Everyone arriving at Grantley Adams Airport last Thursday night seemed to have come for Rihanna’s homecoming gig at Kensington Oval last Friday.
Standing at those silver poles near the Arrivals door (that are by themselves enough to keep Bajans from going farther – in Trinidad you’d need a fence; and three police; with guns), waiting for my daughter’s BFF (lol i’m gr8 w/ txtspk), every conversation I overheard mentioned tickets, backstage, VIP, all-inclusive or after-party, and at least five people clearly said, “umbrella”; of course, it was drizzling.
Rihanna’s gig on Friday night was bigger than this entire Crop Over, if measured by the attention each received, or by the number of Trinidadians who attended. I didn’t go to either event myself – what passes for music in both is not enough to pull me away from a Pic-O’-De-Crop rerun on CBC or a Dave Matthews Band DVD.
So I didn’t get close to either venue – but most of the buzz that found its way to me came from Rihanna Night, not Kadooment Day. In the whole week, I had three Crop Over conversations: the one about it being a good thing a newbie like Popsicle won the calypso crown ahead of Gabby, Blood or Adonijah; another about Monday’s Noah-recalling deluge somehow largely sparing the parade route and the costumed bands (though, being already in their bathing suits, they were most prepared for it); and the usual one about the costumes being the same as last year and such tiny bits of clothing giving such massive licence for lewd behaviour. Even as I was having them, these Crop Over conversations became a strain; and, as soon as my co-speakers had paid lip service, as it were, to Kadooment, they were eager to move on to Ri-Ri.
She was foremost in everybody’s minds and falling from everybody’s lips: how hard it was to get tickets; how far away everyone planned to park; how early they were getting there; how much the concert outfit cost; how much value everyone felt they were getting for their money (and they hadn’t heard a crackle from the speakers yet, or sat through any opening acts, or got their suede high-heeled boots stuck in the mud). By Wednesday morning, if you weren’t going to the after-party (“She rent all of Limegrove, you know!”), you weren’t serious.
My instinct, as always, was to mock (partly because it’s usually what’s needed but mainly ‘cause I may be bad but I’m perfectly good at it); but the waves of Trinis who made the trip for this one little Bajan girl, who’s made it genuinely big in the entertainment world, made me pause; then hold my hand; then nod my head.
It’s not by accident that it is our artistes – Bob Marley and David Rudder and Gabby and RPB and Burning Flames and Machel Montano and Sparrow and The Merrymen and Rihanna – that knock down the artificial boundaries, like passports and “national” anthems our former owners created to keep the tribes that make up the nation apart. Here, before my eyes, was T&T for Ri-Ri. And I thought, “When the sun shines, we shine together”.
