Clivia Writes: February 2011

In PBP,

Cause we Feel Like...

The Carnival Jumbie is a fickle one.

Artists trying to decide when to drop their songs for Road March - if its too early or too late?

Will the hype die out before its time for the Road?

Will it get so much play early up that people fed with it by the time its the top of the season.

And sometimes....

Sometimes you just hit flicking GOLD!

Enter.....................

Wotless

Here nuh....

People talk about formula. Call and Response. Hook. RPM's. Everything important.

Outside of Benjai's Trini....in terms of the songs that call out to the TRINIDADIAN sensibility....I don't think any thing tops this song this year.

We hear the rhythm alone....and then that melody - the Jig-like rhythm [Tobagonians you know what I talking about] and immediately we get that feeling in the belly that songs like Black Stalin - Feelin to party and Kitchener's Sugar Bum Bum - that immediately have people hands reaching to the sky, eyes closed, in their private celebration of being alive, of being Trinidadian, of being in that EXACT moment at that EXACT time - waiting for the drop..

Waiting...wait for it ,..Waiting ...wait for it...

and

Yeah ...we need the speed for the Road March,

the adrenaline rush too...yeah...

But sometimes...its the lavway, the chipping song, that captures the moment of carnival -

the innate connection that Trinidadians have to the music and to carnival and to each other...

and I'm not trying to be elitist....

but we BORN to that..

It's our genetic, cultural, innate sensitivity to it..

So when some one manages to combine that ORGANIC connection to the music, to carnival and to each other...the expression of how we feel about carnival...

"We feel like...we just win a million dollars..."

I went to a party last night and Back2 Basics [I was well waiting for the second set Basics :)]

While just running the percussion on Wotless - he aint even play the song yet- he was just teasing people with the rhythm - Teasing you...

anyways he said it best...[ah paraphrasing]

When its carnival season, you could pay for your costume and only have 2 cents left in your pocket....but when you on the road ...Yuh Rich

You can't go to all the fetes ...and you max out your credit card just to get the flight...and you don't know exactly where you staying...but you home...and your people next to you ...and you playing mas ...Yuh Rich..