
the powder-blue grand dame of downtown
Kingston. But to my eight-year-old self, as
I gazed down at the spectacle taking place
on the stage far below, they were the best
seats in the house.
annual pantomime, produced by the Little
Theatre Movement: a bevy of spectacle,
fuelled by catchy music, and populated by
engaging sets and vibrant costumes.
Jamaican pantomime is the love child
of the British Christmas pantomime
and Afro-Jamaican traditions pulling
from Jamaican folk culture, history,
Anancy play in 1949 (Bluebeard and Brer
Anancy, written by Noel Vaz and Louise
Bennett). In 1954 there was a forceful
move towards indigenisation, with the
first Anancy cycle of plays: Anancy and the
Magic Mirror (by Greta Fowler) and Louise
Bennett’s Anancy and Pandora and Anancy
and Beeny Bud.
T he product ions have benef ited
from and help to defined and develop
some of the island’s best acting, writing,
directing, musical, and choreography
talent, including the legendary Miss
Lou, Ranny Williams, Charles Hyatt,
and Rex Nettleford. Not only was it a
training ground for many in theatre, but
it was also responsible for the birth of
the School of Drama, now a part of the
Edna Manley College of the Visual and
Performing Arts.
In its early days, the pantomime ran
for a few weeks. Today, productions
usually run for approximately three
months. The themes over the decades
The occasion was the 1983 pantomime
Ginneral B, and my entire family and I were
dressed, pressed, and out with a throng of
other Jamaicans from across the country
to see the production. Ginneral B wasn’t
my first panto, but it’s the earliest one I
can remember. The memories aren’t very
clear. Apart from the sight of actor Oliver
Samuels in a bright white suit, and a car
that somehow made it onto the stage, it is
the feeling of awe that I recall more than
anything else.
This has been the hallmark of Jamaica’s
and contemporary realities. The panto
has become a staple of the Jamaican
theatrical diet, so much so that in his book
The Jamaican Theatre Wycliffe Bennett
describes the national pantomime as
“uncompromisingly Jamaican as rice and
peas and ackee and salt fish.”
The first pantomime, Jack and the
Beanstalk, was staged in 1941, and in
those days it stuck close to its British
origins. The panto had its first brush
w ith Jamaicanised content in 1943
(Soliday and the Wicked Bird), and its first
have been varied. Recent pantos have
pulled from history in Combolo and Miss
Annie, explored folk tales in Iffa Nuh So
and Anancy and Goat Head Soup, and dealt
with contemporary happenings in Runner
Boy and Howzaat.
The 73rd pantomime, The Golden
Maccafat, will continue the tradition of
exploring contemporary issues through
a folk prism, fuelled by dance and music.
It opens on Boxing Day, 26 December,
2013 — with more than a few awestruck
youngsters in the audience. n
Tanya Batson-Savage remembers the
excitement of Jamaica’s annual pantomime
Darren Cheewah
I
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18. the look
In the
bag
Jamaican designer Kesi Gibson of
Kyu Mélange creates handbags
inspired by different cultures
Photography courtesy Kesi Gibson
W
e all know what it’s like to follow in our parents’
footsteps. With her mother creating mosaics
using exquisite materials, it’s no surprise that Kesi
Gibson made the jump from finance to fashion to create Kyu
Mélange. This Jamaican designer and alumna of the prestigious
Wharton School of business in Pennsylvania designs beautifully
handcrafted bags for both men and women, drawing inspiration
from different cultures and combining vibrant raw materials from
countries such as Turkey, Argentina, and Jamaica. Each has a
wonderful combination of fabrics, is incredibly fresh, and is a
functional wearable piece of art. Look out for Gibson’s holiday
collection this November, and her expansion to cool jewellery.
Alia Michèle Orane
style.aliamichele.com
Above As seen on the Caribbean Fashion
Week runway, the Lulu shoulder bag is
for any woman on the go
Left A balanced combination of leather
and silk makes this Makeda clutch a
must-have
For more information on retail outlets and items for
purchase, visit www.kyulmelange.com
32
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33
19. Bookshelf
Jamaica in Black and White: Photography in Jamaica, c 1845–1920,
by David Boxer and Edward Lucie-Smith (Macmillan Education, 304 pp,
ISBN 9781405098878)
The considered historical photography
book can mean a broad significance
of things: it may serve as an emotional
treasury, a satellite to one’s past and the
past of one’s predecessors. It may be a
compiled series of waypoints by which
archivists and historical aficionados
might navigate the development of a
nation, a phenomenon, or a collective
identity. It has the potential to be both
cultural criticism and sepia slideshow,
dually. This new compendium of
photographs gleaned almost exclusively
from the David Boxer collection, with
accompanying texts by Boxer, former
chief curator of the National Gallery
of Jamaica, and art critic Edward LucieSmith, is both emotionally resonant and
historically illuminating.
Known photographs from the late
nineteenth into the early twentieth
century do not encompass Jamaican
slavery’s denouement — they begin
in earnest from the early days of
post-abolition, continuing through
to the rebuilding of Kingston in the
aftermath of the devastating 1907
earthquake. Events that contribute
to the bedrock of Jamaican history
are captured in still images by
photographers of the age (notably
A. Duperly and sons, though many of
the featured photographs retain little
to no significant source information).
The Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865; the
1872 construction of Victoria Market;
the heyday and decline of the island’s
railway system: these scenes from
the architectural, civic, and resistance
archives of daily life find a generous
berth of representation in these pages.
The auxiliary texts of Lucie-Smith
and Boxer are intelligent sideline
additions: the images are always focal,
compass points of an era in Jamaican
history reinvigorated with vitality
through contemporary examination.
Of particular appeal are the book’s
numerous portraits. From these, a sense
of multi-faceted, many-chambered
personhood emerges, in the formal
and unforced studies of landowners,
field labourers, ex-slaves, immigrants,
children: considered as an extended
treatment in human study, these
images will both inform and fascinate.
Shivanee Ramlochan,
Bookshelf editor
A Kind of Eden, by Amanda Smyth (Serpent’s
Tail, 288 pp, ISBN 9781846688133)
Amanda Smyth’s second novel is a
poetically violent contemplation
of contemporary Trinidadian
life, experienced through the
jaded yet hopeful eyes of British
police officer Martin Rawlinson.
The foreigner navigates the
island’s lush terrain with an
uneasy appreciation, finding
fleeting yet heady comforts
in the arms of a younger local
mistress. The author’s prose
enacts a half-loving, halfhorrified portraiture of a savage and terrifyingly beautiful
place. As the novel’s dubious hero vacillates between
ideas of identity and transplantation, the sympathetic
reader feels Rawlinson’s fear: how so many of his personal
dreams for peace unhinge in the chaos of one violent
night, and the difficult decisions he must make in the
wake of his family’s endangerment. Smyth guides the
narrative smoothly, invoking terror and reflective disquiet
alongside descriptions of natural splendour.
SR
34
Santimanitay, by Nathalie Taghaboni (Commess
University Press, 361 pp, ISBN 9780615873336)
The much-anticipated second
book in Nathalie Taghaboni’s
Savanoy family series is a lot
darker than its predecessor
Across From Lapeyrouse, and
deals with issues that most
families would sweep under
the carpet: alcoholism, mental
illness, infidelity, and even
more morbid reality. In telling
Carlton and Helene’s love story,
the author brings more of
the Savanoys’ history to light.
Without revealing spoilers, there is one passage where
any woman who has had a child will put the book down
to weep. This author’s ability to draw in and captivate
a reader is quite unique. I don’t think I have ever been
quite as invested in a book’s characters as I was with
Santimanitay’s. You’ll leave this book feeling like the
Savanoys are your own family.
WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM
Bridget van Dongen
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
35
20. playlist
Creole Soul Etienne Charles
Trinidad Calypso 1939–1959 Various artists
Calypso conquered the world after Harry Belafonte’s 1956
Calypso album became an unprecedented success, but
overseas fascination began far earlier, thanks to plentiful
recording sessions that took place both in New York and
Port of Spain. And many commentators agree that calypso’s
“golden age” stretches from the late 1930s to the early
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1960s, which is the era profiled on this double CD. Humour
is naturally a big part of the proceedings, with Kitchener
demanding that his girlfriend return “My Wife’s Nightie”,
Terror fretting that “Chinese Children Calling Me Daddy”,
and Houdini bemoaning a lack of “Gin and Coconut Water”
in the United States. Of equal interest are intriguing calypso
adaptations of traditional tunes, such as “Hol’ Em Joe”
by Sparrow, the excellent “Kalenda March” by Roaring
Lion, and “River Den Come Down” by the obscure Island
Champions.
There are many perennial favorites, including Invader’s
“Rum and Coca Cola”, Sparrow’s “Russian Satellite”,
and Kitchener’s “Kitch”, but the uncommon gems bring
the compilation to a higher level. For instance, there is
a superbly sultry adaptation of the ribald “Fire Down
Below”, credited to Beauty and the Brute Force Steel Band,
and the pairing of actress Enid Mosier with a Trinidadian
steelband for a rendition of Lord Melody’s “Boys Days” is
an uncommon delight, as is Young Tiger’s “Calypso Be-Bop”.
This fine compilation thus has plenty of interest for a broad
audience, from the seasoned calypso hand to those not
overly familiar with the form.
David Katz
Born in Trinidad, and now an assistant
professor of trumpet at the Michigan
State University College of Music,
Etienne Charles is fast becoming one
of the biggest names in current jazz
music. He opens his fourth album,
Creole Soul, with voodoo priest Erol
Josué chanting in Haitian Creole.
Inspired by a trip to Haiti, the first track, “Creole”, has an
outstanding performance by drummer Obed Calvaire as he
kicks off a fiery backbeat with a scintillating kongo groove.
The tone then slows down for the ballad “The Folks”, which
includes two excellent solos from Charles along with his
tenor saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart.
To go along with the originals there are also four excellent
covers. Two standouts are Bob Marley’s classic “Turn Your
Lights Down Low” — given the obvious reggae treatment,
but also including a mesh of soul and calypso. “Green
Chimneys” (originally by jazz legend Thelonious Monk) is
also arranged to showcase the calypso root in the melody.
That chant at the beginning of the disc translates into
“I’m bringing the news,” but what Charles brings us is a
vibrant and exciting album that isn’t just jazz, but a mashup of everything Caribbean.
Sheldon Cadet
Single Spotlight
My Allergy Depressed Optimist
Since the inception of Irie Fire Studios
in Antigua a couple of years ago,
I’ve been keeping an ear open, keen
to hear what they would come up
with. With the recent release of “My
Allergy” by Depressed Optimist, my
optimism has been well rewarded.
The band is fronted by the multitalented Hani Hechme, who not also manages the studio
but also composed, arranged, played guitar and bass, and
sang the main vocals on the track, which features a plethora
of young Antiguan musical talent. It begins with a moody
monologue by Che Ferris on drums (if you are in Antigua
you should see him live, playing with his other band,
Monkey Tee-Lee), then bursts into superb guitar playing by
Hechme. The backing vocals add to the moodiness of the
sound, and the old-school record-scratching from DJ Quixx
brings everything together. Their sound is very different
to anything currently being played in the Caribbean. I’m
eager to hear what else will come out of this exciting new
addition to the Caribbean music scene. Check them out at
www.iriefirestudio.com.
SC
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37
21. cookup
The taste
of home
Far away from her native
Dominican Republic,
Clara Gonzalez decides
to recreate a traditional
Christmas meal. But where
do you find a pernil in
Denmark — or Dominican
batatas?
Photograph by Clara Gonzalez
I
Pan de batata
t’s easy to underestimate the importance of
Christmas for Dominicans. Other countries
celebrate many holidays with equal fervour,
but this is not the case in the Dominican
Republic, where Christmas is the year’s most
noteworthy occasion.
With the exception of the Lenten season,
no other festivity has dishes that are indelibly
connected with the feast. The Christmas Eve
dinner brings Dominican families together — it
is a time to celebrate the ties that bind us. And
wherever we find ourselves, we’ll try to bring
a little of the flavour of the homeland with us.
If you happen to end up in an area remote and
disconnected from the Dominican Republic, well,
it just means a little more effort has to be made,
but nothing will stop a Dominican from keeping
the tradition.
Over ten years ago I was in Denmark, where my
husband hails from, spending the holiday season
with his family. Cold as it was, I was determined to bring a little of my own culture into a
celebration which in Denmark is also steeped in ancient traditions.
I had the brilliant (read: insane) idea of treating everybody to an “authentic” traditional
Dominican Christmas meal on 23 December. But, enthusiasm aside, creating dishes with
ingredients native to, or popular in, the Caribbean turned out to be quite the predicament.
To make matters worse, we were not even in the capital, Copenhagen, where finding some
of the ingredients had a slightly better chance than a snowball in hell — or a snowball in
the Caribbean, for that matter. Instead we were in a small tourist town far away from any
major city.
This idea of mine proved to be the type of challenge that reality TV is made of. Even
under these conditions, I was still able to procure yuca (cassava) and platanos (plantains) in
a nearby city, and with considerable diligence, a pernil.
It’s easy to forget that what is common to the point of being unremarkable in our
country may be considered exotic in another. For a country that consumes a heck of a lot
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
39
22. Pan de batata (sweet potato pudding)
Pan de batata is a delicious dessert with a very exotic and spicy
taste. The aroma of cinnamon and cloves and the touch of
ginger make it the very embodiment of tropical cuisine.
The variety of sweet potato used for this dessert, although
common in the Dominican Republic, may be more difficult to
find elsewhere. It is bright purple with greenish flesh, and very
sweet once cooked. If you can’t find this type, you should add
three tablespoons of cornstarch to the mixture to compensate
for the lower amount of starch in other varieties.
2 lbs sweet potatoes
2 eggs
1½ cup brown sugar
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup butter at room temperature (or 1/3 cup vegetable oil)
½ cup finely chopped coconut
2 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp clove powder
½ tsp nutmeg powder
Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC). Use a teaspoon of butter to
cover a nine-inch baking pan.
Peel the sweet potatoes. Grate with the least coarse side of
your grater or pulse in the food processor until you obtain a
paste. Add all the remaining ingredients to the sweet potato
and whisk until it is well mixed.
Pour the mixture into the pan and bake until you test with
a clean knife and it comes out clean (about thirty-five minutes).
Cool to room temperature before removing from the pan.
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immerse
Christmas rice
Each family seems to have its own version of this dish, which
has become an inseparable part of the traditional Christmas
and New Year’s Eve dinner.
3 cups long-grain rice
1 cup golden and dark raisins, mixed
1 cup of flaked blanched almonds
4 cups vegetable stock (see note below)
4 tbs oil
Salt
Heat the vegetable stock until it breaks a boil, and keep hot.
Heat the oil over low heat in a cast iron or aluminium pot.
Add two teaspoons of salt (but see note below).
Add the rice and stir for about three minutes. The rice
should change a bit in colour, but do not let it burn. Add the
vegetable stock and stir (careful with splatters!). Cook over
low heat, stir two to three minutes. When the water has
nearly evaporated, add the raisins and stir. Cover and cook
over very, very low heat for twenty minutes.
Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add the almonds and
stir until they turn light golden, but do not let them burn.
Uncover the rice, stir, and add the almonds. Stir again to mix
them. Serve immediately.
Note: If you do not have homemade vegetable stock, you can
use a store-bought version, or dissolve a vegetable bouillon
cube in boiling water. Take into consideration that they contain salt, so taste it. If the amount of salt seems sufficient for
the rice, omit the additional salt from the recipe.
And since finding batatas (Dominican sweet potatoes) in
cold Denmark would be akin to finding rødgrød med fløde being
served in the Dominican Republic, I used the more common
sweet potatoes (the ones with the orangey flesh) and some corn
starch (they have less starch than batatas) for my favorite dessert
of the season.
While pan de batata (spiced sweet potato pudding) is not
commonly associated with Christmas in the Dominican
Republic, it has become a staple of our family Christmas
celebration. Its spicy, gingery taste is the perfect ending to the
night, and I wasn’t going to have a “Dominican” Christmas
dinner without it.
Adaptation, experimentation, sweat, and frustration were the
words to describe that feat of stubbornness. I wasn’t sure how it
would turn out, but that didn’t stop me.
It worked.
Everybody loved the dishes, the “exotic” flavors, and the idea
of a Christmas from beyond the sea, transplanted from an island
of palm trees to the land of Vikings.
A holiday miracle! n
Nadia Huggins
of pork, finding a fresh ham in Denmark proved to be quite the
achievement. Luckily, my in-laws own a hotel and restaurant.
They have a good relationship with the town’s butcher, who got
us one after a couple of days’ waiting.
Whatever ingredients I couldn’t f ind, I adapted and
substituted. No whole-grain bulgur for kipes (fried bulgur rolls)? I
made kipes with peeled bulgur and added a bit of flour to help with
the consistency. No yautia or ñame, Caribbean root vegetables?
I made pasteles en hoja (traditional Dominican savoury cakes
wrapped in plantain leaves) with yuca and platanos, and added a
grated potato to add more starch. Since finding plantain leaves
would be impossible in Denmark, I wrapped them in parchment
paper.
The most difficult part proved to be guandules (pigeon
peas) for a moro de guandules (rice and pigeon peas). Nobody
in Denmark had ever heard of them. They seem to be quite
uncommon outside the Caribbean. So I gambled and bought
mung beans, based on appearance only, and decided to try them.
Their taste is similar to the “ashy”, nutty taste of guandules. It
turned out not a lot unlike the real thing. Or perhaps it was
homesickness that convinced me of that.
42 From island to end zone 48 Making her claim 52 The Popop spirit
58 “You time every night” a 61 Christmas skanking
have to give them
good
Closeup
Snapshot
Own Words
Backstory
Riddem Rhyme
A courtyard at Nassau’s Popopstudios shows traces of the handiwork of its community of artists
23. closeup
Who are the Caribbean’s best football players?
No, the other football: not soccer, but American
football, whose highest level is the National
Football League. Unknown to most sports fans
at home, Caribbean athletes have exuberantly
infiltrated the NFL, bringing a distinctive spirit to
the artificially turfed field of play. Debbie Jacob
meets four football players from the islands who
are changing the face of this all-American game
hey are football players with Caribbean roots, but when these
players dig their cleats into the artificial turf, they aren’t kicking
around the soccer ball that defined their youth. They are playing
American football — a misnomer for a game originally derived
from rugby, but purposely changed in the nineteenth century
when spectators lost interest in watching piles of players
painstakingly pushing their way down a field.
As boys, they didn’t know of this North American sport
where scoring points depends mainly on a quarterback
handing off the ball to a running back, or throwing it to designated receivers who
never kick the ball. They never dreamed of playing American football, but —
drafted or signed as free agents by a National Football League team — Caribbean
players bring to the game the flair and confidence that defines the region.
From the New York Giants’ wide receiver Victor Cruz, who celebrates his goals
and his Puerto Rican roots with salsa dances in the end zone, to the New Orleans
Saints’ outside linebacker Jonathan Vilma, known for his brutal tackles as well as
his Haitian ancestry, the NFL currently lists fifteen players with Caribbean ties.
They are colourful and controversial characters both on and off the football field.
These Caribbean players have earned a reputation for being bold, tenacious,
loyal, light-hearted, fiercely confident, and competitive. They play with all the
pride they have inherited as West Indians, and they take every opportunity they
can to claim their heritage. Their numbers are few, but there’s no doubt about it:
in American football, Caribbean athletes are making waves.
Pierre Garçon
Washington Redskins #88
Born 8 August, 1986
6 feet, 0 inches; 212 pounds
42
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ast year, wide receiver Pierre Garçon proved to be a key player in the
Washington Redskins’ NFC East championship game. Best known for his
passion for football and his pride in his Haitian roots, Garçon — formerly
of the Indianapolis Colts — stamped an indelible image on the Colts’ 2010
victory over the New York Jets, when he celebrated by displaying the
Haitian flag. “That victory was a week after the earthquake in Haiti,” says Garçon,
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43
24. “The reality is, football is not a Caribbean
sport,” Ramon Harewood explains.
“You’re not born with a helmet and
shoulder pads, and the deal-breaker for
many athletes is the physical contact”
“and I think I had the best game of my life. It was the blessings of
everyone praying for me and my family and everyone in Haiti. I
had a great hand in helping the team win that game.”
Most people who are unaware of his background assume
Garçon is French. He uses that misunderstanding to claim his
Haitian roots. “My whole family is from Haiti,” he explains. “My
three sisters were born in Haiti. I was born two years after my
parents arrived in the US. I grew up speaking Kreyol at home
and learned English when I went to school. I still have family in
Léogâne, and my family goes there as often as possible. My mom
is from Port-au-Prince. My Haitian roots are very important to
me. It’s my identity,” says Garçon.
“I tell people Haiti has the most beautiful people
and beautiful beaches. It has the best food.” At
home, Garçon savours his mother’s red beans and
oxtail, creole shrimp and plantains. Being Haitian,
Garçon says, serves him well. “It makes me
appreciate life. It shows me how to work extremely
hard through difficult times, because that’s how we
have dealt with life as a people. We came through
tough times throughout history, and we survived.
“Being from Haiti gives me strength. As a
football player, I never give up on anything or any task. I
represent Haiti everywhere I go.”
he Baltimore Ravens won 2013’s Super Bowl XLVII, the
championship game at the end of the football season, with
the help of Ramon Harewood, the NFL’s only player
from Barbados. In September, Harewood became a
free agent in search of another team after the Ravens
released him. Still, he is the only Bajan with a Super Bowl ring.
Harewood grew up playing volleyball, cricket, and rugby, and
became a football player quite by accident, when an American
Patrick Chung
Philadelphia Eagles #23
Born 19 August, 1987
5 feet, 11 inches; 210 pounds
Ramon Harewood
Currently free agent
Born 3 February, 1987
6 feet, 6 inches; 330 pounds
44
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football scout vacationing in Barbados recruited him to play
college football in the US. Harewood transferred from the
University of the West Indies at Mona to Morehouse University
in Atlanta, Georgia, where he earned a degree in applied
physics and engineering. At Morehouse, Harewood had to learn
American football from scratch. Drafted in the sixth round by
the Ravens, Harewood spent much of his first two years with the
team on injured reserve.
Harewood credits his Bajan roots every chance he gets. “I
was raised by an aunt after my mother died when I was ten,” he
says. “I was raised to never say never — just keep fighting, and
that’s all I did.”
Harewood sees his success in the NFL as an anomaly. “The
reality is, football is not a Caribbean sport,” Harewood explains.
“American football is not a sport you can pick up and play.
You have to want to do it. When you put those pads on, you
separate the men from the boys. You’re not born with a helmet
and shoulder pads, and the deal-breaker for many athletes is
the physical contact. As much as I would like to push American
football here in the Caribbean, it’s just not the reality here.”
In the freezing Baltimore winters, Harewood often thought of
Barbados. “I tell everyone Bajans are good, wholesome, decent
people,” he says. “That’s what I miss most — the people, and my
childhood friends. The majority of the friends I grew up with still
live in Barbados.”
hiladelphia Eagles safety Patrick Chung was born in
Jamaica, where his mother Sophia George was famous
for singing “Girlie Girlie”, a 1985 reggae hit. Chung
migrated to the US with his family when he was ten. Far
ahead of American students, Chung finished secondary
school and enrolled at the University of Oregon at the age of
sixteen.
He describes himself as a Jamaican-American. Chung is
often questioned about his Chinese name, and he spends time
educating Americans about the ethnic diversity of his home
country. “Growing up in Jamaica teaches you about diversity,”
he says, “and it teaches you race doesn’t matter. It’s how you live
life and how you treat people.”
He still remembers settling into the US. “When I got here,
no one could understand me when I talked. I was a young kid
speaking a different language, Jamaican Creole.” One day
Chung came home from school and broke the news to his mother
that he wanted to play American football. “She said, ‘Can’t you
be on the swim team?’ She didn’t want me to hit people.”
Chung sports tattoos that remind him of his roots. “Kingston
and August, my birthday, are on my right bicep, and Jamaica is
on my left bicep,” he says. “I never forget my Jamaican roots.” He
tells everyone that Jamaicans are down-to-earth, good people.
Chung is a Bob Marley and reggae music fan, and he’d eat jerk
chicken every day if he could.
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
45
25. Trevardo Williams hasn’t been
back to Jamaica since migrating
to the US, but he says, “I’m
always going to be a Jamaican at
heart. My best memories are in
Jamaica”
With his wife Celia, Chung recently launched the Chung
Changing Lives Foundation, based in Massachusetts, to help
children cope with school and life in poor areas. Eventually he
hopes to expand his charity work to Jamaica.
He credits his Jamaican roots with shaping him as a hardworking, relentless NFL player. “I realise I come from a small
place,” he says, “but so many West Indians have shaped the US.
I’m proud of that, and I know I can make a difference on the field.
Jamaicans are fast and quick, and that helps us in football.”
He adds, “I’m not just a Jamaican. I’m from the West Indies.
That means pride, hard work, and being kind to people. My
parents would slap me if they ever found out I wasn’t kind to
someone.”
nly one new West Indian player found his way to the
NFL this year. At the 2013 NFL draft, the Houston
Texans snatched up outside linebacker Trevardo
Williams, who was born in Trelawny, Jamaica,
just east of Montego Bay. Williams migrated to
Connecticut when he was fourteen, to join his mother. He’s
twenty-eight now, so he’s spent half his life in the US. But
Williams still has a strong Jamaican accent, and at home he
speaks Jamaican Patwa.
“It’s cool to know I’m the only person from the West Indies in
this year’s draft,” he says, when I inform him during an interview
after football practice. Like other Caribbean players in the
NFL, Williams says he’s sure his roots shape his morals and his
work ethic. “In Jamaica, I was a church guy in the Pentecostal
church,” he says. My values are home and family. I come from a
tight-knit family.”
Williams, who has a degree in sociology, hasn’t been back to
Jamaica since migrating to the US, but he says, “I’m up-to-date
with my culture, the food — my favourite is stewed chicken and
fresh cabbage — and the music.”
He dreams of returning to Jamaica to research his family
tree. He vividly remembers Jamaica: playing cricket, dice, and
the game “mama lash she,” and running through the countryside.
“My mother came to America when I was four,” he says, “so
I was raised by my maternal grandmother. I’m always going to
be a Jamaican at heart. My best memories are in Jamaica.” n
Trevardo Williams
Houston Texans #54
Born 31 December, 1990
6 feet, 1 inch; 237 pounds
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46
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47
26. snapshot
Making
her claim
The daughter of an Afro-Chinese Jamaican
father and a white British mother, writer
Hannah Lowe grew up feeling “white”
but at the same time different. Coming
to terms with her father’s life and death
prompted her earliest poems — and
publishing her debut book Chick has
forced a reckoning with her own identity.
Melissa Richards learns more
Photograph by Tim Ridley
D
espite the swell of her belly,
Hannah Lowe is perched,
apparently comfortably, on a wide
bench at the British Library in
London. The child who is coming
will bear her father’s name, she
says. “It’s important for me not to lose the name,
because the child won’t feel the connection to the
Caribbean that I do.”
Chick, Lowe’s first collection of poetry —
published in February 2013, and shortlisted for
the Forward Prize for Best First Collection — is
also named for her father. A mixed-race Chineseblack Jamaican immigrant to Britain, Chick was
a professional gambler who was already in his
fifties when Lowe and her brother were born. They
grew up in Ilford, just outside London, where their
white British mother was deputy head teacher at a
primary school.
The complex legacy of her father’s life is at the
heart of Lowe’s writing. Not only was he a gambler,
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he was also willing to stack the odds in his own
favour. Lowe and her brother knew their father
gambled for a living, but that he played dishonestly
was something they saw only in glimpses. Her
brother caught him ironing cellophane around a
pack of cards, to make them appear new; in a hall
cupboard there was a little guillotine for shaving
the sides off of cards; there were pots of ink,
penknives, and scalpels around the house, and
a dentist’s drill her father used for loading dice.
These objects inhabit her poems, but only past
childhood did she make sense of them.
“When I said to my mum later, ‘Where was
Dad doing this?’ she said, ‘Oh, love, he’d be doing
it wherever you weren’t.’ The way that that sort
of shifts the memories of your childhood is quite
incredible,” Lowe explains. “And then these little
things start to make sense: I remember seeing him
loading dice and not knowing what he was doing,
and the door sort of being pushed shut in my face.”
All of this within the façade of white middleclass family life. Both children looked white. “We
both really identified as being white, because we
were both treated as white. We are white in one
way, but I think there was always the sense of
feeling very different as well,” Lowe says. More
than just the presence of their black father, there
was, for example, the fact that they ate Jamaican
food. Their father spent nights out gambling,
returning to the family home at dawn, then much of
the day asleep, but he did all the cooking. “He was
a house husband. But he wasn’t like a traditional
man — he was happy to do all the cooking, make
cakes and puddings. He loved all that.”
Lowe’s was a childhood full of contradictions.
Her father both was, and was not, part of family
life. They all went on family holidays together,
but Lowe says he sometimes felt like a lodger. He
ferried the children around, but Lowe was known
to tell friends he was a taxi driver her mother had
sent to collect her. “I was always having to explain
him to other people,” she says, “but it wasn’t
just the fact that he was black and I was white.
It was the fact that he was so old. He looked like
a grandfather, and often he’d just got out of bed
because he’d been playing cards all night, so he
was this old dishevelled man with his hair stood
on end.” One of the difficulties about promoting
Chick, she says, is getting across that it’s “not just
about having a black dad,” but about all the things
her father was.
R
alph Lowe (“Chick” was a gambling
nickname) had a tragic upbringing. Born in
Jamaica in 1925 to a Chinese immigrant
Hannah Lowe’s was
a childhood full of
contradictions. Her father
both was, and was
not, part of family life.
They all went on family
holidays together, but
Lowe says he sometimes
felt like a lodger
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
49
27. shopkeeper and his black servant, he
believed that his own father had “bought”
him from his mother to use as a lackey in
the shop. Lowe says her grandmother gave
up all claim to her son and later refused to
acknowledge him, and her father found a
receipt which seemed to indicate money
had changed hands. Ralph was brutalised
by his father, and would often run to his
mother’s house, begging her to let him stay,
only to be sent back. Lowe says her father
was haunted by the knowledge that his
mother didn’t want him.
Much of what Lowe knows about her
father’s early life is from notebooks and
tapes he used to document his own story.
Lowe was studying literature at university,
“and I kept doing courses in black women’s
writing and postcolonial literature, but I
wasn’t putting it together. I just thought,
Oh, I’m interested in this. I was just
beginning to realise that perhaps I was
interested in the story of his life, and in my identity and how race
is constructed, all of those things — and then he died.”
Because of his age and lifestyle, her father had been ill for
much of her childhood, but was diagnosed with cancer while she
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was at university. The cancer went away,
but came back two or three years later, by
which time Lowe had started a master’s
degree in refugee studies. It was just three
weeks between this new diagnosis and
his eventual death. Her mother called her
at university and told her to come home.
“By the time I got there, he could hardly
talk any more. It put me — without being
overly dramatic — into a sort of psychic
crisis. I realised that I needed to know
his story, and he was going to die, and
there was nothing I could do to bring
him back. It was just too late.” When he
lost consciousness, Lowe was completely
grief-stricken. “But it was not just the grief
of losing a father, it was a sort of cultural
grief, really.”
For “years and years and years after,”
she would dream he was still alive. “In
these dreams I go out into the street. I’d be
looking for him, the road signs would be all
wrong. They were sad dreams. I can laugh about them now, but I
was always dreaming that I had the chance to talk to him again.”
Long after his death, and after many years of academic writing,
Lowe began writing poems about Ralph. She joined a creative
A decade on, with the publication
of Chick, Lowe may finally have
gone as far as she needs to into
her father’s life. Although her
racial identity remains an open
question
writing class, and it became a running joke that every week
she would bring in a new poem about her father. A decade on,
with the publication of Chick, and having just found a publisher
for a family memoir which intersperses chapters about her own
childhood with fictionalised chapters about 1930s Jamaica
based on her father’s notebooks, she may finally have gone as far
as she needs to into her father’s life. Although her racial identity
remains an open question.
A
t a recent history conference, Lowe witnessed an eminent
white historian being challenged by a woman in the
audience, who wanted to know when he felt the narrating
of black history should be in the hands of black people, and what
he was doing to facilitate this. Lowe seems personally affected
by having witnessed the exchange. She says that after years and
years of never making any claim on a black identity — “for all the
reasons that I wouldn’t, because I have had all the privileges of a
white upbringing, to the extent that I know those privileges still
exist” — the experience of publishing Chick made her realise that
hers is accepted as another black British voice. “But to hear that
woman say that — I still can’t square it.” The only thing of which
she is certain is that there are no absolutes. “Twenty or thirty years
ago in Britain, when minority literature, black literature, started
getting studied, things were said like, ‘These are voices from the
margins that have unique insights,’ and I think things that I can say
complicate that a bit, because I’m not a voice from the margins
at all.”
She wonders if the things that she can say might make
people think about “passing” and ideas around it — “because,
let’s face it, two hundred years ago, if I’d been born in Jamaica,
I’d have been a slave. On the ‘one drop’ theory of racial purity,
plantations in Jamaica had people working on them who
looked like me . . . Does it make people think, actually, what is
race, what does ‘black’ look like?” Lowe wants the child she is
carrying to share the legacy of her father, although she’s still
unsure how this will be communicated. Will it involve having to
say something like, Oh, my dad was black? “For years and years
and years I never said anything like that. It was in poetry that
I got to make a claim.” n
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51
28. Nadia Huggins
backstory
When artist John Cox decided to turn a
small family cottage in Nassau into a modest
studio and gallery, he had no idea that
Popopstudios — named for his grandfather
— would grow into the driving force behind
contemporary art in the Bahamas. Fourteen
years later, Popopstudios International
Centre for the Visual Arts is becoming a
contender in the international art world,
but as Sonia Farmer explains, its creative
community still has a family dynamic
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Nadia Huggins
The Popop
spirit
R
Popopstudios’ colourful
façade welcomes visitors to
meet its community of artists
olling up to Popopstudios International Centre for
the Visual Arts on any given day is a bit of a risk.
Not because the art space is nestled in the heart
of Chippingham, a once well-to-do west Nassau
neighbourhood that has fallen into disarray — in
fact, the cheerful yellow picket fence enclosing
psychedelic pink porches emits a welcoming glow, a sign that a
special community thrives here.
It’s because any member of that community could be huddled
away in one of eleven or so studio spaces, or installing work in
the main gallery, or teaching a workshop, or gathered around one
of those porches for a quick chat that gradually and inevitably
develops into deeper meditations on life and art.
At any given time, ready to welcome any visitor could one be
artist, or two, or all of them. Every person who has become part
of Popopstudios’ community has contributed a particular energy
to its ebullient spirit. The building reverberates with a constant
hum of creative energy that rises and falls in pitch depending on
who inhabits the space.
Almost always, you get lucky, and spend hours touring the
studio spaces, on the receiving end of some true Bahamas
hospitality from the varied resident artists — who at any
given time might include painters, photographers, sculptors,
ceramicists, filmmakers, jewellery-makers, and quilters, and
who might hail from Nassau, from the Caribbean region, or even
the wider world. If you’re really lucky, you might even become
part of the family and begin to tap into the intangible core of
what Popopstudios is all about.
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53
29. finally gave contemporary and experimental artwork a platform in
the Bahamas. Cox was surprised that people sought out the space,
in order to see how Bahamian art was progressing.
“At the beginning,” he says, “we wanted to create a
community of artists who shared the same philosophical stance.
It was about having similar intentions with our work — kind of
bucking the system and its nostalgic view of the landscape, and
challenging presentation.
“My work and work of close friends were not seen as part of
the mainstream,” he adds. “The older generation had done their
thing, but I felt like there was such a generation gap. I felt like we
could cultivate something that took that momentum they started
for Bahamian art and take it even further.”
The chance to expand the community came in 2007, when
Cox’s aunt Iris Dillet-Knowles, proprietor of Dillet’s Guest House,
handed the property over to him. The guesthouse was previously
the family home, cobbled together by none other than Pop Pop
himself. A self-made man who left school to pursue a prosperous
career in the building trade, Pop Pop regularly added to a modest
Lisa wells
“At the beginning,”
says John Cox, “we
wanted to create a
community of artists
who shared the same
philosophical stance.
It was about having
similar intentions with
our work”
Artist John Cox, founder of
Popopstudios
convoluted every day.” He adds, “We need to understand those
things, and we need to realise how important they are.”
He expresses constant amazement at how Popopstudios, which
started as his personal artistic practice, has grown into something
beyond his ability to define. It began in a cottage on the family
property in Chippingham, built by his grandfather Edward Dillet
— known affectionately as “Pop Pop.” In 1999, in the large working
space he built next door to the cottage, Cox exhibited a series of
dynamic chair designs branded “Pop.Pop Studios.” For the next
seven years, Popopstudios existed as an alternative gallery space in
both cottage and studio, not only for works by Cox but also for several
of his peers — Toby Lunn, Heino Schmid, Blue Curry, Michael
Edwards, and Jason Bennett. Their group exhibitions, approaching
subject matter, material, and installation in unconventional ways,
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central structure to make space for extended family members,
eventually ending up with more of a compound than a house.
Cox never met his grandfather, who died in 1964 — almost a
decade before Cox was born — yet he remains in many ways a
reincarnation of Pop Pop’s exuberance, kindness, and creativity.
The property, too, he decided, needed a reincarnation worthy of
its eighty-five-year-old history.
“
W
hen we came here for the first time, I remember
driving through Chippingham and thinking, Oh gosh,
where are we?” says artist Danielle “Dede” Brown. “I
love it here, the whole vibe of the property.”
In 2008, when Cox turned the numerous bedrooms of the
house into a collection of artists’ studios for rent, Brown and
Left Collaborating on a
Popopstudios silkscreen
Below One of the art centre’s
studio spaces
her partner Dylan Rapillard were among the first to snatch up
a shared space. Since then, they have been constant pillars of
the Popop community. Brown credits Popop with changing her
perspective on her creative practice.
“The support from everyone here is so natural and informal
— Popop is my art family,” she says. “You go through those
moments where you question yourself and the way your work is
going, and then someone like Dylan or John would come in and
give feedback. It’s definitely very personal and emotional — you
don’t feel like you’re just renting a space.”
When artist Heino Schmid returned home to Nassau in 2003
after studying abroad, he quickly formed a creative kinship
with Cox and became a central member of the Popopstudios
community. “There was no other place I could think to go
for contemporary Bahamian work,” says Schmid. “People
underestimate how important it is for an artist to feel like they
can activate an area. It’s very important to feel like you can
manipulate the physicality of the space your work exists in,” he
explains, “because it sort of thickens the content. There was no
other place on the island that allowed for that opportunity.”
Now, in his role as Popop’s exhibitions director, Schmid
pushes for shows that generate conversation about contemporary
Bahamian art. And in March 2013 there was a chance to expand
that conversation, when Popopstudios ICVA represented
Schmid’s work at the VoltaNY Art Fair in New York City. To fund
the VoltaNY project, the community rallied behind Schmid, as
he organised a special exhibition of his work in Popop’s gallery
space. The turnout, says Schmid, showed that people not only
support him as an artist, but recognise the relevance of the
institution. His work at VoltaNY went on to be viewed by an
estimated fifty thousand guests.
“There’s no other place like it,” says Schmid of Popopstudios.
“If I had to work someplace else — I don’t actually know where
that would be. I tell people all the time, when I travel and I get
homesick, I don’t miss my house — I miss my studio.”
Nadia Huggins
feel like, in a way, that’s the mysticism of Popop,” says its
founder, Bahamian artist John Cox. “It kind of manifests
itself in different bodies, in different ways. There is a
compassion there, and sometimes it manifests itself in warm and
inviting and welcoming ways, and other times it comes across as
kind of a dragon, more ferocious. Both things are important.”
For Cox, balance is not so much a goal as a constant
exercise in conscious creativity. His mixed media paintings and
assemblages often engage the life cycle of balance: struggle,
transcendence, and acceptance. This drive encapsulates not
only his creative work, but also his pitch as curator at the National
Art Gallery of the Bahamas, his mentorship of emerging artists
as a professor at the College of the Bahamas — and his journey
to build a hub for contemporary Bahamian art at Popopstudios.
That journey now faces a crossroads, as the space tries
to find the right approach to stand on its own in a globalised
conversation about art. “We’ve always been a place that is about
the ‘art’ part of art,” says Cox, “because art has a lot of parts,
the majority of which are not about art, and which become more
matthew cromwell
I
“
I
n 2010, Popopstudios gained non-profit status, and became
an International Centre for the Visual Arts: part of a push
towards expanding its community beyond the Bahamian artists
based in its studios. Workshops and critical discussions, offered
by resident artists as well as artists from the wider community,
were the beginnings of what Popop hopes will become a rigorous
education programme, making the space a dynamic school of arts.
Artists’ residencies are also part of the plan.
Popopstudios’ residency programme is twofold. On the one
hand, visiting artists-in-residence get to expand their artistic
practice in a new context, while also providing the Bahamian
community with glimpses of the international contemporary
art scene. On the other, Popop’s Junior Residency Programme
— a partnership with the D’Aguilar Art Foundation and artist
Antonius Roberts — gives young Bahamian artists a chance to
find their bearings in the art world.
Now in existence for five years, the Junior Residency
Programme has proven to be a turning point for its participants.
Veronica Dorsett, a 2012 Popopstudios Junior Resident, recently
participated in Caribbean Linked II, a residency based in Aruba.
Dorsett credits her time at Popopstudios with giving her a
context for her artistic practice, and the confidence to apply it to
other creative opportunities. “During the residency,” she says,
“the reality of creating my own points of interest and subject
matter was the biggest eye-opener. Popop gave me an inkling of
hope that I could be a functioning artist.”
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30. ARICO
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With 117 branches, and more than 6,000
employees serving more than 1 million
clients, RBC Royal Bank has served the
region for over a century.
OF CA
RBC® blends experience in the region with global expertise
to bring value to our customers and communities every
day. Our strength comes from being part of the world’s
soundest banking system. As a responsible bank, we are
committed to corporate integrity, positive community and
economic impact, environmental sustainability and we
strive to deliver value for our customers and employees.
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Over the years, the mission
of Popopstudios has shifted
from its anarchic origins
into something more allencompassing: a community
that thrives on its own internal
debates about art
C
C
S OF C
T
he expansion of Popopstudios
ICVA has brought both exciting
oppor tunities and har rowing
realities as it looks to the future. The
biggest anxiety is an all-too-familiar
struggle for art spaces: fundraising. The
second-biggest is a little harder to define,
but includes the shift of responsibility for
running the space. Along with a new board,
Popopstudios has gained a manager of
operations to move the space through its
new set of growing pains.
Jay Koment is a freelance art dealer
who previously ran New Providence Art
and Antiques. No stranger to the less
glamorous details of running an art space,
Koment knows the importance of the big
picture, but is aware that the devil is in the
details. “Popop needs to be a place where
people can do what they do, which is
make art,” he says. “That’s the endgame.
People have to be comfortable making
their work here.”
Slowly, over the years, the mission
of Popopstudios has shifted from its
anarchic origins into something more allencompassing: a community that thrives
on its own internal debates about art. In
a way, Popopstudios ICVA is John Cox’s
single greatest creative work, if only for
its struggle to find the perfect balance
between maintaining its inspiring organic
pace and recognising the need to harness,
categorise, and formalise that inspiration,
to make Popop a weighty contender in the
regional and international art world.
Popop’s biggest hope is also, paradoxically, its biggest fear:
what if its growth and the attendant bureaucratic realities begin
to formalise the space in a way that hinders its very spirit?
What if the family becomes too big for the space? But like his
grandfather Pop Pop before him, Cox knows there is a way to
make room in the house for everyone.
“The most important thing is the spirit of Popop,” says Cox.
“The most meaningful part is the hardest thing to articulate, and
what we are trying to do is expose people to that experience.”
“I’ve been blessed enough to have this experience over and
over again, and most artists know what I am talking about. We
want to take that to everyone.” n
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Artist Michael Edwards leads a workshop
at Popopstudios
Global Expertise, Local Impact
® Trademarks of Royal Bank of Canada. Used under licence.
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31. Own words
“You have
to give them
a good time
every night”
Trinidadian DJ Christopher Leacock, a.k.a
the Jillionaire, frontline member of the
international DJ project Major Lazer,
on starting off with bootleg cassettes,
negotiating fame, and taking Caribbean
music to new audiences around the
world — as told to Tracy Assing
Photograph by Lou Noble
M
y thing is, I’ve just always
kinda been a lucky fella, you
know.
As a kid I didn’t have
enough money to buy albums
— I was buy ing bootleg
cassettes, mix-tapes. I remember recording off
the radio on a Saturday morning, which was kinda
difficult, because even though they playing all the
hits on 95 FM, you still had to clean the house.
The earliest song I remember taping off the radio
was Prince’s “When Doves Cry”. I don’t think my
first inclinations were to the mix-tape, but I liked
listening to the DJs: Chinese Laundry, Tweeze, and
The Professionals.
We had a sound system called Mount Zion
One Sound System, and we used to listen to a lot
of [sound] clash tapes. At the time, the only place
you could get those in Trinidad was in the Drag
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Mall [a collection of small craft stalls, packed
tightly together, which once stood at the corner of
Frederick Street and Queen Street in Port of Spain].
We used to play a lot of roots reggae. Even from
that starting point, we were already like, yo, let’s
try and get the freshest tunes. We were all about
playing the records before anyone else had them.
That was the thing that would make you stand
out. It wasn’t like now, where you go to a torrent
and you download the Beatport Top 40. It was a
lot more competitive, and you had to be a lot more
creative as well.
Then, I linked up with Hypa Hoppa [DJ Kwesi
Hopkinson] and became part of [hip-hop group]
Radioactive. It was a movement. There were so
many people involved, and there were people that
were quote-unquote “a part of it,” you know. But
the thing about a sound system or a DJ group or
whatever you want to call it is that it could only
really have one or two or three stars — you know
what I mean?
All ah we cyar be in that spotlight at the same
time all the time. I kinda recognised that from
early, and I’ve never really been a spotlight kind
of person. I like the music and I like the vibes of
it, you know what I mean? I like the lime and I like
participating. I like choosing what tunes we should
play and what dubs we should voice, and that type
of thing. That’s where it all comes from, in terms
of being a good selector, and even now that’s kinda
like my thing.
Sometimes it is still weird, because I am not
really trying to get on stage and say: hey, allyuh,
look meh!
T
he first time I saw Wes [Thomas Wesley
Pentz, a.k.a. Diplo, founder of Major Lazer]
deejay was in west London, YoYo’s at the
Notting Hill Arts Club. We met that night. That
was the first year I went for Carnival. I had some
Jah Melody vocals for him. I remember standing
outside, genuinely having no idea who I was going
to meet, and then he came out and he grabbed us
and he played the Machel Montano and Destra “It’s
Carnival” road mix.
I can’t take any credit for introducing anybody
to anything. These fellas all have a rich musical
background. What I did do was be a huge
nuisance, and say all the time, you should work
with these guys. Now we’ve done tracks with
Machel Montano, Swappi, Bunji Garlin, Sherwin
Winchester. Just this year we’ve hooked up with
a bunch of guys and hopefully will keep working
with them, build that relationship.
they come to have a good time, they come to have a memorable experience,
and you have to give them that every night.
Major Lazer is a very close family. If you come backstage, we’re very lowkey. We’re very much to ourselves, and it’s cool, because we’re all friends as
well, and we were friends before this and we’ll be friends after this.
I think the cool thing about Major Lazer is that it allows people to do
something outside their regular zone. Anybody who is singing music, or is in a
band, or whatever it is, has a relationship with reggae music, with Caribbean
music.
I’m even doing a little production now, and it’s weird, because it’s still
kinda new to me, and I am still very useless at it, but I think I work best in a
collaborative format. I think I fancy myself a kind of P Diddy or Rick Rubin
type of producer, where I have an ear for what sounds good. I know what
arrangement will work, but I’m not really the best person to be sitting at a
console pressing buttons and twisting knobs and putting on filters and things
like that. I can sit with my buddy Richie [Beretta] or I can sit with my brother
“I’ve never really
been a spotlight kind
of person. I like the
music and I like the
vibes of it, you know
what I mean? I like
the lime and I like
participating”
In the beginning it wasn’t as glamorous as
some might think. It was a lot of hard work and
dedication. I was still running the Corner Bar
[formerly on Ariapita Avenue, Port of Spain], and I
had to make a decision: I could either go out there
and pursue this DJ thing, or I could stay in Trinidad
and go back to IT consulting.
I tell people I slept on every couch in every
secondary market in America. It was a weird
experience for me, because first of all I wasn’t
really like eighteen years old, going, I wanna be a
DJ. But when I had this opportunity present itself,
I was just like: well, OK, cool.
When you step out there and you look out and
you see ten thousand people, or however many,
Hanif [Tawab, a.k.a. Phat Deuce] and be like: here’s a song, this is what we
should be working on, this is what I think it should sound like. I could write
a drum pattern or I could write a synth line. I could come up with ideas, and
then we could turn those ideas into songs.
From the very first time I started travelling, I would meet kids who were
doing amazing things, who were way more talented than I was, who were
building scenes in their own towns, and they were making their own music
and having a lot of fun doing it.
With my label, Feel Up Recordings, these were the first people I signed.
It’s stuff that we’re all passionate about and we think should be heard. The
people that I work with are people that I am passionate about, because they
are passionate about what they do.
I’ve always been interested in meeting more people who are doing cool
stuff. So it’s always like, yo, maybe there is something cool that we can do
together. That’s always fun. n
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32. Riddem rhyme
Christmas
skanking
“Jingle Bells”? “Deck the Halls”?
Ubiquitous on the radio come
October, the usual Yuletide “classics”
fill Garry Steckles with dread. But
reggae and calypso musicians
have created a whole genre of
Christmas music rooted in the
Caribbean and with a vibe
to persuade any Scrooge
Photograph by David Corio
Jamaican producer Lee
“Scratch” Perry gets festive
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33. 62
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aRRIVE
“Christmas Day”, and the Maytals’ “Merr y
Christmas”. The latter include a bunch of the great
Jacob Miller’s previously hard-to-find reggae
takes on Christmas (think “Deck the Halls” with
lots of colly), and reggaefied standards by A-list
vocalists such as Holt, Don Carlos, Peter Broggs,
and Freddie McGregor.
Speaking of A-list vocalists, it’s not widely
known that a not-too-shabby reggae singer by the
name of Marley — first name Robert — recorded a
couple of Christmas songs during the Wailers’ early
years with the aforementioned Clement Dodd’s
The tried and trusted Christmas melodies
are transformed when they’re recorded
with a soca, reggae, or calypso riddim. And
the equally tried and trusted lyrics take on
a new life with a light rewrite introducing a
touch of island wisdom or humour
Studio One label. There’s a slow, semi-ska version
of “White Christmas” (“not like the ones I used to
know,” sings Bob) and the full-tilt ska “Sound the
Trumpet” (the melody of which incorporates a
straight steal of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”),
the highlight of a various-artists album titled
Reggae Christmas from Studio One.
T
he other great hotbed of Christmas music in
the English-speaking Caribbean is Trinidad.
The annual celebration of parang, brought
to the island from nearby Venezuela, is as much a
part of Christmas in Trinidad as midnight mass,
ham, turkey, and sorrel, and parang musicians,
known as paranderos, trek through neighbourhoods
serenading residents, who traditionally show their
appreciation with seasonal food and drink.
Trinidad also has an abundance of Christmas
music on record by just about all of its leading
artists, including Sparrow, Baron, Scrunter, Daisy
Voisin, and Machel Montano. My personal favourite
Trini Christmas album, though, is a venerable sixtune gem titled A Calypso Christmas, starring three
vintage Christmas songs by the incomparable
Lord Kitchener: “Christmas Greetings”, “Bring de
Scotch for Christmas”, and “Father Christmas”, all
showcasing the Grandmaster’s sublime melodies,
and all touching on the ample supply of beverages,
not of the non-alcoholic variety, on hand for the
celebrations.
Christmas with Kitch. I’ll drink to that. n
nicholas laughlin
I
’m not, I have to confess up front, a huge fan
of traditional Christmas music. I’ve heard
Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas” more
than once too often, and I’ve heard dozens,
if not hundreds, of people trying to do
something new and different with the same
song, probably the best known of all Christmas
standards.
The overkill doesn’t help, either. Come late
October, no matter where you go, it’s virtually
impossible to avoid “Feliz Navidad”, “Mary’s
Boychild”, and “Deck the Halls”. I did get some
light relief from these staples during a couple of
Christmases spent in the United Arab Emirates not
so long ago — but that’s another story.
Despite these misgivings, most years, come
lateish December, I’m perfectly happy to get into
the spirit of the season — and no, I don’t just mean
rum. I’m talking about Christmas music.
Caribbean Christmas music, that is.
The tried and trusted melodies are transformed
when they’re recorded with a soca, reggae, or
calypso riddim. And the equally tried and trusted
lyrics take on a new life with a light rewrite
introducing a touch of island wisdom or humour.
My real favourites, though, are something that’s a
rarity in most parts of the world: original Christmas
music that embraces both the spirit of the occasion
and the region it’s being celebrated in.
Let’s start with reggae, and with one of
Jamaican music’s greatest producers, songwriters,
arrangers, singers, and studio maestros, Lee
“Scratch” Perry. The song I’m thinking about is
one that’s been on heavy rotation Chez Steckles,
and not just at Christmas, for the past decade or so.
It’s called, simply, “Merry Christmas, Happy New
Year”, and it’s one of the greatest numbers ever
recorded by Perry, whose CV includes more reggae
classics than perhaps any producer other than
Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, Scratch’s employer,
teacher, and mentor in his apprenticeship era. The
basic riddim’s downright hypnotic, the melody’s
equally addictive, and Scratch’s quirky vocals are
complemented by Sandra Robinson’s sweet alto.
“Merry Christmas, Happy New Year” also
happens to be included on a collection that I’d
recommend as a one-stop shop for anyone wanting
to add a collection of seriously good Christmas
reggae to their music collection: Trojan’s Christmas
Reggae box set. It features a smattering of original
Christmas compositions and a slew of reggae
versions that breath new life into the classics.
Among the former are Yellowman’s “African
Christmas”, the Ethiopians’ “Ding Dong Bell”,
John Holt’s “Lonely This Christmas”, Alton Ellis’s
“Merry Merry Christmas”, Desmond Dekker’s
64 Green days by the river
Escapes
70 Float away
Round Trip
76 Fifty shades of blue
Offtrack
Fishermen on the Paracauary River, Marajó
34. ESCAPE
Green days
by the river
In the mouth of the mighty Amazon River is an
island more than three times the size of Jamaica,
home to unspoiled beaches, vast stretches of
forest and savanna, and many, many water
buffalo. Little known outside Brazil, the Ilha do
Marajó is not quite cut off from the world — but
it’s a good place, Nicholas Laughlin finds, to
pretend that you are
Photography by Nicholas Laughlin
O
n weekdays the Praia do Pasqueiro is almost deserted. But on even a
somewhat overcast Sunday the neatly thatched huts lined up above the
high-water mark are full of holidaymakers eating and drinking away the
hot hours. Waiters ferry trays of drinks and food — fried fish, rice, salad
— from kitchen sheds further back on the beach to the plastic tables and
chairs clustered in the palm-thatch shade.
Closer to the water’s edge, a handful of sunbathers recline in deckchairs, and a dreamyeyed couple canoodle under a large striped umbrella, sharing sweet nothings and plates of
seafood. Youngsters prance on the wet sand and plunge into the shallow waves. Teenagers
stride out into the warm water until it’s nearly deep enough to swim.
Terns skitter along a sandbank. Far away and above, clouds sail along an oceanic
horizon. But the slight tang in the breeze isn’t sea salt. It’s something greener, muddier,
more vegetal. The Atlantic swells far out to the north, but its currents only rarely make
their way to this beach. And the flotsam fragments scattered on the sand around my feet
are bits of jungle detritus: twigs with glossy green leaves, the seed pods of unknown trees,
a piece of palm trunk covered with four-inch thorns.
The expanse of brown water that stretches as far as my eye can see is in fact the outflow
of the world’s mightiest river. I am standing at the north-eastern tip of Marajó Island, in the
mouth of the Amazon — the world’s largest island surrounded by fresh water.
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Morning traffic on the Paracauary River
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