J’Ouvert.
It's an intrinsic part of our culture and heritage. From the Canboulay riots to the yearly social commentary that comes with the pantomime of ole mas, J’Ouvert is a representation of TT’s history, identity and soul.
The majority of TT’s population takes part in some form of the festival in the Carnival season – whether in the hills of Paria where blue devils beat on modified Crix biscuit pans, or in Port of Spain, San Fernando and other areas of TT where bands are organised to revel in the morning dew covered in mud or oil or paint; or even after the Carnival season in private parties that finish at daybreak.
But come Carnival Monday night, TT citizens, for the most part, would put J’Ouvert up on a shelf until the next year.
Unless somebody wants to use the word to name or describe a product that is not made in TT.
Enter US actor and producer Michael B Jordan, and his new rum, which he'd planned to name J'Ouvert. TT, despite its usual seasonal consideration for the name, put its foot down and said: “that is we ting.”
Trinis know Jordan for his role as Killmonger in the Black Panther movie.
What they didn't seem to know is that Jordan has invested in a bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in New York. The bar is called Las' Lap, another nod to TT's Carnival festivities.
Do a Google search for las lap and you'd get, not a reference to the frenetic rush of activities that signal the end of Carnival, but a link to the bar. A bar which serves drinks with names like Las' Rum Punch, Jammin, Guyana Storm and Air Jamaica. Carib beer is served.
The hasikara that came from the attempt to brand Jordan's rum J'Ouvert proves one thing – TT has been neglecting its culture for some time, something that other countries do not do. TT needs to claim its culture through trademarking its cultural names and intellectual property and if it doesn’t, then someone else will.
[caption id="attachment_898175" align="alignnone" width="473"] Michael B Jordan's J'Ouvert rum package included a note on Trinidad Carnival. -[/caption]
This isn’t the first run-in TT has had with failing to protect its intellectual property. In 2002, there was a fit of cultural rage when the news broke that two Americans – George Whitmyre and Harvey J Price – were granted the patent for the production of the Caribbean steelpan.
The news came to TT a year after the patent was granted, on April 10, 2001.
The patent covered a mechanised process which used a mould to mass produce steelpans out of stainless steel. One of the problems which musicians encountered with the American steelpans was that they could not maintain their notes for a long period of time.
Then in 2013, TT patented the G-Pan with Dr Brian Copeland as the inventor. (Copeland is currently principal of the University of the West Indies St Augustine campus.) Six years later, in 2019, the patent for the American manufacturing process lapsed under fee-related grounds.
Two Sundays ago, Jord
