Countries Archives: Trinidad & Tobago

Trinidad for Kids — Calinda — All Around This World

Calinda is a martial art, cultural dance and accompanying form of percussive music that arose in the early 18th century among Africans enslaved in Trinidad and Tobago. In the competition, fighters/dancers challenge each other with long sticks while community members chant and cheer them on. Though inspired by actual fighting techniques in the African Congo, today one will most likely encounter Calinda as a joyfully musical sporting event, full of acrobatic dancing and trance-like chants, during Trinidad & Tobago’s brilliant Carnival.

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Dried Dates and Almonds

COUNTRY: Trinidad and Tobago

LANGUAGE: Bhojpuri

A song from the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago that reminds us of the islands’ fascinating mix of cultures that include a substantial populations of descendants of workers from South Asia.

Lyrics of All Around This World version:

Riding on a horse your grandpa, came to me and asked, your grandpa

How I have a child who is so beautiful

I ate dried dates and almonds, I ate dried dates and almonds,

And that is how I have a child who is so beautiful

Riding on a horse your grandma, came to me and asked, your grandma

How I have a child who is so beautiful

I ate dried dates and almonds, I ate dried dates and almonds,

And that is how I have a child who is so beautiful

Riding on a horse your mother, came to me and asked, your mother

How we have a child who is so beautiful

Love must be the answer, Love must be the answer,

Love is how we have a child who is so beautiful

Calypso War…What is it Good For? — All Around This World

In a CALYPSO War, two “Calypsonians” improvise songs in competition against each other to be most clever and entertaining, usually while taking verbal jabs at one another. The form, most common in the calypso hotbed of Trinidad and Tobago, is also known as “EXTEMPO” because of the improvisational (extemporaneous) nature of the art.

Learn about the standard Extempo melody, “Sans Humanitè:”

Dholak

The dholak is a double-headed hand drum that’s prevalent in Indian, North African, Nepalese and Pakistani music, especially qawwali, Bhangra and various styles of North Indian folk. It doesn’t have the same kind of specific tuning as the tabla, which means it’s used more as folk music accompaniment than as a classical instrument, but that doesn’t mean you can’t play dholak in the game room.

Calypso

CALYPSO is Trinidadian folk music that most likely derived from a West African musical/narrative style called kaiso and developed as a way for slaves to communicate. CALYPSO musicians sang in French creole and told stories with their songs–often with off-color lyrics full of double entendres. The style originated in the 1830s and was well-known throughout the Caribbean but only became internationally popular in the 1950s when Jamaican-born Harry Belafonte brought it to America. Enthusiasts accused Belafonte of watering down the genre and pointed to lyrically bolder (and much more awesomely named) artists such as Lord Kitchener, Mighty Sparrow and Roaring Lion as the true “calypsonians.” CALYPSO emphasizes the first half of the 3-2 son clave, putting special focus on the clave’s second beat. Or, if you want to count it out, “1 & 2 AND 3 & 4 &”.

More information:
A guide to traditional CALYPSO: “The best calypso options” | Exetempo: an improvised CALYPSO “war” | Check out this 1987 extempo battle between Relator and Superior | Mighty Sparrow’s “Maria” | You too can dance the Caribbean CALYPSO

More information:

National Geographic on Calypso | A guide to traditional calypso: “The best calypso options” | Exetempo: an improvised calypso “war” | Check out this 1987 extempo battle between Relator and Superior | Mighty Sparrow’s “Maria” | You too can dance the Caribbean Calypso

Rapso

[wpspoiler name=”3Canal’s Boom Up History” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]

Rapso has its origins in the Black Power/Pan-Africanist politics of the late ’60s and early ’70s and developed throughout the ’80s and ’90s as a form of music that forged calypso, dub, reggae, soul and politically conscious hip-hop. What is Rapso? | 3Canal’s “Boom Up History”

Chutney

COUNTRY: Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname

Indian indentured servants who came to Trinidad from 1845 to 1917 brought their music with them and eventually fused it with island music to form a genre called chutney. Traditional chutney music added Indian instruments like the dholak and the harmonium to Caribbean songs, as well as a religious sensibility and, often, vocals in Hindi. Contemporary chutney pioneers like Surinamese vocalist and harmonium player Ramdew Chaitoe became well-known in the ’60s and ’70s all over northeastern South America and the Caribbean .Â Today chutney has blended with soca to form “chutney soca,” which has become popular international dance music. “What is chutney music?”: a primer | Kuch-Kuch Baby!

Soca (Trinidad and Tobago)

Soca is a faster version of calypso that has substantial influence throughout the Caribbean. Trinidadian musician Ras Shorty generally receives credit for originating it in 1963 when he added Indian instruments such as the dholak and the the tabla to calypso. In the 1970s calypsonians such as Shorty had also added soul, disco and funk, transforming the genre into internationally popular dance party music. Today soca remains popular throughout the Caribbean, especially the more overtly East Indian chutney. A brief history.

COUNTRY: Trinidad and Tobago
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Bass, Dhantal, Dholak, Drum kit, Guitar, Tabla, Trumpet, Trombone
SONG ON AATW: LATIN AMERICA CD: Wan Boto

<a href="http://allaroundthisworld.bandcamp.com/album/all-around-this-world-latin-america">All Around This World: Latin America by All Around This World</a>

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Trinidad–Music

For a tiny island, Trinidad has certainly birthed an impressive number of musical genres. Like other Caribbean nations we’ve visited, Trinidadian musicians mix African and European melodies, rhythms and forms, though in Trinidad, East Indian influences come into play too. Trinidadian musical styles include, in rough chronological order:

— CALYPSO: Calypso is Trinidadian folk music that most likely derived from a West African musical/narrative style called kaiso, and developed as a way for slaves to communicate. Calypso musicians sang in French creole and told stories with their lyrics — often with off-color lyrics full of double entendres. The style originated in the 1830s and was well-known throughout the Caribbean but only became internationally popular in the 1950s when Jamaican-born Harry Belafonte brought it to America. Enthusiasts accused Belafonte of watering down the genre and pointed to lyrically bolder (and much more awesomely named) artists such as Lord Kitchener, Mighty Sparrow and Roaring Lion as the true “calypsonians.” Several of our music class songs, like “Bo Calinda,” which is based on a Trinidadian children’s game, are calypso.

More information:
National Geographic on Calypso | A guide to traditional calypso: “The best calypso options” | Exetempo: an improvised calypso “war” | Check out this 1987 extempo battle between Relator and Superior | Mighty Sparrow’s “Maria” | You too can dance the Caribbean Calypso

— CHUTNEY: Indian indentured servants who came to Trinidad from 1845 to 1917 brought their music with them and eventually fused it with island music to form a genre called chutney. Traditional chutney music added Indian instruments like the dholak and the harmonium to Caribbean songs, as well as a religious sensibility and, often, vocals in Hindi. Contemporary chutney pioneers like Surinamese vocalist and harmonium player Ramdew Chaitoe became well-known in the ’60s and ’70s all over northeastern South America and the Caribbean . Today chutney has blended with soca to form “chutney soca,” which has become popular international dance music. “What is chutney music?”: a primer | Kuch-Kuch Baby!

— STEEL PAN: After the Canboulay Riots in the early 1880s in which Trinidadian and Tobagoan descendants of slaves protested colonial leaders’ attempts to restrict the celebration of Carnival, British authorities banned stick-fighting and African percussion music. In 1937 they also banned the banging together of bamboo sticks. Trinidadians responded by using anything and everything else as percussion instruments — frying pans, dustbin lids and oil drums. This developed into the modern genre of “steelpan,” whose primary percussion instrument is the interior of a tuned steel drum. About the steelpan | The science of steelpan | Wanna buy a steelpan? | A whole lotta people playing steelpan on YouTube

— SOCA: Soca is a faster version of calypso that has finds substantial influence in East Indian chutney. Trinidadian musician Ras Shorty generally receives credit for originating the genre in 1963 when he added Indian instruments such as the dholak and the the tabla to calypso. In the 1970s calypsonians such as Shorty had also added soul, disco and funk, transforming soca into internationally popular dance party music. Today soca remains popular throughout the Caribbean, especially the more overtly East Indian chutney-soca.
Red Plastic Bag’s “Ragga Ragga,” which we sing in class, is a soca song. A brief history of soca | Mr. Dale is a Soca Junkie

— RAPSO: Rapso has its origins in the Black Power/Pan-Africanist politics of the late ’60s and early ’70s and developed throughout the ’80s and ’90s as a form of music that forged calypso, dub, reggae, soul and politically conscious hip-hop. A brief history of rapso | 3Canal’s “Boom Up History”

Visit AATW’s Caribbean Musical Genres page, or explore these musical genres from Trinidad:

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Visit AATW’s Caribbean Musical Instruments page or explore these instruments from Trinidad:

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Explore these All Around This World songs from Trinidad:

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Trinidad–Limbo

Limbo originated in Trinidad in the 1950s and quickly became the world’s favorite gimmicky party dance. Dancers move around the room to Caribbean rhythm, leaning one by one in turn backward beneath a horizontal pole without touching it or the ground. The stick moves lower and lower until only one dancer who hasn’t touched it or the floor remains. According to Wikipedia, there’s more to the Limbo than just a fun game to play at the roller rink right before “all skate.” “Consistent with certain African beliefs, the dance reflects the whole cycle of life”^.“The dancers move under a pole that is gradually lowered from chest level, and they emerge on the other side, as their heads clear the pole, as in the triumph of life over death”. This dance is also used as a funeral dance and may be related to the African legba or legua dance.” (Note: Very few funerals in the United States feature a limbo.)

More information:
Wikipedia’s history of the limbo | Don’t try this at home | Don’t try this anywhere

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