When Daniel Jimmy Dan Borman decided to “try a ting” ten years ago, he had no idea it would be so hard. But despite his numerous criticisms, disappointments and failure to make it to the Pic-O-De-Crop semi-finals, the member of House of Soca is determined to never gave up.
This year Jimmy Dan is celebrating a milestone as a calypsonian and trying his hand again at the Pic-O-De-Crop stage with Wet Dreams (about what is calypso) and Room For Answers (which speaks about the keys for success). His party song 4 For Ten is getting a fair amount of airplay.
As he shared his decade long calypso journey with EASY, a tale punctuated with humour, he recalled with perfect clarity every song, costume, encore, conversation and circumstances of each year he was involved in the national festival.
His first song? Unity. First producer? Richard Bourne. First costume maker? Monica Boyce. First Award? Best Nation Building Song in 2011 for Bajan To De Bone.
“When I started in the competition first, I saw fellas like Mikey and others come into it for the first time and they did their best so I decided I gine try a ting. So I thought that getting into this calypso arena was going to be easy but I learnt the hard, hard, hard, hard, way, boy,” he said.
“I could remember the first time I entered in the tent I remember singing on stage and people actually laughing at meh. There’s another gentleman by the name of Street Vibes (Orlando Perez). He was in the tent that year too and one time we were performing, I think it was up in Manor Lodge and he came off the stage and said ‘Jimmy Dan, don’t you know those kaiso people are laughing at me? I said ‘Yes, buddy, I know. They’re laughing at me too’,” Jimmy Dan said before bursting into laughter.
It was his tent manager Sharon Carew-White, musical director Ian Sealy and financial controller Wendy Barrow who encouraged him to continue and so, in 2007, he decided it was time to take the art form “a little more serious”.
“I had a song called We Chipping and that was the first time in my life I ever performed in costume. I could remember after judging night, Mikey came backstage and said, ‘Jimmy Dan you went down pretty good’. I decided the next year I would step up the game.
“I decided I would write about my festival and in 2008 I sang a song called De Session, which took me to Party Monarch that same year. That night, I sat and thought about what I would do with my performance on judging night. One time in the tent you used to get points for props, so I had a king and queen then I had a Mother Sally dance through the crowd, I had a stiltwalker.
“When I finished singing I got a crowd response I never thought I would get and that was a blessing for me. The next year I performed at the opening gala and everybody was telling me that I was progressing,” he recalled.
But Jimmy Dan said that it isn’t always good to listen to what people are telling you as this could lead to disappointment. He recalled the positive vibes he received from “a rum song’ he did, but which sounded like an ad for a popular drink and was banned by the radio station.
He then entered the social commentary fray in 2010 with Come Together and We Got The Power, despite his reservations.
The “very nice write-up about me” in the newspapers, couple with the encores he got for his performance the night before the tent was judged boosted his confidence and he was certain he would be a semi-finalist.
“My chest was big and high like a butter-basted turkey and that night we went to the Monsta Grill to wait for the results. Everybody was fussy, I fussy, drinking and having a wonderful time. When Sharon, who was at the National Cultural Foundation offices, got the information, she came back with tears in her eyes and said ‘Jimmy Dan, you ain’t mek it’. I did feel like if I was in a coffin, man. I did feel like a dead man walking,” he said, the memory still fresh.
He was deflated but he went home with “blood in his eyes . . . . I was so vex I ain’t sleep. . . ”.
After that night he had resolved that he was “done with this foolishness” but with a change of heart wrote Calling Names, “which caused a lot of controversy in 2011”.
“All I did was expose the inadequacies in the art form. What I said was true. The song did really well and each night it got bigger and bigger. On judging night when they called out [my name] I hear the whole place went wild. I said, ‘Wait, the only body that come to support me was my sister and her boyfriend’.
“The crowd was so big. Everybody was telling me I gone through to the semi-finals but I said I wasn’t getting my hopes high because in 2010 they unfair me so I ain’t gine fall for that.
“They encouraged me to go to the NCF to wait for the results and when I heard I went to the semi-finals I thought that was it for me, everybody was glad for me,” he said and noted that year was “one of the most stressful years of his life”.
Jimmy Dan, who made it to the 2013 Party Monarch where he placed sixth, said on a final note: “You see that ten years? That wasn’t easy. I would love to make the semi-finals this year but the songs are out biting.”
The calypsonian said he will keep his fingers crossed. (Green Bananas Media)
