“If yuh waist could talk, gyul—it woulda cry—” David Rudder
Last year, I had a paper accepted for reading at the University Carlos III of Madrid’s first International Conference on the Caribbean: “The Myth of the Caribbean woman.” While I couldn’t make it to Spain, my paper, a labor of love topic from my undergrad days—became reworked and will be included in the upcoming conference publication later this year. In the paper, I focused on a selection of women in soca and the ways in which these women articulate, celebrate and claim ownership of their bodies in song and wining (which Ayanna on facebook the other day, in quoting the smart & eloquent Atillah Springer, rightly declares “wining is a revolutionary act.”) Yuh damn well right it is, Ms. Springer. So, because my paper was centred on the women–I didn’t (for that paper) take the time to seek out men who sang (if any) feminist or women-centered calypso.
Not those songs that simply feature women through the gaze of the male calypsonian or male soca star mesmerized by her bumper and wining skills (of which there are plenty songs), but songs that articulate (like some of the women): a woman’s autonomy that is critical of social and gender norms and serious about interrogating them; songs that locate the woman as agent of this and her own sexuality, and complicates the woman’s positionality in Trinidadian society. David Rudder’s “Carnival Ooman” (1992) from the album Frenzy does this very well. I happened to listen to it recently on disc two of my Gilded Collection (of which, disc one is on heavy steady rotation inside my car).
creative commess 