In 2008/9, SALISES hosted “Is Calypso Dying?” forum at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. Panelists included Singing Francine, Elizabeth Montano, Brother Resistance and Dr. Louis Regis. Dr. Regis’ contributions stimulated the most responses in his assertion that soca music did not explicitly express a political consciousness as calypso music had. Citing …
Continue reading “Poetic Injustice: A Marxist Critique of Full Extreme”
What happenin’ In 2016, Trinidad and Tobago was embroiled in a battle for women’s and girls’ rights. ‘No Slut Shaming’ and GBV discussions with political pressure by young women’s and feminist groups challenged the then Mayor of Port-of-Spain, Tim Kee on his expression and defense of his sexist statements after carnival. The carnival was not …
Neisha Wattley is a market vendor, who sells foods and vegetables with her husband, Chris Rambhal. Before Christmas this year, she lived in a windowless shack near a riverbank that neither had running pipe water nor electricity. In 2014, Wattley was in the eye of the media, on a matter of the home but something …
Machel Montano’s Bazodee (directed by Todd Kessler and written by Claire Ince) attempted to highlight the vivid colours of the natural landscape and ethnic solidarity/“real unity” between Afro and Indo Trinidadians. This solidarity is sometimes undermined by the racial stereotypes and antagonisms from the two majority ethnic groups. The film does not show the depth …
