Something miraculous happened this Carnival when Maximus Dan jumped on Gypsy?s ?Soca Train.? He was met with open arms by many traditional calypsonians who applauded his efforts even though his deep-pitched, raspy voice sounded more like dance hall than soca...
News Source: Trinidad Guardian
?I like the treatment Maximus Dan gave Gypsy?s song,? says Johnny King. ?The melody remained the same, but I liked how he dealt with it in his own voice and put new words with it.
?That was one of the nicer songs for the season and you could see people young and old react to it. It?s nice to have those fellows gravitate towards calypso,? says King.
Even Trinidad Rio, a staunch traditionalist, said he approved of Maximus Dan?s interpretation of ?Soca Train.? Rio said: ?I like the energy in it and I feel the original version,? said Rio. ?It feels new and nostalgic at the same time. I think he did Gypsy?s song justice.?
Most importantly Gypsy liked the remake of his 1981 song. ?Maximus Dan went ahead with my full blessing and I think he did a great job with the song,? Gypsy said earlier in the Carnival season.
?I like the energy and I applaud him for highlighting the problems going on in calypso.?
No one was more pleased with Maximus Dan?s effort than Brother Resistance, who has made his name in traditional rapso. He sees Maximus Dan?s success with ?Soca Train? as an indication of how a new generation is finding its original voice and its roots ? namely rapso ? at the same time.
Everywhere he turns Brother Resistance says he finds the art of rapso is alive and well ? especially in performers such as Bunji Garlin and Maximus Dan.
?When I hear Bunji and Maximus I smile and feel good,? says Brother Resistance. ?It?s good to know we have a lot of young people in the trenches.
Those two performers are out of this world in terms of the quality of their lyrical compositions, the way they use rhythm and the way they interact with the rhythm of the voice.?
For the past four years the rapso movement has been inviting Maximus Dan and Bunji Garlin to be part of their rapso concerts because Brother Resistance feels their contribution to rapso is very important.
?Maximus is very important as the voice of the dispossessed and the oppressed,? says Brother Resistance.
In its simplest form, rapso is considered to be the poetry of calypso.
?We?re talking about an art form coming out of an ancient tradition, the experience of the griot in African society, where the griot was the poet of the people, the spokesperson for the community,? says Brother Resistance.
?That translated into Caribbean through Carnival with the midnight robber being the first rapper.?
Lyrically, Brother Resistance says rapso documents the history and the experiences of a people in any moment in time. The music can be traced back to the drum yards. He sees the heavy influence of rhythm, especially percussion, in the ?new? music that is emerging as a reawakening of the drum tradition as it collides with new voices of today.
?Musically you could say rapso is the junction where calypso meets reggae and funk.?
Brother Resistance says the emergence of rapso as part of the mainstream Carnival scene has been happening for some time.
?A serious thing has been happening over the past seven years. There has been a marked shift in the boundaries of what is now defining the space of mainstream soca music in T&T. This shift has been brought about fundamentally by the presence of the power of rap.
?Of course the experts in the music field have never really felt strong enough to say that is so, but everybody knows it is true. You could feel it from when Machel Montano did ?Big Truck? and that ran away with the Road March.?
Brother Resistance says those who did not recognise the roots of what seemed to be a new musical movement are the people who have been highly incensed by what they perceive as a new dub-influenced music that is emerging.
?At one time it got so distressing to the calypso and soca lover who loved the melody that they dubbed the new music emerging as ragga soca.?
Although one can?t deny that artistes like Treason, Bunji Garlin and Maximus Dan are looking outward towards Jamaica for their influences, Brother Resistance sees the young artistes looking inward more to tradition than they are looking outward.
?Much of their music is defined by the point in time that they started,? says Brother Resistance. ?When I started, my grounding was with the drums, the strikes, and the Black power movement. They came to music from the scratching of a turntable. That?s what they know and that?s what brought them to the music. The reggae or the dub and hip hop is what influenced them. That?s where they started and a lot of people turn a deaf ear to them because they didn?t like where they started.?
The important point, Brother Resistance insists, is that the young artistes are finding themselves within the tradition of the music.
Brother Resistance says he can?t listen to Bunji Garlin sing ?Smoke, Fire Brigade? and hear anything but a Midnight Robber in every sense of the tradition.
?The Midnight Robber is alive and well as ever in this song with that boastfulness, the threatening to the ridiculous. The tradition of the rapso artiste is forever present ? that use of the threat as a launching pad is such a long standing thing in calypso. If you check Sparrow and Superblue they had it. Bunji is just expressing that.?
Whether they know it or not, Brother Resistance insists, Maximus Dan and Bunji Garlin are carrying on tradition and bringing it face to face with a new generation.
