Producer Dalton Narine’s Black Stalin Moment

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Producer Dalton Narine’s Black Stalin Moment 

By Dalton Narine

First published September 24, 2015.

I was working on the Mac several weeks ago when an email from a friend in Cayman [Islands] flew in.

The pride of pan in Point Fortin, Jah Roots.
Photo: TONY HOWELL
Black Stalin: “Roots play a lot of Black Stalin music.”

“Pan on D Avenue Live on TV,” it said. So I clicked the link, and the remainder of the night enthralled me like no other in recent memory.

Each band played two songs, one of choice and a Black Stalin composition. So I figured the pan-affair was a huge hug and big-up to the resident bard.

Well, I took it all in till 1.30 a.m., and though the band’s songs engaged me, Stal’s repertoire made such an impression that I wondered why steel bands brushed aside foresight and plain loyalty all these years in their search for hip-swinging Jouvert music to carry the day.

Stalin on Pan is a Bomb, really. It took Pan on D Avenue to vet that. The music that night and [Unplugged] sit side by side as schooled entertainment in the pantheon of patois culture.

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Dalton Narine, a retired features editor for The Miami Herald, is a producer/director of films about mas and Pan. They include multiple-award winner, Mas Man a film about the artistry of Peter Minshall, King Carnival, Streets of Color, and Masquerade, among others.