THE INFECTIOUS SONGS which dominated this year’s Crop Over Festival will be heard across the island today as Barbadians celebrate Grand Kadooment. The music trucks will belt out their favourite songs while radio stations will rotate the more popular ones of the season. It is truly a time to make merry.
Hopefully, by the end of this week, the quality and wide range of music provided for the festival will not be shelved and forgotten. Significant effort is expended by many to get this music to the public. It provides the biggest audience for the festival and is critical to the success of the annual event.
One of the remarkable things that have been highlighted over the years is that our musicians are not locked into the comfort of yesteryear and have not allowed the festival to become a heritage experience. The outcomes every year highlight the strident moves to take on the new and the challenging. The music keeps getting better and its appeal much wider as evidenced by this year.
In the music industry, creativity and change can be overshadowed by money and access, which is why the calypso tents are so central an avenue in providing an outlet for some artistes who would have forever been left in obscurity. But even with the tents, the exposure can be but for a fleeting moment. A lot of good original music produced at Crop Over is unfortunately lost. What is heart-rending is that nothing is being done to rectify the situation.
To salvage the situation, it therefore becomes a search and rescue mission at this stage. What has been clearly established is that only a fraction of the songs produced in any year are given any exposure on radio, leaving a lot of good material to go a-begging. Therefore, for the national good, we must identify, digitise and catalogue all local music.
This situation must be understood by the National Cultural Foundation when it undertakes its review of this year’s festival. A special focus must be on securing the music produced for the season and ensuring there is an effective system in place to capture this in the future. The effort must involve the National Library Service, Barbados Government Information Service, Barbados Museum & Historical Society, the radio stations, historians and cultural researchers.
As Barbados prepares to celebrate 50 years of nationhood in 2016, radio stations should undertake special projects on the promotion of local music; and not only from the Crop Over season, but from the wide range available. This will highlight the versatility of our talent, ensure the artistes earn some royalties and, most importantly, build pride and the Bajan brand.
We don’t often realise it, but music is important to our lives. Turn off your radio today and you will understand. We thank the musicians for this year’s offerings.
