#Galleryyuhself/World Afro Day

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Galleryyuhself - DECLARING DIEGO MARTIN THE HOME OF CALYPSOMEDIA RELEASE

There are 300+ Trinidad-style Carnivals all over planet Earth. The two largest festivals in the western world are Trini-styled Carnivals- London’s Notting Hill, and Brooklyn’s Labour Day- which, at their height, had over 4 million people on the streets! Calypso has been the root and has profoundly influenced the trajectory of many forms of popular music from Afrobeat, Ska, Rock Steady, Dancehall, and Reggaeton, to Afro Beats and EDM, etc. The first platinum album in the world was Calypso by Harry Belafonte beating out Rock N Roll and Elvis. After Jazz and before Pop, America was contemplating making Calypso its next popular music… Millions of people across the world move to the pulse of its variant forms- Soca, Chutney, and more…

All of this impact was born in a cave at the top of Diego Martin out of the voice of one genius enslaved African called Gros Jean… On Thursday 9th February at 10:30am a group of citizens, historians, Calypsonians and estates of Calypsonians made the historic declaration that ‘’Diego Martin is the Home of Calypso’ at the Azure Room in IMAX, Starting with the phrase, ‘’As this is the ‘Mother of All Carnivals’ we would like to make the ‘Mother of all Carnival Declarations’’ the Artists’ Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT) in collaboration with  series of Diego Martin citizen organisations, and the estates of some of T&T’s most illustrious Kings of Calypso are pursuing an initiative to have Diego Martin branded ‘the Home of Calypso’. 

The fascinating claim emerges out of a strange confluence of cultural phenomena observed by ACTT president Rubadiri Victor whilst doing historical research for a Cultural Mapping exercise for Diego Martin as part of a Commonwealth Foundation grant project in 2016.The reasons behind the claim are the following: The first 6 or so Calypsonians ever in the historical record came from slave plantations in Diego.

Records have shown that during the late 1700s, the first Calypsonians originated from the Begorrat Slave Plantation in Covigne Hill, Diego Martin- with the first Calypsonian on record being the enslaved African “Gros Jean” a singer of extraordinary talent. The tomb of Gros Jean- the first Calypsonian- is located at the corner of Covigne Road and Richardson Street in Diego Martin- at what was once the Bergorrat family cemetery. It is said that on burial, Gros Jean’s body was wrapped in flaming red cloth, with a gold crucifix over his forehead, and his mouth filled with rum…Following Gros Jean were other calypsonians like “So-So”, “Papa Couchon”, “Possum”, and “Hannibal the Mulatto”.

The site where Calypso was 'born' were the Covigne caves beneath Begorrat's great house. The network of caves are said to extend all the way to the West coast beach of Macqueripe where Begorrat was rumoured to have run contraband and illegal slaves through. That Calypso was born in a cave is a fascinating Creation Myth. Victor and fellow ACTT board member and Calypso archivist Shawn Randoo made the hike to discover the caves in 2017 and filmed the entire adventure. It will be released as a short film later this year…

Apart from this, many of the modern Calypso Kings also came to reside in Diego- Sparrow, Kitchener, Rudder, Chalkdust- as well as other geniuses of the form- Funny, Brigo, Brother Superior, etc. The first ever Calypso King (1939)- the Growling Tiger- - was born there. Calypso Queen Denise Plummer was also a resident, alongside “Marcia Miranda”, the duo “Regeneration Now” and brass bandleader “Roy Cape”. One of the greatest writers of the Calypso- the late “Winsford Devine” also called Diego home, alongside contemporary voices like Kerwyn Du Bois and Maximus Dan who were born there.

Add to this legendary Pan arranger Clive Bradley and Drew Gonzalves- lead singer/songwriter of the Calypso-based Juno winning group Kobo Town (the Juno is the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy). It is a staggering amount of Legacy names!...To crown it all the largest archive of T&T music and Calypso exists in Diego- the Shawn Randoo collection. This is important as the two largest collections of T&T and Calypso music are both held outside of T&T. The first is located in Alaska with historian and ex-judge Ray Funk.

The second is located in Canada- recently sold by Trini-born Toronto native George Maharaj.

These facts inspired Rubadiri and ACTT to crown the phenomena via a proposal that was supported by the Diego Martin Regional Corporation through then Chairman Hong and the village of Covigne in 2017. Its objectives were, and still are, the activation of a Heritage Hub project and the branding of Diego Martin as the Home of Calypso, on the planet.

The project was advancing on many fronts- but COVID then derailed it…As this is the "Mother of All Carnivals" it was decided to reanimate the project, reassemble the forces, and relaunch the project with a media conference to LAUNCH THE IDEA of DIEGO MARTIN- THE HOME OF CALYPSO.

At the media conference, a timeline was given to realize the first phase of projects in time for Carnival 2024. To facilitate the project a committee made up of the stakeholders has been put together and is expanding. There are reps from the estates of the Kings- Kitch, Sparrow, Rudder, etc; Shawn Randoo the kaiso historian; representatives of the Covigne people; the Diego Martin Carnival Committee; Akins Vidale- a professor from the Cipriani Labour College (born in Covigne); other Diego non-Calypso VIPs; and members of the Artists’ Coalition of Trinidad & Tobago.

At the Heart of all this, of course, is the Power and majesty of the thing called Calypso, which has changed the world and lives profoundly. The aim of the Heritage Hub project is to create entrepreneurial hubs based around profound Heritage Sites.

These sites are compelling destinations which should house multi-media Museums. Around this you then add the agricultural produce of the region, its culinary skills, its cultural practitioners and talents, its artisans, its tech, and its entrepreneurs- small, medium, and large.

ACTT believes that the ‘Diego Martin- Home of Calypso’ project will be a prototype of such citizen-led initiatives to transform declining communities.The committee is actively looking for private and public sector partners for the project which visualises a one year timeline for the first phase of the re-branding.

The projects include:

1.      Designating the Begorrat Caves a National Heritage Site and creating an international hiking trail destination with multiple lookout points. A project for the clearing and mapping of the caves at the top of Covigne exists and awaits partners.

2.      Another project involves creating heritage markers for the front of all the Homes of the Kings and other calypso sites in Diego- like Sparrow’s Hideaway, Kitchener’s Rain-O-Rama;  the grave of Gros Jean, the homes of Superior, etc.

3.      A low hanging fruit project involves the creation of murals all over the soon-to.be-borough with a specific one prescribed for Covigne itself.

4.      Another project involves a possible creation of a Diego Martin and Calypso multi-media museum out of the current Water Wheel Heritage Site and the designing of an outdoor stage at the Water Wheel, itself which is a natural ampitheatre.

5.      Holding all the multiple Heritage locations together will be the creation of a tourist guide map of the area by the committee.

6.      Finally the branding exclamation mark would be the creation of a billboard at the entrance of Diego proclaiming ‘‘Welcome to DIEGO MARTIN- THE HOME OF CALYPSO!’’

7.      A Diego Martin Calypso Heritage Festival would be the final goal, possibly twinned with the historic Pigeon Peas Festival run by members of the Covigne community.Its aim is to eventually attract up to 100,000 unique domestic and overseas visitors to Diego Martin annually in the first instance- as well as other forms of tourism.

This project could change the fate and face of Diego for the better and release multi-million dollar entrepreneurial multipliers in the community. It could assist in the rehabilitation of collapsing hillside communities and delinquent boys. The project also envisages the establishment of vinyl record shops, a record-pressing plant, and internet radio stations as outcomes. Ultimately the ‘Home of Calypso’ project would contribute toward generating and circulating millions of dollars in foreign exchange within Diego Martin, surrounding communities, and Trinidad & Tobago as a whole. 

There is a Facebook page you can join to keep abreast and to contribute: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090180610072 or call 1’868-797-‘0949 if interested.

Members of the committee: Pedro Mulrain ‘The Scientist’ ACTT board member and vinyl record activist: Errol Joseph representing the Covigne community and chairman of the Diego Martin Pigeon Peas Festival: Mr Shurland Hartley, head of the West Penn Sports and Cultural Organisation: and Rubadiri Victor, president of ACTT. Missing members of the Diego Martin Carnival Committee.

Video greetings by: David Michael Rudder; Karen Francisco from the Sparrow family: and Yvonne Bobb Smith, librarian and advocate for the creation of the T&T Museum of Music. Blessing came from the family of Kitchener- widow Valerie Roberts and daughter Quweina Roberts, and from Hollis Liverpool- the Chalkdust.

THE ENTIRE FIRST PHASE OF THE PROJECT IS DEDICATED TO THE LATE PROFESSOR GORDON ROHLEHR....

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~Galleryyuhself~  On World Afro Day, here’s a pic of the first Trini to win a beauty queen competition with an afro: Elicia Irish, in 1971.The 1970 Black Power Revolution changed, among other things, the definition of beauty and the beauty pageant business in T&T. Within a year of the event rocking the country, the organisers of the Jaycees Carnival Queen competition placed the crown on the head of a black woman with an Afro. Although Elicia Irish was only the second black woman to win the Jaycees crown - the first was Pauline Figuera in 1965 - Irish’s 1971 victory symbolised a shift from the dominance of a European aesthetic in defining feminine beauty. For years, the beauty competition had celebrated and idealised the beauty of women of European and mixed-race descent. The Jaycees show maintained the tradition of its the predecessor Carnival Queen competition that had been created by the Trinidad Guardian Celebrations Committee in 1947.Before 1970, few women of colour were chosen as beauty pageant winners.  From the 1950s to the 1970s, the British High Commissioner to Port of Spain was responsible for sending a Miss Trinidad and Tobago winner to the Miss World pageant. The first Miss Trinidad-World, in 1954, was Seeta Indranie Mahabir, a light-skinned beauty who represented the country at the fourth edition of the Miss World competition in London. The failure of dark-skinned to win the beauty queen titles was a constant source of controversy. This was reflected in Attila the Hun’s 1955 calypso Beauty Contest:“ This Guardian competition Is nothing but real discrimination ...”..The Jaycees Carnival Queen competition continued the tradition of upholding white upper and middle class conventions, in contrast to the black and working class aesthetic, promoting a Eurocentric archetype of the ideal woman. The 1970 Black Power Movement revolutionised the psyche of the country that had experienced more that 400 years of colonial rule. In 1971, a black woman was given the Jaycees Carnival Queen crown. Ironically, it was also the final year of Jaycees Carnival Queen competition. Elicia Irish went on to marry Colin Mayers, Barbados’ consul general in Miami.

Taken from the Facebook page of Dominic Kalipersad