A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry . . . . – George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright.
WELL, THE?PERENNIAL CROP?OVER CONTROVERSY could not continue being contained for very long.
The idiocy that it normally is was bound to raise its hard head sooner or later.
Li’l Rick sorely needs to take the humble advice of fellow artiste and entertainer Edwin Yearwood.
“No one owns the festival.”
That could be Crop Over, or, more specifically in Li’l Rick’s case, the Party Monarch competition.
“Shut up and come again next year,” Edwin has suggested.
No one can deny Li’l Rick his desire or intent to win Party Monarch, but we can baulk at his foolish utterances and unsportsmanlike conduct when he fails to take the crown – or trophy and car. It is not the first time we have had to put up with his nonsense in competition.
As Edwin suggested on Facebook, we need to be rid of the sore loser syndrome which some artistes, aided and abetted by blinded fans, encourage to satiate their wounded pride and wax their egos.
Without a doubt, Li’l Rick is an impressively dynamic performer and a formidable competitor in any Party Monarch sing-off. But he mustn’t delude himself that he is the contest itself.
As to his argument that there is a need for “more clearly defined criteria”, it challenges the obvious.
The rules for Party Monarch are as clear as crystal.
The beats per minute (BPM) of the competing material should be above 125. The more galloping it could be, the better. I swear some songs are at 500 BPM.
Then you need to be as interruptive of the song as you can be while singing it, jumping, swaying, ranting and raving, and shouting at patrons to wave something, checking at the odd moment on how they feel.
It isn’t necessary to be in key or in tune with the band, or even in step, once the voice is “riding the rhythm”. To cap it off, you may do a wicked wuk-up to the delight of the crowd. And if you are not that fit – see Blood or Li’l Rick himself wine – you could rent a lithe dancer to go down, turn round and do the six-thirty.
And, finals contestants are picked from the tents on specified judging nights. The rules are pellucidly clear, as a friend of mine is wont to say.
Why must judges go to these private wild parties “to see what is happening”. Party Monarch as it stands is a judged competition; not a deejays free-for-all.
I will give it to Rick, though, that you can’t judge Party songs like those of Pic-O-De-Crop, and there may be something in Ricardo Reid’s call for a review of the entire judging system. What it could be I dare not imagine.
But not accepting the judges’ decision as final cannot be among the changes.
With regard to Li’l Rick’s allusion to songs making it to Party Monarch though not getting any real rotation on radio, the issue of fair and balanced exposure of music comes to the fore.
Who first determines what will be rotated on the radio stations? And how is the determination made?
It certainly cannot be by “frequent requests of listeners” per se, as is often bandied about, if any one piece of work is hardly or never played, to begin with.
Which brings us back to Rick’s idea of judging Party songs at actual parties where deejays are the directors, playing some of the music – sorry, riddims – that they themselves conducted or manipulated.
Any music competition ought not only to be fair; it should look like it too. More importantly, it should engender, at worst, just friendly rivalry.
There can be no room in our musical contests for filibustering, dogfighting, envy or disruptive emotional upheaval.
We need to be inspired by author Arnold Mori’s dictum: “Winners build on mistakes. Losers dwell on them.”
L’il Rick is hardly a loser; furthermore a sore one. Right?
