Calypso
Calypso
Calypso is a style of Caribbean music associated with the island of Trinidad in the West Indies and linked very closely to the annual celebration of the pre-Lenten carnival. The music, as well as the name itself, has uncertain roots, yet scholars generally agree that calypso is an example of a hybrid musical form resulting from the interactions of colonizers, slaves, and others from the eighteenth century onward. While calypso grew out of a myriad of traditions, it has spawned a number of separate musical genres such as soca, rapso, talkalypso, chutney soca, and others.
Although there is no general agreement as to the origin of the term, there are references in Trinidadian newspapers of the nineteenth century to cariso and kaiso, both song forms characterized by the performance of extemporaneous, satirical lyrics. The term kaiso, which was shouted to encourage or praise successful singers, is considered a possible source for the word calypso, and indeed is still used instead of calypso. The cariso is only one of many song forms to emerge from the colonial era in Trinidad. Creole slaves and free Africans contributed a variety of songs and dances, including the bel air (derived from both African and French sources), the juba, the bamboula, the calinda (both a martial art and a song style), and the lavway (a road chant performed during carnival processions). Combined with these forms were British ballads, French folk songs, Venezuelan string music, and other types of Creole West Indian songs. Furthermore, as new musical forms were created or introduced to the island—American jazz, Venezuelan paseos, and ultimately such diverse forms as Hindi film music, reggae and dancehall, soul, and rhythm and blues—they were incorporated into calypso.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Claimed for Spain by Christopher Columbus in 1498, Trinidad has played host to colonizers, slaves, indentured laborers, and immigrants from diverse cultural backgrounds, many of whom contributed their own musical forms to the mix. However, the African musical forms of the slaves and the musical styles of French, English, and Spanish colonizers exercised perhaps the greatest influence.
Trinidad was opened by Spain to French colonists first in the 1770s and later in 1783. The French dominated the cultural life of the island up to and even beyond the English conquest in 1797. The French imported their pre-Lenten festival of carnival, and much of the earliest carnival music was sung in Creole or patois. During the nineteenth century, English culture, language, and religion increased in importance and influence, and many of the folk musical styles gradually changed from French Creole to English. As the English extended their hegemony over the island, they also embarked on a mission of reforming the carnival. By the 1880s unruly masqueraders and riots against police repression resulted in a massive campaign of controlling and channeling the public celebration into a manageable event. By the early 1900s calypso music, marked lyrically now by social satire, political commentary, humor, and sexual innuendo, was largely being performed in “calypso tents,” temporary venues in which calypsonians competed against each other for prizes offered by private sponsors.
The first calypso recordings were made in 1914, and by the 1920s and 1930s Trinidad’s finest calypso singers, such as Attila the Hun, Roaring Lion, and Lord Invader, were regularly recording and performing in the United States. “Rum and Coca-Cola” (1944) by the Andrews Sisters, a sanitized reinterpretation of a Lord Invader song, became an American hit. It also spawned a landmark lawsuit by Lord Invader against the American actor Morey Amsterdam, who illegally copyrighted the lyrics. Invader won the suit.
Although they faced routine censorship by the British colonial authorities, the calypsonians of this period, sometimes referred to as the golden age of calypso, displayed enormous creativity and invention in circumventing restrictions placed on them and creating songs rife with double entendre, inside jokes, and subtle parody. Audiences relied on clever calypsonians for insight into the ironies of colonial rule, the hypocrisy of the ruling classes, the meaning of certain scandals and outrages, and so on. Savvy politicians could often “take the temperature” of the public by the attitudes of their calypsonians.
SOCIAL COMMENTARY
From its earliest days, calypso music served as a forum for the expression of social and political views within the Caribbean. Remarkably, the criticism mounted by calypsonians was not limited to broad appeals against inequality, racism, poverty, and oppression, but tackled precise specificity laws, domestic policy, proposed legislation, foreign policy, labor relations, actions by public figures, and even speeches given by notable persons. Thus, in addition to humorous rivalries between singers, songs about the beauty of the land, and compositions with a ribald flavor, calypsos were composed with such titles as “Prison Improvement,” “Shop Closing Ordinance,” “The Commissioner’s Report,” “The European Situation,” “Devaluation,” “Slum Clearance,” “Reply to the Ministry,” and, fittingly, “The Censoring of Calypsoes Makes Us Glad.”
AFRICAN-INDIAN RELATIONS
The arrival of indentured laborers from South Asia from the 1840s until 1917 dramatically changed the ethnic makeup of Trinidad. Competition for work and land created tensions between the island’s Africans and South Asians that ultimately manifested in political divisions being drawn along ethnic lines. Although never reaching the violence and discord of Guyana, where a similar immigration took place, the presence of Indians in Trinidad was closely followed by calypsonians. Initially, many calypsos dealing with Indians discussed “strange” customs, delicious food, and beautiful women. Creole calypsonians often commented in song on how they fell in love with an Indian girl or how they were able to participate in an Indian feast. As political tensions heated up during the 1950s, however, calypsos became more pointedly political. By 1961 the calypsonian Striker, registering his dismay at the deep ethnic division present in local politics, remarked in song that “Negro can’t get a vote from Indian.” Today there are a number of noted Indian calypsonians, both men and women, as well as African artists performing in the Indian-influenced genre of chutney soca. Even so, tensions between the two communities persist and are often played out musically over the airways and in the calypso tents of Trinidad.
In addition to the rebellious and resistant side of calypso, there was a strong dose of patriotism (songs in favor of England during the Boer War [1899–1902], World War I [1914–1918], and World War II [1939–1945], for instance, were common). Furthermore, calypsonians recorded the achievements of the British Empire and the royal family with great enthusiasm. Compositions in favor of the Empire coexisted with little discomfort alongside songs detailing the often oppressive conditions under which the children of the Empire labored.
Although not technically a calypso, the well-known “Banana Boat Song,” a traditional Jamaican folksong whose best-known rendition was recorded by Harry Belafonte on his 1956 album Calypso, helped to make that album the first to sell more than a million copies.
CALYPSO SINCE INDEPENDENCE
In 1956 a calypsonian known as the Mighty Sparrow penned “Jean and Dinah,” a commentary in song about the sudden availability and desperation of prostitutes in Port of Spain after the departure of the free-spending American sailors stationed in Trinidad during World War II. While the song became an international hit, and won the calypso “crown” for Sparrow, it is perhaps even more important as a testimony to the renewed sense of cultural and political confidence then being experienced across the Caribbean as independence movements were flourishing. The 1950s marked a pivotal point in the development of calypso and perhaps inaugurated what might be called the “independence period” in calypso.
As Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, and other Englishspeaking islands continued their drive toward independence from the United Kingdom, folk idioms such as calypso, carnival, steel band, the musical form ska, and even sports such as cricket began to take on a nationalist tone. Nation-building calypsos, as they are sometimes called, emerged to praise the efforts of certain political parties and politicians and to encourage proper behavior and decorum among the populace.
The 1960s brought to the Caribbean not only independence but also the Black Power movement. Calypso reflected this new cultural consciousness lyrically; it also reflected the cultural source from which it came—the United States. One of the most important figures to emerge at this time was the Mighty Chalkdust, a teacher and calypsonian who obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and has, under his given name, Hollis Liverpool, researched and published widely on calypso, carnival, and Trinidadian culture in general.
Traditionally accompanied by acoustic music, calypso increasingly came to incorporate electronic instrumentation and the influence of North American musical styles such as rhythm and blues and soul. Alongside Black Power came the women’s liberation movement and increasing (though still small) numbers of women singers. Indeed, women as calypsonians are not given nearly the attention they deserve in the literature. Although largely excluded from the ranks of early recorded calypsonians, and often derided in songs such as “Jean and Dinah,” women have been instrumental in the development of Trinidadian music as chantwells (praise singers for stickfighters and singers of road marches) and in religious music. In the 1960s, attitudes toward women calypsonians began to change, and it was, perhaps ironically, the Mighty Sparrow who gave the then-unknown singer Calypso Rose her start. Along with Singing Francine and Denyse Plummer, Rose has become one of the most popular calypsonians of all time.
With the rise of outside influences from North America came further influences from diverse musical sources, including Jamaican reggae and (due to the presence of a large and thriving Indian population) Hindi film music. The result has been the development of new musical forms, such as soca, chutney soca, rapso, raga, and others.
Born in 1941, Garfield Blackman, known as Lord Shorty, would become the creator of soca music. Concerned that calypso was declining in relation to reggae, Lord Shorty experimented with the calypso rhythm. He combined Indian instruments such as the dholak, tabla, and dhantal with traditional calypso instrumentation. The result was a new musical hybrid that he called solka. With his 1974 album Endless Vibrations and the single “Shanti Om,” Shorty sparked a revolution in Caribbean music. Initially the term solka referred to an attempt to recapture the “soul of calypso,” which he felt was one of inclusion, common struggle, and resistance to oppression. Shorty hoped that the “Indianization” of calypso would bring together the musical traditions of Trinidad and Tobago’s two major ethnic groups, the descendants of African slaves and of indentured laborers from India. The name was later changed to soca, and it is routinely if erroneously explained as a fusion of soul and calypso.
By the turn of the 1980s soca was rapidly becoming the music of choice for Trinidadians during carnival time. The Montserratian singer Arrow did much to popularize soca internationally with his 1983 number-one soca classic “Hot Hot Hot.” Due to the globalization of the music industry, soca has evolved swiftly and has incorporated many outside influences, spawning such diverse subgenres as ragga soca and chutney soca. Although soca has become increasingly popular, many critics within the region have pointed to its reluctance to be anything more than “party music.” The political and social commentary once so central to calypso has had to find a new home in other Caribbean musical genres. In Trinidad this mantle has largely been taken up by rapso. Rapso is a unique style of street poetry from Trinidad and Tobago that originated in the 1970s (although it was not named rapso until the 1980s by Brother Resistance). Often credited to Lancelot Layne, rapso was created in a spirit of political protest and social justice. Layne’s 1970 hit “Blow Away” is considered the first rapso recording. Layne is also well remembered for his 1971 recording “Get Off the Radio.”
Beginning as a folk music of protest, social commentary, and political satire, calypso has emerged as one of the most important, internationally recognized, and fecund musical forms of the twentieth century.
SEE ALSO Caribbean, The; Music; Popular Music
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cowley, John. 1996. Carnival, Canboulay, and Calypso: Traditions in the Making. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Hill, Donald R. 1993. Calypso Calaloo: Early Carnival Music in Trinidad. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Hill, Errol. 1972. The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for a National Theatre. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Manuel, Peter, with Kenneth Bilby and Michael Largey. 2006. Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Quevedo, Raymond. 1983. Atilla’s Kaiso: A Short History of Trinidad Calypso. Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago: University of the West Indies.
Rohlehr, Gordon. 1990. Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad. Tunapuna, Trinidad and Tobago: Author.
Warner, Keith Q. 1999. Kaiso! the Trinidad Calypso: A Study of Calypso as Oral Literature. 3rd ed. Pueblo, CO: Passeggiata.
Philip W. Scher
Calypso
Calypso
Born in post-emancipation Trinidad, calypso possesses a unique and lasting quality that has carried it far beyond the Caribbean. The distinctive music that became its hallmark in the latter half of the twentieth century was a major change from early calypso, which evolved out of simple efforts at communication among the largely African underclass. Singers, first called chantwells, extemporized songs in which they flattered friends, attacked adversaries, or poked good-natured fun at one another. This mock warfare led them to adopt sobriquets that complemented the battles (e.g., Hubert Raphael Charles was known as Roaring Lion, or Neville Marcano as Growling Tiger), and the tradition of singing under an assumed name has persisted, although the newer versions (e.g., Slinger Francisco as Mighty Sparrow, or Hollis Liverpool as Chalkdust) are far less warlike, and many contemporary singers simply use their real names (e.g., David Rudder).
Calypso was already being sung when the British came to Trinidad, but it was known by other names, among them kaiso, apparently derived from a West African (Hausa) term meaning "bravo." The word calypso was an attempt to anglicize that appellation, and both terms have survived to the present, with kaiso being used for a more authentic version of the song, or as a term of praise and encouragement when a calypso is felt to be particularly well rendered.
As the chantwell evolved into the calypsonian, calypso's role as the people's newspaper or purveyor of social commentary began to take shape. Calypsonians sang about nearly every aspect of life in Trinidad and the world beyond, providing a healthy and often humorous dose of down-to-earth philosophizing. By the 1940s a large body of these songs was already on record, contributing in no small way to calypso's international appeal. The Andrews Sisters, with "Rum and Coca Cola" in 1944, and Harry Belafonte, with his pioneering LP Calypso in 1956, are only two of the bigger recording acts who helped popularize calypso.
In its most elementary form, a calypso consists of three or four stanzas with a chorus after each one. The early melodies were fairly simple and frequently recycled among singers. As a result, listeners paid close attention to what the singers were saying. This type of calypso is still the favorite of many aficionados, who go to hear the newly composed songs as they are presented—at venues called tents —before each year's carnival.
Any consideration of calypso must take into account its close link with Trinidad carnival and its postemancipation development. Calypsos would provide nearly all the music accompanying the revelers who took to the streets in the annual masquerade. Gradually, a dual expectation arose: infectious music for street revelers to dance to, as well as traditional lyrics to entertain and even educate the listeners. Ideally, the perfect calypso combines both. Increasingly, though, with the advent in the mid-1970s of a popular new strain of calypso called soca —allegedly derived from a combination of soul and calypso—the music and its commercial potential are overshadowing the importance of the lyric.
In 1956, Mighty Sparrow won the coveted annual competition to select the king (now monarch) of calypso. The lyrics of his winning "Yankees Gone" were hard hitting; his melody was unforgettable; the combination was perfect. That calypso was not the first to comment on the devastating increase in prostitution as a result of the American presence in Trinidad after World War II, but it is, deservedly, the best known. Sparrow boasted in his chorus, easily learned by carnival revelers as they paraded in the streets the very morning following Sparrow's victory:
Well, is Jean and Dinah
Rosita and Clementina
Round the corner posing
Bet your life is something they selling
But if you catch them broken
You can get it all for nutten
Don't make a row
Yankees gone, Sparrow take over now.
Sparrow revolutionized the art form. After him, calypso melody would no longer be of secondary importance—an encouraging development for soca two decades later. But he did not overlook the powerful lyric, and his political and social commentaries were so forceful and on target that he could openly boast later on that "if Sparrow say so, is so."
Calypso, ably assisted by its cultural twin, carnival, has spread throughout the Caribbean, and to the major metropolitan cities where Caribbean communities have established themselves. At home, calypso's duality has been entrenched with the growing popularity of soca, and the composition of songs whose lyrics have very little of substance—the so-called party songs, in which the public is encouraged to "put your hands in the air" or to "get something and wave." However, the prestigious annual calypso monarch competition is dominated by calypsos of social or political commentary, to the point where government officials attending the performance have at times felt under attack. It is all good natured, however, and there is no official censorship of these songs, despite spasmodic outcries from the various groups being pilloried. Calypsonians and their craft have gained acceptance in Trinidad and Tobago society and beyond. No longer are they seen as the undesirables, for, as Sparrow sang in his calypso "Outcast," "Calypsonians really catch hell for a long time / To associate yourself with them was a big crime." It is inconceivable that such a state of affairs could ever arise again, given the local and international recognition earned by this truly indigenous art form.
See also Carnival in Brazil and the Caribbean; Nationalism and Race in the Caribbean; Reggae
Bibliography
Regis, Louis. The Political Calypso: True Opposition in Trinidad and Tobago, 1962–1987. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999.
Rohlehr, Gordon. Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad. Trinidad: Gordon Rohlehr, 1990.
Warner, Keith Q. Kaiso! The Trinidad Calypso: A Study of the Calypso as Oral Literature, 2d ed. Pueblo, Colo.: Passeggiata, 1999.
keith q. warner (2005)
Calypso
Calypso
Calypso, a Caribbean music and dance form with West African roots, was once criticized for its sharp social commentary and considered uncivilized. In the early twenty-first century it is sanctioned by Trinidad's government and is a popular and important feature of Trinidad's Carnival season. Sometimes sung in French creole, calypso is derived from earlier musical forms such as kaiso, calinda, and belair. Although Trinidad is regarded as calypso's home, the music is popular throughout the Caribbean.
Calypso's lyrics deal with themes of inequality, slavery, colonialism, and governmental fraud. Due to the subversive content and the elites' characterization of calypso as uncivilized, the music has been censored, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, the "calypso tent tradition" (calypso performances in tents) beginning in January and lasting into the Carnival season has been a mainstay since the 1920s. Artists such as Attila the Hun (1892–1962), Mighty Sparrow (b. 1935), Lord Executor Kitchener (d. 1952), and Growling Tiger (1915–1993) broke barriers, gaining fans in the Caribbean and abroad during calypso's golden age between 1930 and 1950. Harry Belafonte (b. 1927) brought a stylized calypso to mainstream U.S. audiences with the hit "Banana Boat (Day-O)."
Some critics have argued that the genre has been corrupted by the use of rhythms from popular U.S. songs rather than local bands, as well as by corporate sponsorships and the new predominance of "smut songs" (compositions with sexual content). At the same time, new variations of calypso such as "soca" (short for "soul calypso") and "Soca Chutney" (influenced by Trinidad's Indian population) point to continuing innovation and a widening fan base.
See alsoMusic: Popular Music and Dance .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cowley, John. Carnival, Canboulay and Calypso: Traditions in the Making. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Dudley, Shannon. Carnival Music in Trinidad: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Hill, Donald R. Calypso Calaloo: Early Carnival Music in Trinidad. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993.
Liverpool, Hollis "Chalkdust." From the Horse's Mouth: Stories of the History and Development of the Calypso from the 1920s to 1970s. Trinidad: Juba Publications, 2003.
Regis, Louis. The Political Calypso: True Opposition in Trinidad and Tobago, 1962–1987. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999.
Meredith Glueck
calypso
ca·lyp·so / kəˈlipsō/ • n. (pl. -sos) a kind of West Indian (originally Trinidadian) music in syncopated African rhythm, typically with words improvised on a topical theme. ∎ a song in this style.DERIVATIVES: ca·lyp·so·ni·an / kəˌlipˈsōnēən; ˌkalip-/ adj. & n.
Calypso
calypso
Calypso
Calypso
Ca·lyp·so / kəˈlipsō/ Greek Mythol. a nymph who kept Odysseus on her island, Ogygia, for seven years.