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  • 9 months ago
Accented meter and rhyme - just two of the key elements of true calypso. So says nine-time Calypso Monarch, Dr. Hollis Liverpool, better known as Chalkdust, who is urging calypsonians and judges to get formal training, and bring back the art and the form to the artform. He also commented on the video which has now gone viral, and while he's not taking back the comments, he says he never knew he was being recorded. Rynessa Cutting sat down with Chalkie for this report.
Transcript
00:00They vexed at me, I must apologize. Apologize for what?
00:03Dr. Hollis Chalkdust Liverpool says he will not be apologizing for upholding the standard
00:09of calypso. He notes, calypso has a unique structure, one that sets it apart from other
00:16genres of music. And he says, any deviation from that structure would mean the music is
00:22simply not calypso music.
00:25You can't have 15 notes in one line, 12 in the next, 5 in the next, 3, 1, 4, because
00:30you're not measured. The calypso is a measured thing, that's all I'm saying.
00:36Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na. It can't be, na, na, na,
00:44na, na, na, na, na, na. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, it can't
00:50be that. Because you're going off the template. And once you go off the template, you're wrong.
00:57You take away points from you.
00:59What about evolution? Because people are saying, well, you seem to be stuck in the past, and
01:03what about new age?
01:04I seem to be stuck in the past, but I'm following a tradition. If you want to make it that,
01:10you can make it that, but don't call it calypso. You see, because the calypso has a measurement,
01:17the gospel has a measurement, the blues have their own measurement, the jazz have their
01:23own measurement.
01:24As the holder of the most calypso monarch titles, and an all-round decorated veteran
01:29and academic calypso-nian, Choke, thus, is urging everyone in the industry to bring the
01:34art back to the art form.
01:35It must make sense, and it must have measurement, and it must have what they call rhyming. It
01:41is the rhyme that gives us the rhythm. And if it doesn't have rhyme, it is not calypso.
01:48And that's the art in calypso. You have to find a word to rhyme and make sense.
01:54The whole population of our little nation is not a lot, but oh, what a mixture of races
02:01and culture. That's what we have got. You see the rhyming? You see rhyming in and out.
02:08You hear anybody rhyming like that in calypso conversation? They can't. So, don't blame
02:13the calypso-nians. Blame the judges.
02:16And so, Choke thus laments, the issues run deep. As he says, from where he sits, many
02:23do not know what calypso truly is.
02:27People who should be judging the calypso are the persons who come from the Academy of Arts
02:32and Culture, because we train them. Our people are tops right now in Trinidad. In every area
02:40of Carnival, people who graduate from the Academy of Arts and Culture are there. Somerville,
02:48Hill and Francis, our graduates, Marshall, our graduates, musicians, all the pan-men,
02:54all the outstanding pan-men. Where did they come from? It's by who they come from. All
02:59of them. Tukudu, do look at them. Tukudu, all the body plays.
03:05Choke thus is inviting all calypso-nians to sign up for the Carnival Studies program.
03:10Last month, Choke thus was conferred the prestigious title of Professor Emeritus from
03:14the University of Trinidad and Tobago.
03:40I was in town when baptism come, couldn't be seen on the morning ground. When beef was
03:47twenty-five cents a pound, I was in town.
03:53Renassa Cutting, TV6 News.
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