. . . He sing Obama kill Osama, I gine kill Gabby wid calypso here tonight. – Khiomal
While Barbadians were still deliberating on the double entendre feature and the twin offerings by Popsicle, the shocking news of a gruesome double murder in the otherwise tranquil Salters district of the St George valley hit us like lightning-tinted thunder.
Headlines such as Two Shot Dead and Masked Men Kill Old Man And Son-in-law do nothing for our image in the presence of thousands of visiting Crop Over fans and patrons of the LOUD show. The cries and painful shouts of family and friends wailing at the hands of ruthless criminals will be heard for a long, long time. Our hearts go out to the family of the victims.
On the night of the Pic-O-De-Crop Semi-finals, three women in a Cane Garden district also suffered at the hands of masked gunmen who demanded money while driving fear in the traumatized victims who, thankfully, were not physically injured.
There was another report of a wayside food establishment in the Charles Rowe Bridge district being robbed. An earlier incident, in which four men were shot in the wee hours of the morning about 400 metres from the Gun Hill lion, is still fresh in our minds and in our crime statistics.
So that while we celebrate the tremendous creativity as manifested in the production of hundreds of songs this season, the condemnation of the level of criminal activity over the past six weeks must be allowed, ever so briefly, to drown out our musical strains. Senseless killings, drive-by shootings, armed robbery and the associated wave of lawlessness and violence all threaten to erase the perception that Barbados is a paradise.
I congratulate Popsicle for the upset he caused at the finals of this year’s competition. Having listened and watched the other 18 songs being performed, no contestant moved the thousands of patrons as David Hall did.
I like the crafty way he deals with coping with the harsh economic crisis. In Cornwell, I deduce and am willing to use as my mantra, the notion that regardless of how long this recession lasts, there are certain things that I will not do, give up or throw out.
Clearly, it seems that in reality, many people are coerced during a recession to sell their birthright even though there is no mess of pottage. I have heard horror stories of the things that women, both old and young, do for a Blackberry, or for a hairdo or for an outfit to wear to a fete. There are horror stories of young boys who literally sell their ‘anal virginity’ for nothing but vanity.
So, I like the philosophical concept that drives the song. Beyond this, I have no other fascination with Popsicle’s donkey.
There is much hypocrisy in many of the comments relative to both of the monarch’s lyrical offerings. Let’s admit that Cornwell is a song that is ideally suited for the tents. It is not a song that the majority of Barbadians are comfortable having reverberating across the airwaves and in the sanctity of their living rooms 24/7.
All the songs of monarchs going back to 1982 can still be played even on a Sunday without causing discomfort. RPB’s Sugar Made Us Free and Mr Harding, Gabby’s West Indian Politician and Culture, and those of other monarchs are well within the bounds of propriety and within the batting crease of morality and standards.
If all that David Popsicle Hall has within his lyrical artillery is worrisome ambiguity that borders on indecency, then I recommend some lessons from Anthony Gabby Carter that should equip him with the skills to better mask his apparent weakness for ‘juicy’ lyrics that could compromise the quality of his musical menus. We remember only too well his Eric Jerome Dickey from last year.
A look at Popsicle’s second song further bears out the point. I fear that the notion of writing an entire song on the trivial concept of choosing which fair one would attend in order to avoid acts of violence and disorder, does not capture my imagination. The impact of a calypso comes largely through what one hears and not what is written.
So when one listens to a pervasive hook line that affirms “I would pick a fair”, it is difficult if not impossible not to think of the seedy notion of prostitution, even though the homonym is different. Within our society, ‘picking a fare’ is an overwhelmingly powerful negative image that is not synonymous with ‘picking a fair’.
The popularity of the two songs on the airwaves for a large segment of our society is an indication of the falling standards and our tendency to be hypocritical and rationalize practices that we would otherwise condemn. I would challenge Barbadians that ‘not selling my ass’ and ‘I would pick a fair’ are classic examples of pushing the proverbial envelope a bit too far.
If the competition were a game of cricket and I was the umpire at the Oval, he would have been given my index finger for failing to remain within the crease.
As the dust of the festival settles, the ‘bloody’ double murder in the St George community and Popsicle’s double entendre intentions should leave us all worried!
This is one Popsicle that we should be hesitant to “lick”.
Matthew D. Farley is a secondary school principal, chairman of the National Forum On Education, and a social commentator. Email [email protected]
