Calypsonian, National Carnival Commission (NCC) chairman and head of Back to Basics Calypso Tent Winston “Gypsy” Peters wants to maintain Trinidad and Tobago being known as the land of calypso, pan and limbo.
That is why his tent, Back to Basics, is focused on keeping it as calypso pure as possible.
The tent was scheduled to open on February 16 but did not do so due to the nationwide blackout. The two shows were merged into one on February 17 for a performance at Queen’s Hall Garden Theatre, St Ann’s.
Gypsy described his tent as being “a real organised machinery.
“What we are having basically, we are having some vintage shows. Our two shows are going to be vintage,” he said.
“You will hear a new song in-between but it is basically vintage. Because we have so many potent calypsoes that have never been sung.”
The tent is focused on vintage because it is trying to “bring back people’s consciousness into the seriousness of calypso.”
Among the 12 performers are Austin “SuperBlue” Lyons, Terri Lyons, Aaron Duncan, Drupatee and Rex East.
[caption id="attachment_940216" align="alignnone" width="562"] SuperBlue -[/caption]
Asked why he decided to do vintage as opposed to new songs, Peters said it was A Taste of Carnival and the tent was simply entertaining.
“It is a show and we want to entertain the people who are coming there. We don’t want to be encumbered by the atmosphere of competitive calypsoes.
“So we want to make it as entertaining as possible – which is some of the problem calypso tents are having – the entertainment part of it is gone. Everyone wants to sing something to get in the competition.
“So we are not going to be encumbered by that, at least this year,” he said.
During his performance of his 1980 hit Take The Number, Scrunter, at opening night of the Kaiso Karavan tent, said calypsoes like that aren’t made anymore.
When asked if he agreed with this, Gypsy said Scrunter might have been right. He said he believes that melodies for songs are not created anymore and when there are melodies, a riddim is created and a lot of people sing on the riddim.
“They cater more for party and not the sensitivity of the artform that is calypso, itself,” he said.
[caption id="attachment_940214" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Head of Back to Basics Calypso Tent Winston “Gypsy” Peters.
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Gypsy said a lot of what is deemed to be calypso or soca today is not that at all.
“It is unidentifiable, you don’t know what it is. Because it either highlights music out of Africa or Zouk music out of Dominica and Guadeloupe and all of that.
“They make an amalgam of all of that and calling it soca music and some of them even sing with a different accent,” he said.
Gypsy said he did not know where calypso is going and that some entertainers did not identify as calypsonians anymore. He said many artistes referred to themselves as soca singers.
Under these circumstances, he
