Spoken Word Griots: African Oral Tradition in Caribbean Music (Third Part) - #Calypso
by K. Omodele
African traditions and customs are in the heartbeat of Caribbean culture; so, its not surprising that the African tradition of storytelling drums so deep within many forms Caribbean music, none more so than calypso. Matter of fact, whenever I think of calypso, I think first about lyrics - the buildup, the punch line and the reflection. Niceness. As a wordsmith, I marvel at the wordplay of the great calypso storytellers. Whether the lyrics be somber-social, political or commentary; or, whether they're witty and precocious slackness, or just straight, belly-bussing comedy, this Caribbean music with its roots planted in the African oral tradition is art , pure art, plain and simple.
A Short History of Calypso Music
Like many forms of Caribbean or West Indian music, Calypso's roots were dug up from Africa, then transported to the Caribbean on slave ships during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The slaves in Trinidad and Tobago weren't allowed to speak to one another while they slaved in the fields, so they sang to communicate. They kept the freestyle (improvisational), functional elements of West African kaiso as a form of covert communication (separate from the overt language of the slave massa ). This early predecessor to calypso was rebellious chanting about their conditions and the status quo, i.e. plantation life. They were songs with clever lyrics about social conditions and often mocked slave masters or political leaders.
The French Influence: Carnival and Canboule
Spain had first colonized Trinidad, but up to the 1770s the population was small, less than 3000, two-thirds of them Arawak. In 1770, a Frenchman made a proposal that would bring the French, their slaves and some free blacks from the French colonies/islands of Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent, to heavily populate Trinidad, which would help develop the plantation economy. These French (and blacks from French islands) turned the slow, undeveloped, Spanish colony, into a culturally French dominated one. And they brought the carnival and canboulay festivities and traditions.
Kaisos were now performed by griots and/or chantwells (from the French word chantuelles ) at canboulays (harvest festivals, from the French cannes brulées ), which was the black alternative to carnival (which neither slaves nor free blacks could attend). As a result, Kaisos and canboulay music became the voice of the people and were the music blacks performed and listened, under tents at canboulays .
In the old West African ways, the chantwells often told stories that challenged each other in competition, boasting and ridiculing, while also challenging the audience to "keep up" with witty wordplay and double meanings. Sometimes songs were quick to make fun of adversaries within the griot fraternity - like free styles battles and clashes today. In other cases, the stories would be didactic, or cleverly packed with sexual undertones, or just analytic or critical of the authority and power structure. These early calypsonians were skilled wordsmiths, slamming, slicing and nudging each other with sharp verbal skills.
Spoken Word and Storytelling
When you check the various components that make up calypso, storytelling and commentary are functional. The calypsonian (the calypso singer) is most definitely a spoken word griot, a
"A Calypsonian is a poor man newspaper."
"I consider theKaisonian as the old African storyteller..."
