What is happening to Trinidad music right now?
Like the society, it is trying to find itself. Festival music is caught between trying to satisfy the dictates of radio and the carnival, and trying to achieve global “acceptance”. Non-festival music is struggling to be heard. It is a great challenge as the market is small compared to the amount of music being created. Is calypso dying? I’d rather say it’s evolving. In the absence of “schools” which teach the rudiments and history of our music, there is very limited access to the vintage foundation music via airplay. Even though most schools have annual calypso competitions, these focus on the contest rather than a knowledge of the form, so that when most of the youth mature they leave calypso behind. They can’t sing the classics, and they venture into the more lucrative and popular forms of festival music. The advent of user-friendly computer-based production suites is also having an impact. The role of the producer is being diminished, in the sense of having an overall vision of the
