Tony Rakhal-Fraser
Slinger Francisco’s addition of quality to Trinidad and Tobago’s development was ahead not only of other calypsonians, but also beyond the articulation of groups of social scientists, politicians, and governments. He picked up the theme expressed by PM Dr Eric Williams at Independence: “The future of the nation is in the school bags of our children.”
“Education, education-this is the foundation … to be recognised anywhere you go, to have your certificates to show … to enjoy any kind of happiness, knowledge is the key to success. Children go to school and learn well; otherwise, later on in life yuh go ketch real hell. Without an education in your head, your whole life is pure misery, yuh better off dead …”
The totality of the lyrics, and the underlying objectives of that calypso are even more relevant today than when Sparrow sang them 50-plus years ago.
The bard, however, did not accept for himself what he considered the colonial education as presented in the primary school textbooks produced by the British education official in T&T at the time, J O Cutteridge. For Sparrow, it was anti-education, devoid of reality and incapable of engaging his own thinking capacity: “How I happen to get some education, me ent know, all they teach me was about Brer Rabbit and Rumpelstilskino. They wanted to keep me down indeed, they try their best but did not succeed, yuh see, meh head was duncy and up to now ah can’t read,” Sparrow in the genre of calypso mimicry and ridicule. Historian Michael Anthony wrote that Sparrow was too harsh and unfair to Cutteridge.
Sparrow’s own career represents a man highly educated in the ways of the world, and in his own ability to propel himself over the many hurdles he faced in life.
The bard engaged for himself a path forward beyond what was previously achieved by the generations of calypsonians who, before him, settled for accommodation within the status quo, ie, calypsonians singing for a drink of rum and two shillings: “No dogs and calypsonians in here,” a sign at the door of a hotel.
Travelling to the USA with his colleague, Lord Melody, who went there to find Harry Belafonte, the interpreter to the world of Melody’s compositions: “Mama Look ah Boo Boo,” and “Sweetheart from Venezuela”. “I wanted Belafonte to introduce me to the right people in entertainment,” said Birdie about his mission.
Sparrow was surely not the first calypsonian to take the calypso as a form to the US, Canada, England, and throughout the Caribbean. But in performing in his signature engaging manner, he opened opportunities not only for himself but also for generations of calypsonians who followed. He took the calypso back to Africa in an expanded form, and was hailed as Chief Omo Wale of Ikoyi by the Government and people of Nigeria.
King David Rudder (if Sparrow deems him so, is so) marks the spot of Sparrow following the likes of Lion, Executor, Kitchener, Beginner and Terror in Britain, along with “Fitzroy Coleman fingers dancing on the fret; Carnegie Hall graced by the presence of Sparrow, oh ho, ho, and when Slinger done with dey tail, they shouting don’t go, Sparrow don’t go … Calypso!”
Logically, and pragmatically, given his contact with the United States early in his career and life, travelling to America, regularly singing to the Trini and Caribbean Diaspora, and having experienced the appetite of Americans for entertainment, Birdie expressed in a couple of significant calypsos his ideological support for the USA and, by extension, Western political ideology in competition against the Soviet Union bloc.
“Ah say to tun them ships in the opposition direction, Kennedy is the man for them,” was Sparrow’s response to the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) when the Soviet Union under President Nikita Khrushchev attempted to land missiles in Cuba, the US backyard, into which non-hemispheric countries could not intervene in any hostile manner – President James Munro, 1823.
“Stop them, search them, or sink them to the bottom of the ocean … any retaliation will be met with explosion … (maybe he was foretelling Trump) meh mother said she rather dead than live in a world of communism … together with Canada, England and France, Nikita Khrushchev ent stand ah chance.”
But even before the Missile Crisis, Sparrow adopted in a pragmatic, ideological manner, the American position in the propaganda war between the two superpowers in their individual attempts to capture outer space: “They trying they best but they making a mess with the Russian satellite, they should be all sent to prison for the dog that they poison in the Russian satellite … two sputniks in the sky have everybody hypnotised; I am very sorry for the poor little puppy in the Russian satellite.”
He compared, negatively, the Russian attempts at space exploration to the Italian sailor: “Columbus was a man very hard and grim; he never sent ah dog to look out for him.”
To be continued.
Tony Rakhal-Fraser is a freelance journalist, former reporter/current affairs programme host and news director at TTT, programme producer/current affairs director at Radio Trinidad, correspondent for the BBC Caribbean Service and the Associated Press, and graduate of UWI, CARIMAC, Mona, and St Augustine- Institute of International Relations.
