853630

The Rise of Calypso Feminism: Gender and Musical Politics in the Calypso
Author(s): Cynthia Mahabir

Source: Popular Music, Vol. 20, No. 3, Gender and Sexuality (Oct., 2001), pp. 409-430
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Popular Music (2001) Volume 20/3. Copyright (C) 2001 Cambridge University Press, pp. 409430.
Printed in the United Kingdom
The rise of calypso feminism:

gender and musical politics in
the calypso
CYNTHIA MAHABIR
The sky is the limit

We rising, we rising, we woman rising,
(Easlyn Orr, cited in Ottley 1992, p. 154)
In February 1999, two women of Afro-Caribbean ancestry won their respective soci-
eties' highest musical honours. On 14 February, Singing Sandra was crowned Trini-
dad-Tobago's Calypso Monarch 1999 - the second woman ever to win this coveted
title, a full twenty-one years after the country's first woman calypso monarch,
Calypso Rose. Two weeks later in the USA, Lauryn Hill received five Grammy
awards, the most in any single year for a female performer or a hip-hop artist. This
trend continues in Great Britain, where 'rude girl' DJ Patra has a growing posse of
fans, and in West Africa where the pop music stylings of Benin's Angelique Kidjo
and Mali's Oumou Sangare enjoy mass followings.
Around the globe, women pop singers - and women of African ancestry in
particular - are emerging as a powerful force for social change. This development
is most dramatically manifested in Caribbean women's music, specifically in the
calypso - a wildly popular dance music that was invented in Trinidad-Tobago, but
which has roots in West Africa. Over the last two decades in Trinidad-Tobago,
women calypsonians have been constructing a new discourse using calypso to
advance individual and collective change.
Calypso music weds lyrical, satirical texts with pounding, irrepressible
rhythms. The singers enhance their lyrics with provocative strutting, eye-catching
and sometimes outrageous, self-designed costumes. Their performance is energetic,
sensual, visually adventurous and commanding. The performers shake and gyrate
as they sing, voice and body in unison, the microphone bouncing rapidly from one
hand to the other, the index finger of the free hand gesturing to connect with the
audience - playful one moment, mocking the next, vexed sometimes, occasionally
pleading, and at times celebrating some anticipated gain. Their presentation style
belies the subtle but momentous social transformation they are orchestrating- the
reconfiguration of gender and ethnic relations.
The majority of the songs address urgent social issues such as racial harmony
409
410 Cynthia Mahabir
Figure 1. Singing Sandra (photo by Rudolph Ottley)
(Sandra's 'Song for Healing', 1999), urban poverty (Sandra's 'Voices from the Ghet-
to', 1999), and gender inequality (Denyse Plummer's 'Who's the Boss?', 1989).
Through their songs, calypso women are tapping into and shaping an emergent
women's consciousness. This is oral feminism in the making.l
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato was wary of the effects of popular music
on mass audiences, but modern Caribbean intellectual C.L.R. James was affirming
and optimistic. To James, popular music was not only culture but popular art
'experienced emotiorlally and politically by audiences' (James 1992, PP. 249, 252).
He saw popular art as the key for mobilising mass audiences for revolutionary
social change (James 1992, PP.247-54). The consequence of this process is evident
in many societies where contemporary women's music has become a significant
means for presenting emergent patterns of identity amidst changing demographic,
political and economic conditions.
Simon Frith (1996A) unravels the unique role of popular music in the definition
and redefinition of identity by social groups in many societies. He draws our atten-
tion to the way in which a piece of music or a performance 'produces' people by
fashioning an experience- musical and/or aesthetic- 'that we can only make sense
of by taking on both a subjective and a collective identity' (Frith 1996A P.109). He
observes also that, 'Music is ... the cultural form best able to cross borders ...'
(Frith 1996A P. 125). The songs of four of calypso's most prominent women -
Calypso ltose, Singing Sandra, Denyse Plummer and Drupatee - altered the concep-
tion of identity as well as the cultural landscape of Trinidad-Tobago.
The rise of calypso feminism 411
In this paper I examine: (i) how women's calypso in Trinidad represents the
mobilisation of culture to advance women's status and, by extension, social
relations, (ii) the impact of women's calypso on the dismantling of gender, social
class and ethnic boundaries in Trinidad, and (iii) the paradoxical politics of sex and
seduction in women's calypso. While aware of the debates in the literature on treat-
ing popular music purely as verbal text (Middleton 1990, 1993), I draw heavily
upon text here since calypso is significantly a linguistic and political musical form.
Also, between 1994 and 1998, I conducted a series of interviews with women
calypsonians and various calypso aficionados to explore the degree to which
women's calypso represents the mobilisation of culture for individual and collective
social change. I found an incipient social project underway, with moments of tri-
umph, as well as intense resistance. This is a phenomenon that resonates globally.
In Trinidad, the story begins in Port of Spain.
Women, social marginality and the early calypso
The modern calypso originated on the fringes of society in Trinidad's bustling capi-
tal, Port of Spain. Although calypso's precursor was the praise song of West African
women, it was Trinidad's men who emerged as the lead singers in the post-slavery
variant of this form of popular music.2 However, women- poor city dwellers who
eked out a living as prostitutes and petty criminals3 - were important participants
in the early development of calypso as dancers and singers (Elder 1966, p. 185;
Brereton 1975, pp. 46-57). Over the years, women have also been the majority fans
of calypso - both as Carnival party-goers and revellers (masqueraders) in the street
parades (Lord Kitchener, 'Twenty to One', 1974; Rohlehr 1997).
Dance bands were the prototypical Carnival bands of the nineteenth century.
They included lower-class men and women from the underworld who were lab-
elled 'jamettes' - a local French creole term in nineteenth-century Trinidad for
lower-class and, by extension, immoral, people. In the twentieth century, 'jamette'
came to refer to a female prostitute (Brereton 1975).
Just before the onset of the Catholic Lenten period, while the French creole
bourgeois classes were hosting their highbrow masquerade balls indoors, these
dance bands, headed by a chantwell (a lead singer and an extemporaneous
composer), took to the streets. The male musicians typically dressed as women or
monks, hence they were known as 'feminine associations'. The dancers were scant-
ily dressed women, who gyrated provocatively. The 'feminine associations' per-
formed unconventional, satirical, 'obscene' songs, accompanied by instrumental
music and dance that often mocked the elite classes and the authorities. During the
periodic breaks in the customary stick-fighting contests, the women sang carisos -
a type of traditional topical song that is thought to have evolved into the modern
calypso (Elder 1966, pp. 192-203; Brereton 1975; Cowley 1996, p. 111).
With such roots, why did the calypso become such a decidedly male art form?
Gordon Rohlehr (1990) has theorised that socially and economically marginalised
members of the calypso community tried to organise their lives around the ideals
of bourgeois society, particularly those that defined the male as provider and the
woman as housewife and mother. However, Rohlehr observed, these ideals do not
fit the lives of marginalised people. Consequently, men's frustrated attempts to
realise these ideals as breadwinners result in the shattering of their egos. Male
calypsonians responded to this inability to fulfil the ideal gender role by con-
412 Cynthia Mahabir
structing a fantasy world in which men achieved the good life by assuming a mask
of machismo, resorting to aggression or violence in relationships with women, and
using wit and humour to reduce to absurdity anyone who might be seen as threat-
ening.
Rohlehr (1990) and Warner (1982) established a clear pattern of women being
used as the butt of musical satire for the amusement of male calypso fans. Women
generally have been construed as a sexual commodity. In male calypso lyrics, Afro-
Trinidadian women were depicted as prostitutes, unfaithful schemers, and decep-
tive Eves. Trinidadian Indian women, however, were generally presented as unat-
tainable sexual partners, shielded by ethnic barriers (in much the same way as
light-skinned or white Trinidadian women were shielded by social class). Under
the companion stereotype, the male, street-wise Afro-Trinidadian calypso singer
laid claim to an irresistible reservoir of 'superior' sexuality that he could tap into
to assert his dominance. He could even harness this male sexual capital (in song, at
least) to seduce and conquer Indian women, who typically were portrayed as rural,
traditional and naive.4
Male calypsonians also presented what Rohlehr refers to as an 'alternative
presence' of women doing certain things to men- quarrelling, evicting, refusing,
reducing or rebelling. These pre-independence male calypsos occasionally featured
images of the 'rebel woman' - the woman who fought against being 'taken advan-
tage of'. Sometimes she physically beat her men or forced them out of the home
(Rohlehr 1990, p. 276). But except for rare examples, the voice and opinions of
women were seldom heard inside the calypso tent.
Gender, power and calypso
Calypso is the cultural medium through which performers bring ideas to life, nur-
ture hostilities, profess love, release energies and contemplate social change. The
calypsonian rules as a powerful gadfly in Trinidadian society - the poetic voice of
ordinary folk, transforming thoughts into words and feelings into music (Constance
1991, p. 2).
Women calypsonians talk to women through calypso, addressing them as
individuals who are entitled to freedom of choice and basic human rights, exhorting
them to see themselves as individuals with power over their destinies, and cajol-
ing - if not beseeching - them to take control of their lives.
Gender can be defined as the socially and culturally constructed meanings of
male and female - masculinity and femininity - and the social organisation of these
differences in a society. As represented by women calypsonians, gender strode into
the calypso tent through a rather conventional song by Calypso Rose. Agonised by
steel band fights on the streets of Port of Spain, ltose sang 'Co-operation', in which
she pleaded with her warring surrogate steel band and masquerader sons as a
'mother' to cut out their violence and behave during the Carnival celebrations.
It was an auspicious song. Its message registered with the Trinidad public.
The song became a hit, 'kick(ing) up dust' (Rose, cited in Ottley 1992, p. 6). It
marked the beginning of the demasculinisation of the calypso by women, and estab-
lished Rose's identity as a woman calypsonian (Interview, 19 January 1994).
In 1963, Rose triumphed over eleven male contestants to win her first calypso
crown title. Rose completed her sweep by winning the Virgin Islands Calypso King
The rise of calypso kminism 413
Competition as well as the road march (the most popular calypso on the streets)
(Interview, 19 January 1994).
Just a few years before, however, she had to wrestle with deeply rooted gender
barriers to establish her identity as a female calypsonian in a religiously conserva-
tive and patriarchal milieu. Rose recalled:
I started singing calypso in 1955. In those years, a female singing calypso was looked upon
in a derogatory way. It was a degrading role that she had gotten herself involved in. So I
took a lot of criticism from women and church groups. But I tried to show them that calypso
was an art, and that it was nothing derogatory. 'This is our culture,' I said, 'the culture of
Trinidad and Tobago. The whole Caribbean came out of Africa.' (Interview, 19 January 1994)
In the aftermath of a hurricane, Rose combined sections of hymns with the calypso
verse structure at her local church. 'I sang "Abide with me/Fast falls the evening
tide" and all those things, and they said, "Hey, she's going in a good direction"',
she remembered (Interview, 19 January 1994).
While Rose was syncretising hymns with the calypso verse form and topical
events for her religiously orthodox Spiritual Baptist church audiences, she also
worked the male-dominated secular calypso-tent beat 'pulling ideas for the women'
on stage with compositions such as 'Marriage/Matrimony', and 'Don't Blame the
Doctor'.5 'Being a woman', she emphasised, 'I have to fight for women' (Interview,
19 January 1994).
Denyse Plummer recognised the power she felt as a calypsonian during an
interview with me:
Do you know, I am a woman and I would stand on a stage before an audience of about
15,000 people and anything I tell them to do, they would do. If I told everyone to take their
shirts off, they would all take their shirts off. The power and charisma of this art form are
incredible, and it scares me (. . .) So to realise, especially as women, the power that we pos-
sess when we are on stage, and the same way we could encourage vulgarity and wildness
with the power of good social commentary - lyrics that could change a society, that is the
very same power up there - why not use it? (Interview, 12 January 1994)
The feminisation of the calypso
In the post-independence era of the 1970s,6 a period of significant social transform-

ation in Trinidad, women began to articulate gender issues in the public arena (Daly
1982). Energised by the identity movements and cultural nationalism of the 1980s
and 1990s, an incipient women's movement emerged.7 It extended to the calypso
tent, where a cross-section of women unleashed a musical critique of the treatment
of women in Trinidadian society.
Women calypsonians promoted new images of women as mothers, spouses,
working women, breadwinners, and so on, with a deep sense of dignity, self-respect
and personal autonomy. Women calypsonians seized the historical moment to
initiate a challenge to the politics of manhood that was the very essence of the
calypso.
Calypso Rose explained the state of the traditional, male-dominated perform-
ance by citing the songs of the Mighty Sparrow (Francisco Slinger), the acknowl-
edged 'Calypso Monarch of the World':
If you check his records for the 50s and 60s, everything that Sparrow came out and sang
about was about a woman - degrading women in all demeaning ways.8 When I entered
calypso, I told myself I would not degrade the men but I would try to fight for the women
because, since I was a woman and I had heard the types of tunes the men wrote about - this
414 Cynthia Mahabir
Figure 2. Calypso Rose (photo by Rudolph Ottley).
woman this, and that woman that, - it did not sound good to my ear. (Interview, 19 January
1994)
Rose focused on the everyday preoccupations of working-class women. 'I don't

want no engagement ring, so don't engage me and then six months after, you leave
me', she sang in 'Engagement Ring' (1975). In 'You No Need Dem' (1993), she
challenged working women's acquiescence to dominance by unemployed partners:
Dem man dey, dem a waste of time (. . .) / They'll take your sweet life /
And make it sour like lime (. . .) / You don't need dem kind of man /
Who allergic to work / (. . .) dey cause you plenty pain /
They'll take your sunshine and turn it into rain.
In 'Me No Want' (1993), Rose vigorously discourages relationships between single

women and married men: 'It is trouble, big, big trouble/Because you'll find yourself
(. . .)/As the outside woman playing second fiddle'. And in 'Do Dem Back' (1975),
in an explicit challenge to conventional gender roles, she encourages womenfolk to

resist male manipulation and exploitation.9
Rose's contemporary, Singing Francine, also counselled young women to exer-
cise self-determination. To women subjected to spousal abuse, she recommended,
'Run Away' (1978). In her 1975 song, 'Debbie', Francine cajoled a single teenage
mother, 'Girl, you must hear when people talk to you/You too young for this kind
a thing/Fifteen years old and you have two children already?/What go happen if
you reach twenty-five?/Come on, Debbie, pull up your socks'.
Rose unapologetically advised women to stand up to men. In 'Miss Pam'
(1993), she chastised a young woman for marrying for money:
Who tell yuh tuh marry fuh money (. . .)/What you crying fuh now (. . .)
You let the dollar sign-eh/The big, big dollar sign go to your head; (. . .)
You going out your mind/'Cause you can't find/Satisfaction in bed, don't cry (. . .)
Pamela gal, you must marry fuh love (. . .)
You must take Calypso Rose advice, gal.
Singing Francine flipped passive femininity on its head in 'Run Away' (1978) when
she sang, 'You went and you put gold ring on she hand/You boasting in town you
is she man/She say that you love she bursting with joy/She gave you a baby boy/
Little did she know you wanted a maid/(...) Now she sit down and wondering
what to do/How to get away'.
Francine unequivocally advised the wife to escape: 'Child does run away/
Fowl does run away/Woman cat does run away when you treating them bad/Cow
does run away/Dog does run away/What happen to you?/Woman, you could run
away, too/(. . .) Don't sit down and scream/Woman, put two wheels on your heels'
(cited in Ottley 1992, p. 31).
Patricia Mohammed (1991) credits Francine's 'Run Away' with initiating
calypso women's challenge against male brutality and disrespect towards women.
It mushroomed into a trend two years later when Singing Diane announced, 'Ah
Done Wid Dat' (1980), a song in which she not only leaves her abusive partner, but
informs him personally and explicitly about her reason for leaving before she walks
out:
If ah don't leave now/Is licks in the morning,

In the evening/I telling you flat/I done wid dat.
Lady Jane went further in her assertion of women's rights. She urged retribution
for rapists:
Send those rapermen to jail/Beat them with the birch 'til they wail;
Then send in Calypso Jane/To throw some cat in dey tail (corporal punishment).
(Cited in Mohammed 1991, pp. 34-5)
Bernadette Paul, in her popular 'You're Hurting Me' (1994), advanced this feminist
thrust with her mocking attack on sexual harassment of women in everyday life:
Why can't I walk the street without you harassing me?

Am I your angel or a sex symbol? Tell me, brother, what do you see?
Am I just another one when you're having fun?
'I was fighting for the rights of women', Rose told me. She felt that her presence
triggered a dramatic shift in men's calypsos:
If you check the calypsos now, you'll see. I think these guys have clearly run out of topics
because all they are singing now is 'jam and wine', 'wine and jam', and 'hold on to a bumsie
416 Cynthia Mahabir
(bottom) and wine'. So they've dropped the women and, to me, now don't have anything
because women were the door post that they could hold on to and 'rack' it and shake it and
do what they wanted. (Interview, 19 January 1994)
These messages from Rose and Francine - affirming the autonomy of women
and promoting the idea that women had rights as human beings - took root among
younger women entering calypso. In 1991, for example, in 'Hostage', Lady B drew
an analogy with politicians taken hostage during a 1990 insurrection in Trinidad.
She asked, 'Would somebody tell me who is a hostage?/You in bondage when they
restrict all you rights and privileges/(...) Woman, are you a hostage to that ol'
wedding band?/With a husband who invent his own private hostage plan/So inno-
cently you said 'I do'/From that day all freedom cut from you/Is licks now and
then/Ah band of children/And no money to support them' (cited in Ottley 1992,
pp. 108-10).
In contemporary calypsos such as Singing Sandra's 'Dignity', Denyse Plum-
mer's 'Who's the Boss?', Twiggy's 'Don't Put Your Hand on Mih Property', and
Singing Sonia's 'Woman is Woman', women calypsonians have been steadily dis-
mantling negative, male-based images of women as 'deceitful', 'dominant' and
'managing' by rendering women's lives more authentically, with the contradictions
and paradoxes that characterise them.
The divas of calypso
'I am a Taurus/Like a bull is, so I ferocious' - Rose, The Queen of Calypso
The current glittering universe of female calypsonians owes its emergence to the
musical Big Bang set off in the early 1970s by the regal, tempo-driven Calypso Rose,
the unquestionable Queen of Calypso. Rose won the National Calypso Queen
crown in 1975 with 'Do Dem Back', a song that encouraged women to resist male
domination. 'I am a Taurus/Like a bull is, so I ferocious/Determination is my right
hand', Rose declared in 'Dem Wrong' (1974).
Despite her feminist mission, Rose began her career as a calypsonian with a
conventionally feminine identity. She started her career as Crusoe Kid, a name she
had given herself to mark her roots in Tobago, Crusoe's Isle. She later accepted the
sobriquet 'Calypso Rose' from fellow (male) calypsonians at the Young Brigade
calypso tent. She liked being Calypso Rose because 'rose is the mother of all flow-
ers'. She drew upon the multiple symbolisms of the rose to construct her identity
in the calypso world. Rose was subsequently designated by younger female
calypsonians the Mother of Calypso. She cherishes this title especially because it
acknowledges that the younger women look up to her as their mother (Interview,
19 January 1994).
Rose's range of social issues is broad. In 1971, she took on class exploitation
in 'No, Madame', presenting the experience and resistance of a domestic worker to
oppression by her employer. Rose complained that the madame had her sick with
her incessant orders:
As I reach in the morning/Whole day mih name calling;

She too miserable/Hear the things she want me to do:
Rose, you wash the wares?/No, madame
You clean down the stairs?/No, madame
You polish the floor?/No, madame
You open the door?/No, madame, No madame (. . .)

I have to wash, starch and iron/For the children and the husband
For only thirty dollars a month.
(Trinidad Carnival Calypsos 1971)
Rose has not wavered in her promotion of women's independence in her

songs. When I interviewed her in 1994, she proudly referred me to her then-new
Soca Diva (1994):
I went for the women this year! In 'Dem Man Dey' (. . .) those men are so lazy and are on
drugs and booze. You don't need that kind of man. 'Me No Want No Married Man' was
also about a women's issue because when they [married men] say they're coming, they ain't
coming at all. They will come and tell you so many lies - that they don't love their wives
and it's you they want And when they call and tell you they're coming and have you
waiting, they're messing you' head. This time they're home with their wives in bed.
For Calypso Rose also, the physical choreography of her performance is an

intrinsic dimension of her identity as a calypsonian. She recalled her first calypso
performance in front of a conservative generation of Trinidadians and Tobagonians:
People thought what I was doing was degrading, but I was very respecthll within my sur-
roundings - which were my male counterparts and the public. I showed them respect when
I got on stage. I don't strip myself. I wine [dance by gyrating the lower body]. And why do
I wine? Because the music is so infectious, especially the drums. It's so infectious that when
you get that spirit - (. . .) you dance. And I'm an African (. . .) So when I hear the music, and
that drum gives me that 'bik, bik, bik, bik,' I've gone crazy. So I move to suit. (Interview, 19
January 1994)
Calypso Rose insisted that she was consciously demonstrating to female

calypsonians that they could be successful without 'dressing vulgar' or 'being
vulgar' on stage. 'Don't let yourself loose', Rose advised. 'We know men. If a
fly passes and that fly says "poop", they want to lift up that fly's tail' (Interview,
19 January 1994).
'I feel proud to know that I've set a standard', the Queen of Calypso noted,
'I've set the stage for them so that they could get on that stage now and prove
themselves. Thanks to the mother of calypso, here we are today where we can gain
all the respect that we could get out there. We could be the calypso queen like
Denyse Plummer, like Francine (. . .) People can admire us for our talent, for what
we are doing' (cited in Ottley 1992, p. 8).
'I come out to equalise' - Singing Sandra, Calypso Monarch 1999
Sandra's voice is the most radical of all the women calypsonians today. She agitated
for human rights for women even as a beginner in her first calypso tent performance
with her 'Raperman' (1984). She explained to me during an interview,
The song, more or less, was calling for castration for men who rape not only women but
little boys. You see, I'm so upset about somebody using somebody else's body to do what
they want. I should be in control of my own body. So if I have a choice for men who rape,
I would castrate them. It's a little harsh, but every time I think about it, it burns inside.
(Interview, 12 January 1994)
Sandra was also outraged about the trading of sexual favours for employ-
ment- a practice long-favoured by male employers. She expressed her feelings -
and certainly the collective sentiments of women in the work force - about this
indignity in her watershed calypso, 'Dignity' (1987). In her sweeping indictment of
418 Cynthia Mahabir
Figure 3. Denyse Plummer (photo by Rudolph Ottley).
male victimisation of women workers (and her affirmation of a woman's insistence

on preserving her dignity even in circumstances of relative powerlessness), Sandra
superseded Singing Francine's bold advice in 'Run Away'. In 'Dignity', she sang:
They want to see your whole anatomy
They want to see what you' doctor never see
They want to do what you' husband never do
Still you ent know if the scamps will hire you
Well, if it's all this humiliation
To get a job these days as a woman
Brother, they go keep their money
I go keep my honey
And die with my dignity.
(Cited in Ottley 1992, p. 145)
In 1998, Singing Sandra was unabashedly subversive in 'Equaliser', a song about

solutions for sexual violence against women:
We tired beg, Lord/We tired plead

Still, man wouldn't hear/Everyday they making we bleed
Stick breaking the ear/And the authorities
Is nothing they doing/(. . .) reviewing
It's time to get off/If they don't really have a clue
I know exactly what to do/Send them by me
Enough is enough
For all their twisted desires/Give me a pair of old, rusty pliers
Squeeze until I shall castrate/Embalm it and then cremate
The Bible say it's a must/Ash to ashes, dust to dust
I have a license to circumcise
Chorus: (I come out to equalise)
I go (will) be cutting them right down to size/(I come out to equalise) /
They bound to stop once they realise/(I come out to equalise)
The equaliser, the equaliser
Equal rights, equal pay/That is my franchise/(I come out to equalise)
The law in this land is too lenient/They want to tell me about human rights
So what happened to my rights?/What happened to our rights?
I come to defend women.
Sandra's 'Voices From the Ghetto' (1999) and 'Call For Healing' (1999) reflect
the daily stresses, deprivations, losses and despair of poor women in Trinidad-
Tobago, but they could easily be describing the lives of poor women and their
families in any part of the world. According to Sandra,
Life does rape dignity and pride/'Til is only bitterness there inside/
Everyday is a hustle/Arguments are settled with muscle/
'Til you six feet deep/By three feet wide (. . .)
One night is sleep you sleeping/Next night is wake that you keeping.
('Voices From the Ghetto', cited in Sunday Punch, 21 February 1999)
Sandra's condemnation of domestic violence and advocacy for improving the status
of women and children was publicly recognised by Trinidad's non-governmental
organisations for women when they invited her to give the keynote address on
International Women's Day 1999. The speech, which was delivered at one of the
island's few women's shelters, was significant because calypsonians are typically
seen as entertainers, not social activists.
'I am always crazy on stage . . . very colourful . . . a lot of cloth (and) things on my body.
Costume is part of the whole package which I believe in' - Denyse Plummer
Ethnicity is one of the social forces in Trinidadian society that has presented Trinid-
ad's women calypsonians with serious challenges in the conception of their identity.
Denyse Plummer (a native Trinidadian and the daughter of a black mother and a
white father) and Drupatee Ramgoonai Persad (an Indo-Trinidadian woman trained
in traditional Indian music) broke long-standing ethnic boundaries in Trinidadian
society.
Plummer won the Calypso Queen title in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991. But in the
early days of her calypso career, audiences threw stones and toilet paper at her. In
1986, during a performance in the town of San Fernando, several patrons shouted,
420 Cynthia Mahabir
'Go back to South Africa' (Trinidad Guardian, 27 February 1998). She was self-
analytical six years later:
I was not the normal calypsonian (.. .) I was a pop singer in the eyes of the people. I was
not a Black person. I was a woman (. . .) a stranger to them (. . .) so with all these things they
had to initiate me properly before they could accept me into their world, their culture that
they think the world of. (Cited in Ottley 1992, p. 85)
Plummer absorbed her initial rejection as her 'baptism' and went on to integrate
herself into calypso culture by incorporating African chants, drums and dress into
her performance. 'When I go on stage', Plummer explained, 'I don't look like any-
body else, like anybody sitting in the audience. I represent Trinidad and Tobago.
My culture is carnival. Carnival is colour. Calypso is part of carnival ... so I am
always crazy on stage . . . very colourful . . . a lot of cloth (and) things on my body'
(Cited in Ottley 1992, p. 85).
In defining herself as a calypsonian, Plummer shifted ethnic boundaries. Her
assertion of her national identity as Trinidadian implicitly reminded audiences that
Trinidadian society is neither mono-racial nor mono-cultural, but colourfully plural-
ist.
Plummer took this ethnicity-plus-gender border-crossing a notch further in
'Carnival Ki Rani' (1998), which she co-wrote with Calypso Rose. She performed it
at the 1998 Chutney Soca Calypso Monarch competition, with a well-crafted, flam-
boyant entrance and departure that reinforced the way in which her gender and
ethnic politics were transgressive of Trinidad's social order. Plummer, dressed like
an Indian rani (queen), was carried to the stage in the arms of chutney soca hunk
and Indo-Trinidadian Chris Garcia. After presenting her second number, a tribute
to Grandmaster-of-Calypso, Lord Kitchener, entitled 'A Legend', the Afro-
Trinidadian Kitchener escorted Plummer offstage and squired her to a stretch
limousine that chauffeured Plummer away (personal conversation with eye-witness
Ray Funk, 17August 1998).
A good part of Plummer's appeal is her versatility. Her repertoire embraces
party, soca, chutney soca, pan (steelband), feminist and patriotic songs. She recalled
the profound anxiety and sadness she felt about the possible national disintegration
of Trinidad-Tobago in 1990, which inspired 'La Trinity' - one of her patriotic
calypsos. Plummer wrote this song after an attempted coup by a fundamentalist
Muslim sect. The lyrics were very uplifting at a time when dark clouds of despair
hovered over the society. Plummer explained:
I saw my country being torn apart. This affected me badly, so I wrote that song in tears,
literally crying. It was saying, 'Don't cry for me (. . .) I am your rock. I will always be here
for you. There's no destruction (. . .) what you see is not destruction. It is to test me. It was
given to me by God to test me (me being the country, Trinidad) (. . .) Don't cry for me, my
children/There's no destruction/I am your rock/I am your island/I am La Trinity.
(Interview, 12 January 1994)
Plummer's concept of womanhood (woman as the rock and steadfast foundation,

a symbol of continuity in a time of crises) embraced national unity, social order, a
steely resilience and maternal comfort in a time of political upheaval and instability.
Plummer exemplifies the two roles played by women calypsonians - that of
defender of the common good (in 'La Trinity') and that of agent-of-change (in
'Who's the Boss?').
Denyse Plummer has also noted a dramatic rise in both respect for women -
and the demand for respect from men - over the last few years. She credited women
calypsonians for contributing significantly to this development through the use of
the calypso as a medium to promote women's rights by raising women's issues and
offering positive solutions to everyday problems.
'We adding (a) little curry and gera . . . Pan man skills must spill into Caroni/For we going
and cause a fusion with the culture' - Drupatee Ramgoonai Persad
Denyse Plummer's transformation of the ethnic identity of 'the calypsonian' to

include white or white-looking Trinidadians was broadened by Drupatee
Ramgoonai Persad, who shifted ethnic, gender and cultural boundaries by introduc-
ing dimensions of her Trinidadian Indian culture into the calypso. She syncretised
the idiom and, in the process, drew both Indo- and Afro-Trinidadians into the same
dance space. With her splashy introduction of chutney soca (a hybrid of Indian
and African island rhythms) in 1987, Drupatee revolutionised ethnic relations and
national culture.
In a documentary entitled 'Worlds Apart' (1992), sociologist Stuart Hall under-
scored the profound significance of Drupatee's success as a calypsonian for bringing
together through her music two disparate worlds in Trinidad. Noting the Carnival
celebration as a 'blaze of costume and colour with people jumping together through
the streets, their racial origin irrelevant', he cautions that, 'Carnival could be decep-
tive. Carnival itself is a political occasion (. . .) Deep down, that connection between
slavery and calypso is still important. Carnival really didn't really belong to Indi-
ans'. But, he added, all this was being changed by Drupatee, 'calypso singer extraor-
dinaire' and 'unlikely revolutionary', who was 'trying to break through the cultural
logjam'.
Drupatee and her fans are the progeny of creolisation - the ongoing process
by which cultural hybrids are generated (Boland 1992). Jay Persad, Drupatee's hus-
band and business partner, explained the hybridised origin of 'Tassawally', one of
her early hits: 'The tassa, which is a series of three pieces of drums, is fundamental
in Indian weddings (. . .) What we have been trying to get out of our own culture
is a song with a racy tempo that could parallel the calypso (. . .) We were trying to
blend the two cultures - the Indian and the calypso - and we were trying to actually
attract young people towards Indian music again' ('Worlds Apart').
Stuart Hall traced Drupatee's popularity as a singer to the fact that 'She makes
Indian songs popular by importing Caribbean rhythms without diminishing the
original Indianness - creolisation on her own terms'. As she explained to me:
I grew up in Penal (a village in South Trinidad). The steelband (Valley Harps) was right
across where we were living, and we used to listen. I got to love the music. I also used to
listen to calypsonians like Sparrow and Ras Shorty (. . .) When I saw them on the Calypso
Monarch show on television, I used to wonder how the calypsonians felt to be in front of
such huge crowds (...) I always dreamed of singing in the Calypso Monarch show.l°
(Interview, 5 March 1994)
Drupatee's first hurdle was the deeply ingrained Indian cultural taboo against
women singing in public. While Denyse Plummer's 'baptism' came from outside
her social and ethnic community, Drupatee's came from within. After breaking
through the gender taboo, she was accused by older, more tradition-bound Indians
of degrading her womanhood.
To some people, Drupatee had violated her ethnic customs and become a
symbol of collective dishonour. Her 1987 'Chutney Soca' addressed the identity
422 Cynthia Mahabir
dilemma that her performances triggered in both Afro-Trinidadian calypso audi-

ences and in segments of the Indo-Trinidadian community:
Indian soca (. . .) sounding sweeter

Hotter than a chulha [clay oven]/rhythm from Africa and India
Blend together in perfect mixture (. . .)/All we doing is adding new flavour (. . .)
From the hills of Lord way/up in Laventille ah ha
Pan man skills must spill into Caroni, oh Lord
For we going and cause a fusion with the culture
To widen we scope and vision for the future
And the only place to start is with the art/Panman, play your part
They give me blow, oh Lord, last year/For doing soca

But it shows how much they know about the culture
For the music of the steel drum from Laventille
Cannot help but mix with the rhythm from Caroni
For it's the symbol of how much we come of age
It's a brand new stage.
In this song, Drupatee blends rhythm and symbol. African and Indian rhythms
merge as Laventille - a community of poor, urban Afro-Trinidadians - is linked
with Caroni, a region occupied by poor, rural Indo-Trinidadians.
But Drupatee continued to practise and 'stay in touch' with her own traditions,
and soon she succeeded in winning the support of fellow Indo-Trinidadians. Her
next, far-more-difficult hurdle was to cross into the Afro-Trinidadian world of the
calypso tents. 'Many predicted she would flop', Hall observed, 'an Indian couldn't
sing calypso to blacks and get away with it' ('Worlds Apart').
But Drupatee did precisely that, bursting into the national calypso spotlight in
1988 with her monster hit, 'Mr. Bissessar'. This is a song about an older, circumspect
Indo-Trinidadian man who is swept off his feet and onto the dance floor by the
irresistible sounds of Indian soca. Drupatee coaxed as she danced about the stage:
Wey, this is jam/This is a soca tassa (Indian drum) jam (. . .)/
Roll up the tassa, Bissessar/(. . .) Rip up the tassa, Bissessar/
The rather innocuous lyrics were perhaps a key to Drupatee's successful entrance
into the previously exclusive domain of the calypso tent. Her use of the Hindustani
'capra' (clothing) and 'tassa' (drum) was not the first instance of Indian culture in
calypso, but it was one of the very few times when it conveyed an affirmation of
that culture.
Bissessar depicted a somewhat incongruous scene of an elderly Indian man in
ethnic clothing dancing in public - and at a fete at that - to modern music. With this
one song, Drupatee was simultaneously affirming and reconciling two historically
divergent cultures, and giving to two different ethnic populations a dance music
their bodies would take to instantly. Boundaries of ethnicity, gender and culture in
the conventional construction of the identity of the calypsonian, as well as in the
society, were shattered.
Drupatee's 1987 calypso, 'Chutney Soca', celebrated the musical hybridisation
that had been quietly brewing around Trinidad's villages and which would soon
make its splash in the urban dance halls and streets. To Stuart Hall, Drupatee's skill
'has been to adapt and dilute Indian tradition for the young without debasing it for the
older generation among whom she lives' ('Worlds Apart').
She expected that her entrance on the calypso stage would invite a new assert-
Figure 4. Drupatee Ramgoonai Persad (photo by Rudolph Ottley).
iveness by the Indo-Trinidadian community, and that this could trigger resistance
from the Afro-Trinidadian public. To minimise this resistance, she chose to move
cautiously, presenting herself as an entertainer performing party tunes.
However, with her introduction of the newly invented chutney soca tempo,
Drupatee was using 'the popular language' (albeit with an Indian ethnic twist) to
sing a song with lyrics that encode certain messages. In her song, 'Mr. Bissessar',
old man Bissessar is possessed by the music and joins the younger generation of
Trinidadian Indians to dance exuberantly in public, Western-style. With this
calypso, she reshuffled the chips of Trinidadian popular culture by shifting the
boundaries of gender, ethnicity and music.
The content of her lyrics, while innocuous and safely ethnically Indian, wid-
ened the social space to accommodate publicly older- and younger-generation Trini-
dadian Indians in the calypso-dancing audience. This was a critical step in the
highly charged symbolic process of pluralising popular culture in a small but
extremely diverse society. Drupatee's warm reception in the calypso tent may well
424 Cynthia Mahabir
have been a function of her gender plus ethnicity, as well as the irresistible appeal
of her music, and the socio-political climate in Trinidadian society at that time.
I would argue that women such as Rose, Sandra, Denyse and Drupatee are
democratising the calypso for a pluralist society. Women calypsonians are joining
men in the calypso tent and are competing in the same cultural space and commer-
cial marketplace. They are summoning attention to 'new' issues such as domestic
violence, sexual harassment, motherhood, women's rights, self-determination, edu-
cation, and ethnic and cultural pluralism.
A cultural analysis of women's calypso, then, reveals the value of gender as a
lens for comprehending the social constructedness of the cultural meanings of
identity in Trinidad-Tobago. Marcia Citron aptly observes that 'gender explodes
the insularity of music. It underscores the idea that music relates to real human
experience and to aspects of identity and social location (. . .) (It) affords a valuable
vehicle for accessing issues critical to an understanding of a woman's life and his-
torical position' (Citron 1993, pp. 68-9).
Battling sex and seduction: The United Sisters
Feminist writers see women's music as an instrument of gender and power, and
the performance of the music as essential to political expression. Skeggs argues
that young women pop singers (such as DJ Patra and Salt 'N Pepa) use irrever-
ence and humour to have fun 'taking pleasure from their inability to be con-
trolled and pleasure from the disturbance they cause' (Skeggs 1993, pp. 299-
300). Robertson (1987, p. 230) adds that physical performance provides us with
a point of entry to understand how people achieve their aspirations within their
own milieux, how they dramatise assumptions about each other, and finally,
how they challenge authority.
Because suggestive and stylish physical performance is intrinsic to the deliv-
ery of calypso, female singers often use variations of the male 'jam and wine' style.
To many younger Trinidadian women, these (jam-and-wine) party tunes by women
calypsonians express the lewd, bacchanalian side of womanhood - woman as
seducer (Trinidad Guardian, 6 January 1997). Sexuality is deployed as cultural capi-
tal. This view corresponds with Skeggs' interpretation of women's music.
However, calypsonians such as Rose and the United Sisters (Tigress, Sandra,
Lady B and Marvellous Marva) object to skimpy dressing and distractingly sexy
dancing. While Tigress agrees that in her performances, 'I must have a bit of body',
she insists, 'Singing calypso is not about sex' (Ottley 1992, pp. 113-14). Lady
Wonder adds that it is about 'upliftment'.
Yet even the politically serious United Sisters have done their share of sexually
explicit party songs such as 'The Donkey' (1993) by Tigress, and 'Four Women to
One Man' (1994) by Tigress and Singing Sandra. But the Sisters as well as Calypso
Rose fear that the fledgling trend towards women's emancipation could easily be
reversed by the power of the market-place, which effectively promotes 'fleshy dress'
and provocative dancing (Ottley 1992, p. 80). The result is the sacrifice of art for
popularity.ll
Tigress advocated the cultivation of calypso as art while she directly chal-
lenged the 'retrogressive lyrics', sexual innuendo and macho posturing ('the jam-
and-wine stuff') of the traditional calypso in her 1991 composition, 'Kaiso':
Administrators, adjudicators, all those whose business/It is to assess calypso

It is your duty and responsibility/To preserve the art for the children of tomorrow
Chorus:
We want to hear songs of inspiration and songs of philosophy
And let the party songs take their rightful place on the road or in a party
So on Carnival Sunday night, the people/Who go to Dimanche Gras Show
Must be able to stand up and say that is calypso
Mister Promoter, radio announcer
You too, I must let you know, have an important part to play
Make a strong commitment to promote strong, lyrical content.
Tigress' recognition of the political role of the calypso is evident in the con-
struction of her stage identity. Displaying the calypsonian's characteristic assert-
iveness, she explained to Ottley, 'Every female calypsonian was either "Singing
this" or "Lady that", (. . .) so I sat down and I thought about a flower. How could
I call myself "Lily"? I don't look as a flower. I thought about animals and I think
myself and Tigress suited. Yes! Both of us matched up very well' (cited in Ottley
1992, p. 112).
Tigress disclaims the 'feminist' identity but she is every bit of an advocate for
women in demanding equality in salaries at the calypso tents, in air time on the
radio and in judges' selections at calypso competitions. To make this happen, in the
early 1990s she and three other women calypsonians (Singing Sandra, Marvellous
Marva and Lady B) organised the United Sisters, a collective dedicated to per-
sonalising songs with women's narratives and to taking on the male calypso hier-
archy.
The United Sisters' 1992 album included songs such as 'United Jam', 'Sweet
Music', 'Chante Doux Doux', 'Twilight Zone' and 'Ambataila Woman', in which
the group celebrates black women's survival of slavery:
I survive your rape/I fight and escape

Now I'm proud to display/Rainbow children in array
I've been hurt but I don't harbour hate/My heart is free to accommodate
When you come back for some fun/Yes, I'll be bouncing around.
Singing Sandra lamented:
A lot of women want to come in calypso, (but) what I see (is) that the type of song that you
would hear a woman coming with, the majority of women crying out (. . .) like problems in
society and (. . .) 'nobody eh go listen to them' (. . .) I could get out there and really let them
know how I feeling. I have a perfect example of that. Last year Marvellous Marva sang (. . .)
'The Single Parent', and I know my sister was telling her true, true life story.
Singing Sandra also criticises male calypsonians for the superficiality of their
songs. According to Sandra, 'The "average" male calypsonian sings the "Ah Jam
She and Ah Wine She" and "Ah Went in the Party" brand of songs instead of
"kaiso" songs about serious issues that appeal to women and younger people'l2
(cited in Ottley 1992, p. 141). 'Sometimes I feel I could slap them down, yes', Sandra
said indignantly of the 'jam and wine' calypsonians (Ottley 1992, p. 140). Tigress's
and Singing Sandra's aspirations for the calypso are being advanced by the young
Ella Andall.
Citing popular Andall songs such as 'Song for the People' (1991), 'Black
Woman' (1991), 'Love Yuh Own' (1991), calypso historian Von Martin credits
Andall specifically, and women calypsonians in general, with the introduction of
426 Cynthia Mahabir
spirituality into calypso. He adds, 'They have raised its level, so even [The Mighty]
Sparrow had to do a "spirituality" calypso, "Salvation"' (Interview, 19 January
1994).
The male backlash
Women's calypsos have altered social attitudes, disrupting traditional gender

relations - as illustrated by Tambu's 'Yes, Darling' on the reversal of gender roles -
and posing a challenge to male dominance (cited in Mohammed 1991, p. 39). The
country has recorded a troubling increase in acts of domestic and sexual violence
against women. The number of requests for protective restraining orders - mostly
requested by abused wives- grew from 1,044 in 1991 (when Trinidad's Domestic
Violence Act was enacted) to 8,000 in 1994 - a 550 per cent increase over the pre-
vious year (Mohammed 1991; Pargass 1993; Creque 1995; Reddock 1998).l3 Can the
upward climb in the statistics be attributable to increased reporting of victimisation
by women? Activists such as Diana Mahabir-Wyatt argue that while more women
are filing reports today, most victims still remain silent, and they themselves have
observed a drastic rise in both the frequency and brutality of violence against
women and girls (personal communication, 9 January 1997). Denyse Plummer's
controversial 'party song', 'Who's the Boss?' (1989) infuriated many men. However,
it was a big crowd-pleaser among Trinidadian women who joined Plummer exuber-
antly in her chorus:
The sky's the limit/Where we are concerned

Women, this round/We come out to burn
Love and respect is all that we earn
You'll be amazed/What people give in return
(. . .) Show them/Who's the boss
Plummer recounted the impact this song had in her society:
The men went berserk, and all the women got an inner strength. And I didn't even mean to
have that effect (. . .) The lyrics were describing the inner strength which women have, which
they don't realise, and what a difference they could make to society. But all that the men
listened to was the line that said, 'Woman is boss' and they were literally beating their wives
and nonsense. And the women started standing up. (Interview, 12 January 1994)
The violent reaction to women's growing power was analysed by Patricia

Mohammed (1991), who noted that, as Trinidadian women achieved unprecedented
progress in education, employment and equal pay, there has been a corresponding
increase in the use of male violence as a means of controlling women.
Denyse Plummer explained why the assertiveness and independence
expressed by women calypsonians had become a threat to men:
Trinidad's men have been brought up by their mothers, their grandmothers and great-
grandmothers, totally spoiled, everything done for them. They have been encouraged to
believe that the women's role in their lives is to stay home and iron their clothes and cook
for them and mind their children. And from the time you want a career or want to assert
yourself or go on a platform, you become a threat to them because they no longer have that
spoiled security at home (. . .) Because you are also going to be a breadwinner. You are also
going to be popular; people are going to be demanding your time. It's just a simple, Carib-
bean small-island small-mindedness - the way men have been brought up. It's reflected in
every woman's life today. (Interview, 12 January 1994)
Backlash against Indian women
In recent years, with the rise of mass education and the increasing Westernisation
of Indo-Trinidadian women, the Afro-Trinidadian male calypsonian's self-serving
and patronising, albeit 'positive', characterisation of Indian women has shifted to a
less complimentary, more derogatory depiction that tends to identify the woman
as a jamette (prostitute).
In 1994, Member of Parliament Hulsie Bhaggan was used as fair female game
by several calypsonians. Some of them mocked her singlehood ('manlessness' to
Pink Panther), others insinuated lesbianism in a stigmatising way. Brother Marvin
offered himself as a lover, 'Imagine me and Hulsie/Shack up in Caroni . . .' (cited
in Express, 9 January 1994). More recently, in 1998, in his 'Ah Ready to Go',
calypsonian Sugar Aloes sang disparagingly of Oma Panday, the wife of Trinidad-
ian Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, devaluing and dismissing her as a mere 'kitchen
mechanic' (Trinidad Guardian, 2 April 1998).
Zeno Obi Constance sees this as a 'levelling' treatment matching the character-
isation of Trinidadian African women. In sociological terms, this development
erased ethnic boundaries, transferring what had been a separate ethnic/gender/
class distinction applied to Trinidadian Indian women into the same gender/class
position assigned to Afro-Trinidadian women. As a result, Constance notes, the
women characters in male calypsos are now interchangeable. Examples are
Superblue's 'Sutti' and 'Rebecca', Defosto's 'Savi' and Blueboy's 'Ethel' and 'Lucy',
and the unfortunate Indian girls in the Mighty Sparrow's 'Somebody in the Party'
or Scrunter's 'Woman on the Bass' (Constance 1991, pp. 20-1).
However, in one of the crowning ironies of the calypso, Indo-Trinidadian
women, too, have harnessed the genre's irreverence as a weapon to challenge male
constructions of Indian women's identity by asserting their own priorities, personal
as well as social.
Drupatee uses the power of the calypso to expose the male calypsonian's con-
spiracy to marginalise Indian women and to announce her autonomy in 'Throw Me
Down' (first performed in 1990):
Plenty kaisonian have the same plan/Ah hear them whisper

When they get together/They say kaiso ent have no nice Indian woman
They arm with fig skin/To flip this doolahin
They want to throw me down

But I doh fall down so easy at all.
(Constance 1991, p. 21)
'Fig skin' refers to banana peel, which is slippery. Devious calypso men would use
the banana peel to 'flip' or get the women on the ground for sex (Keith Warner,
personal communication, 20 August 1998).
In spite of the rebel productivity of calypso women, however, most contem-
porary male calypsonians appear to overlook the sexual control that women have
assumed over their lives. Trinidad Guardian's 'Nineties Girl' columnist Dara Healy
observes that David Rudder is the single male calypsonian who has dealt with
male-female sexuality in a relatively dignified way (Trinidad Guardian, 6 January
1997). Rudder confessed to a weakness around 'bacchanal' women at parties, but
he noted that in the sexual exchange, he gives the women 'Nuff Respect' (enough
respect; not dominating) (title of his 1990 calypso).
428 Cynthia Mahabir
Conclusion
Each year the confidence of women calypsonians has grown, reinforced by the sup-
port and gratitude of female audience members. Younger women calypsonians
have readily built on this momentum and they are hardly subtle in their calypso
messages. Contemporary female calypsonians display a distinctive assertiveness
that varies from merely reformist to radically sharp, as when twenty-four-year-old
Easlyn Orr sang, 'Let no one stop us/Got to be ambitious (...)/Sister we able/
Prepare for the struggle/We rising/We rising/We woman rising' ('Woman Rising',
cited in Ottley 1992, p. 158).
As Simon Frith has written, 'Music constructs our sense of identity through
the experiences it offers of the body, time, and sociability, experiences which enable
us to place ourselves in imaginative cultural narratives' (Frith 1996BX P. 275). Frith
adds that when these musical narratives of experience are connected with social
movements, their impact can be wide, profound and long lasting. Major cultural
changes may ensue as a result of interaction between the music and the entrenched
practices of the dominant culture in a society (Eyerman & Jamison 1998, p. 173).
The musical politics that characterises women calypsonians reverberates
among women musicians throughout the world, but especially so in the African
diaspora because of calypso's West African origins. Women's calypso therefore is
part of a larger cultural movement that crosses many national borders.
Up until just three decades ago, calypso was considered vulgar and low-class -
certainly too immoral for women singers. Today, although many gender inequalit-
ies persist in the tents, women's calypso enjoys the respect of the public and the
calypso fraternity. Women calypsonians have helped to forge an incipient social
movement for profound social change with respect to women's oppression and
ethnic pluralism in Trinidad-Tobago. Lady B of the United Sisters captured the
group's reconfigured image and identity of Trinidadian women in 'Ambataila
Woman' (1991). The song's title derives from the French patois en bataille la, which
means in battle:
'Who am I?' you ask. Who am I?/(. . .) Ambataila woman /

I form your battle ring (. . .)/When you fight, I sing (. . .)/
Ambataila woman/Moving to a beat/Ambataila woman/Watch mih dancing feet/
Ambataila woman/Moving proud and free/(. . .)
Ambataila woman, we are big and strong/We are working whole day on a plantation/
Ambataila woman, we full ah power/Ambataila woman, we come to take over/
We Caribbean woman/Calypso woman/(. . .)
I'm the voice that chant for your victory / Sing a lullaby for your baby/
Whisper in your eyes/Send you crazy/
And rap so that you could have some respect for me (. . .)/
Yes, mih spirit feel light and free/Wisdom all the day/Don't forget what I say/
I'm your mother, teacher, healer.
(Cited in Ottley 1992, pp. 102-3)
In these proud, transcendent lyrics, the modern 'Ambataila Woman' of the Carib-
bean reclaims her West African praise song roots and replants them into the culture
of Trinidad-Tobago. This is a triumph for feminism and music in the African dias-
pora.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Gar Smith for his editorial assistance, Sherri Cavan for her critical
comments, Keith Warner for his interpretation of calypso vernacular, David Matza
for his observations on the co-optation of rebel music, Ray Funk for discographic
information, Stephen Small for DJ Patra's music, the women calypsonians who gen-
erously shared their experiences with me, and the Mighty Chalkdust for his help
n arranglng lntervlews.
Copyright acknowledgements
Calypso lyrics reproduced by kind permission of Calypso Rose and Rudolph Ottley.
Photographs reproduced with permission from the relevant source.
Endnotes
1. Angela Davis (1998, pp. xviii-xix) saw the 8. Examples of the Mighty Sparrow's calypsos
same phenomenon among the classic blues- demeaning women include 'Jean and Dinah'
women in the US. (1956), 'Gloria' (1959), 'Wahbeen and Grog'
2. Slavery was abolished in 1838. Work songs of (1962), 'Melda' (1960s), 'Monica Dou Dou'
praise or ridicule characterised the period of (1960s), 'Theresa' (1960s), 'Keep the City
slavery. Clean' (1960s), 'Sell the Pussy' (1960s), 'Ah
3. After emancipation in 1838, Africans aban- Fraid Pussy Bite Me' (1960s), 'Mae Mae' (1960),
doned sugar estates and settled in Port of 'Miss Mary' (1964).
Spain or in small towns, but work was scarce. 9. All these calypsos except for 'Engagement
Many had to supplement legitimate work with Ring' and 'Do Dem Back' are on Rose's Soca
hustling and petty crime in the underworld in Diva CD, 1993.
order to survive. 10. She made it into the semi-finals in 1988 with
4. Examples are Atilla's 'Dookanii' (1939), Execu- 'Mr. Bissessar'.
tor's 'My Indian Girl Love' (1939), Dictator's 11. See Caroline Sullivan's April 1994 Cosmopolitan
'Mooniyah' (early 1950s) and the Mighty Spar- article, 'Why the Biggest Music is Anti-
row's 'Maharajin's Sister' (1983) (see Rohlehr Women' and O'Brien (1996).
1990, pp. 251-3). 12. From many overlapping interpretations of the
5. Calypso Rose noted that there are no disc term 'kaiso' (Warner 1982, pp. 7-8), I have
recordings of most of her early songs. The adopted Warner's explanation of 'kaiso' as an
local radio stations (Radio Trinidad and Radio indication of audience approval and appreci-
Guardian) usually made tape-recordings for ation, with the connotation of genuineness.
their libraries. Here Sandra is referring to what she considers
6. Trinidad-Tobago became an independent state the authentic calypso.
in 1962. 13. One theory to explain the correspond-
7. The rise of women is reflected in the legal pro- ing growth of economic progress for women
fession, e.g. practitioners, magistrates, senior and the simultaneous rise in sexual violence
government counsel; in politics - the country is that this development was a function of
had its first woman Speaker in Parliament, a the emergent shift in gender relations with
higher proportion of women heading govern- the apparent economic independence of
ment ministries, and a female Acting Prime women (Mohammed 1991; Reddock
Minister; and finally, a sizeable increase in the 1998).
number of secondary school teachers.
References
Boland, N.O. 1992. 'Creolization and creole societies: a cultural nationalist view of Caribbean social
history', in Intellectuals in the Twentieth-Century Caribbean, ed. A. Hennessy (London), pp. 51-79
Brereton, B. 1975. 'Trinidad Carnival 1870-1900', Savacou, 11&12, pp. 28-31
Citron, M.J. 1993. 'Gender and the field of musicology', Current Musicology, 53, August, p. 63-77
Constance, Z.O. 1991. Tassa, Chutney S Soca: The East Indian Contribution to the Calypso (Trinidad)
Cowley, J. 1996. Carnival, Canboulay and Calypso Traditions in the Making (New York)
Creque, M. 1995. 'A study of the incidence of domestic violence in Trinidad and Tobago from 1991 to
1993' (Trinidad)
Daly, S. 1982. The Developing Legal Status of Women in Trinidad S Tobago (Trinidad)
430 Cynthia Mahabir
Davis, A. 1998. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism (New York)

Elder, J.D. 1966. 'Evolution of the traditional calypso of Trinidad and Tobago: a socio-historical analysis
of song-change', Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania
Eyerman, R., and Jamison, A. 1998. Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in the Twentieth
Century (New York)
Frith, S. 1996A. 'Music and identity,' in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. Stuart Hall and Paul de Gay
(London), pp. 109-27
1996B. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (Cambridge)
James, C.L.R. 1992. 'Popular art and the cultural tradition', in The C.L.R. James Reader, ed. A. Grimshaw
(Oxford), pp. 247-54
Middleton, R. 1990. Studying Popular Music (Milton Keynes)
1993. 'Popular music analysis and musicology: bridging the gap', Popular Music, 12/2, pp. 177-90
Mohammed, P. 1991. 'Reflections on the women's movement in Trinidad: calypsos, changes and sexual
violence', Feminist Review, 3, Summer, pp. 3347
O'Brien, L. 1996. She Bop: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul (New York)
Ottley, R. 1992. Women in Calypso, Part 1 (Trinidad)
Pargass, G. 1993. 'Violence against women increases in T&T', Caribbean Contact, December
Reddock, R. 1998. KFPA Radio Interview, 7 April
Robertson, C.E. 1987. 'Power and gender in the musical experiences of women', in Women and Music in
Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. E. Koskoff (Westport, Connecticut), pp. 22543
Rohlehr, G. 1990. Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad (Carapichaima, Trinidad)
1997. 'The state of calypso', Trinidad and Tobago Review, December, pp. 11-13, 2S6
Skeggs, B. 1993. 'Two minute brother: contestation through gender, "race" and sexuality', Innovation, 6,
pp. 299-322
Trinidad Carnival Calypsos. 1971
Warner, K. 1982. Kaiso! The Trinidad Calypso (Washington D.C.)
'Worlds Apart'. 1992. Portrait of the Caribbean (video series), BBC/Turner (London)
Discography
Many calypsos are not produced on cassettes, albums or compact discs. Consequently, I could not pro-
vide discographic information for all the titles I refer to in this article.
Calypso Rose, DemWrong. Straeker's GS 125. 1974

Calypso Rose, Do Dem Back. Antillana ANT 1022. 1975
Calypso Rose, Give Me More Tempo. Charlie's. 1977
Calypso Rose, Her Majesty. CLO Records 444. 1978
Calypso Rose, 'Miss Pam', Soca Diva. Ice 931202. 1993
Denyse Plummer, 'The Hand That Rocks the Cradle', Calypso Fiesta. 1994
Denyse Plummer, W71O is the Boss? (Woman is Boss) cassette. Multi-Media CP 3889. 1989
DJ Patra, 'Pull Up to the Bumper' and 'Dip and Fall Back', Scent of Attraction. Compact disc
Drupatee, Chutney (Indian) Soca. MSN Productions. 1989
Drupatee, Mr. Bissessar. Kenny Phillips Studios. 1988
Drupatee, Throw Me Down. Akash SP 2001. 1992
Easlyn Orr, Woman Rising. McIntosh. 1990
Ella Andall, 'Black Woman', 'Song for the People', 'Love Yuh Own'. P 91 AP-001
Singing Diane, Ah Done With Dat. WIRL CRL-1013. 1979
Singing Diane, Take Your Clothes and Go. Charlie's 1019. 1983
Singing Sandra, 'Dignity', Rising Stars '87. Charlie's. 1987
Singing Sandra, 'Equaliser', The Soca Switch: the Stars of Soca 3. JWW 005-CD
Singing Sandra, 'The War Will Go On', Tape 1152, Carifesta V. Calypso Monarch. 1993
United Sisters, 'Ambataila Woman'. Woodsy SW 925. 1992
United Sisters, 'The Donkey, Whoa Donkey', Soca Bacchanal 93. Ice 930802. 1993

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The Rise of Calypso Feminism: Gender and Musical Politics in the Calypso

Author(s): Cynthia Mahabir

Printed in the United Kingdom

The rise of calypso feminism:

The sky is the limit

Figure 1. Singing Sandra (photo by Rudolph Ottley)

Women, social marginality and the early calypso

Gender, power and calypso

The feminisation of the calypso

In the post-independence era of the 1970s,6 a period of significant social transform-

Figure 2. Calypso Rose (photo by Rudolph Ottley).

Rose focused on the everyday preoccupations of working-class women. 'I don't

In 'Me No Want' (1993), Rose vigorously discourages relationships between single

in an explicit challenge to conventional gender roles, she encourages womenfolk to

If ah don't leave now/Is licks in the morning,

Why can't I walk the street without you harassing me?

The divas of calypso

'I am a Taurus/Like a bull is, so I ferocious' - Rose, The Queen of Calypso

As I reach in the morning/Whole day mih name calling;

You open the door?/No, madame, No madame (. . .)

Rose has not wavered in her promotion of women's independence in her

For Calypso Rose also, the physical choreography of her performance is an

Calypso Rose insisted that she was consciously demonstrating to female

'I come out to equalise' - Singing Sandra, Calypso Monarch 1999

Figure 3. Denyse Plummer (photo by Rudolph Ottley).

male victimisation of women workers (and her affirmation of a woman's insistence

In 1998, Singing Sandra was unabashedly subversive in 'Equaliser', a song about

We tired beg, Lord/We tired plead

Plummer's concept of womanhood (woman as the rock and steadfast foundation,

Denyse Plummer's transformation of the ethnic identity of 'the calypsonian' to

dilemma that her performances triggered in both Afro-Trinidadian calypso audi-

Indian soca (. . .) sounding sweeter

They give me blow, oh Lord, last year/For doing soca

Figure 4. Drupatee Ramgoonai Persad (photo by Rudolph Ottley).

Battling sex and seduction: The United Sisters

Administrators, adjudicators, all those whose business/It is to assess calypso

I survive your rape/I fight and escape

Singing Sandra lamented:

The male backlash

Women's calypsos have altered social attitudes, disrupting traditional gender

The sky's the limit/Where we are concerned

Plummer recounted the impact this song had in her society:

The violent reaction to women's growing power was analysed by Patricia

Backlash against Indian women

Plenty kaisonian have the same plan/Ah hear them whisper

They want to throw me down

'Who am I?' you ask. Who am I?/(. . .) Ambataila woman /

Davis, A. 1998. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism (New York)

Calypso Rose, DemWrong. Straeker's GS 125. 1974

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