bigdrumnation

Reading Time 6 minsMarch 4, 2022 This slightly edited article was first published on January 30, 2012, celebrating Bomber’s 84th birthday anniversary. INTRODUCTION: This effort highlights the Grenadian Calypsonian’s role in developing the art form of calypso in Trinidad & Tobago and other parts of the world. In the 1960s and 70s, Lord Blakie and others attacked the image of the Grenadian in Trinidad with stunning and demeaning lyrics such as: “Move leh me geh me share, they beating Grenadians down in the square… Ah fuss them Grenadians stupid, hear what happen to one who name Cupid Ah job this man… Read More »Caldwell Taylor’s Bomber [Part I of II]

Reading Time 3 minsMarch 4, 2022 We celebrated Black History Month against the backdrop of a trail of tears: bomb threats to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the constant litany of school district boards in Kentucky, Florida, and other states banning books by authors of color. And some states even enacted legislation against the teaching and discussion of institutional racism and the 1619 Project in schools.  Interestingly, the enemies of social justice and progress are acting on deep-seated prejudice as part of an eternal desire to further marginalize our contribution as part of the American mosaic and erase our presence,… Read More »Reflections on Ghana On My Mind: Journeying To The Motherland–Lennel George

Reading Time 1 minsFebruary 8, 2022 Happy New Year to our Readers! On January 11, we launched our Cultural Ambassadors Series commemorating Caribbean stalwarts who transitioned recently at home and in the diaspora. We began with a feature on The Mighty Bomber by Caldwell Taylor, “AH BLASTED GRENADIAN TOO! (Celebrating Bomber’s 84th Birthday Anniversary,”) first published on these pages, January 30, 2012. And on January 15, we continued with Ken Jaikaransingh’s feature, “A Measure of the Man: Sir Sidney Poitier, 1927-2022.” Today we continue with “Remembering Clifton Ryan: The Mighty Bomber,” by Dr. David Brizan Over the upcoming weeks, writers reflect on… Read More »Launch of Cultural Ambassadors Series–BDN Editors

Reading Time 5 minsFebruary 8, 2022 Insofar as a philosopher questions our everyday assumptions about life, Bomber was a philosopher … He was pure calypso, in the vintage sense that Pretender was. He won the Trinidad and Tobago Calypso Monarch in 1964 with the most incontrovertible double entendre composition. His smooth, melodic delivery glossed over the covert/overt sexuality of the story and enchanted us in a lyrically poetic gem of storytelling. “James and Joan” was a composition of marvelous, metaphoric manipulation, a gem of lyrical navigation. It was a composition extraordinaire. Like the Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco), the Bomber came… Read More »REMEMBERING CLIFTON RYAN, THE MIGHTY BOMBER — Dr. David Brizan

Reading Time 5 mins February 6, 2022 Ira Simmonds’s biography of his high school teacher is the story of an extraordinary teacher-Madame Katzen– told primarily through the personal correspondence between her and a very close friend and overseas education benefactor. From Siberia to St.Kitts: A Teacher’s Journey draws on over ten years of deep research crisscrossing several continents. The author presents a compelling and captivating narrative of his former teacher, who spent more than twenty years as a “teacher, foreign language supervisor, official government language interpreter of Spanish and French in St Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla.” Simmonds was so enamored and… Read More »A Teacher’s Roots–Lennel George

Reading Time 7 minsJanuary 17, 2022  “I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., The Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, 1964. “They shot him!” On April 4, 1968, unruly crowds interrupted our Friday evening Black Power debate with a chaotic announcement of Dr. King’s assassination. It was as if the earth had stopped rotating. We… Read More »Long Live The King!-Dr. David Brizan*

Reading Time 7 minsJanuary 15, 2022 “Sidney… was truly my brother and partner in trying to make the world a litter better. He certainly made mine a whole lot better.” Harry Belafonte   I very rarely comment on events in the lives of pop stars, Hollywood actors, and other celebrities. They live very different lives from the rest of us. Nevertheless, many of us have a curious fascination with people we shall never meet and whom we see only via television or cinema screen but have come to believe we are their very intimate friends. I make an exception to… Read More »A Measure of the Man: Sir Sidney Poitier, 1927-2022– Ken Jaikaransingh

Reading Time 6 minsJanuary 11, 2022 (First published January 30, 2012) (Celebrating Bomber’s 84th birthday anniversary;  Bomber [Clifton Ryan] was  born on January 30, 1928)  Ah go make the damn immigration Send you back you blasted Grenadian Me ent goin no way wid you, Mister Ah come down to stay by me sister So do way you want to, But Ah know you is ah Grenadian too –From a 1961 Bomber calypso Bomber had secured two important wins and he was in the hunt for a third -the Boboloops one! By the way, it’s well worth pointing out that Bomber’s winners… Read More »AH BLASTED GRENADIAN TOO! – Caldwell Taylor

Reading Time 7 minsJanuary 6, 2022 (First published January 18, 2021) “Oh, how we danced to the beat of this lovely lie… Until a man opened a door and showed us our other side.”  “Hossay” – David Rudder “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world… The best lack all conviction, while the worst. Are full of passionate intensity.” “The Second Coming” – William B. Yeats In 1964 the acting Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago was forced to resign for what many civilians viewed as a minor infraction. The testimony of a police corporal… Read More »“This Place Too Damn Democratic”?–Winthrop R. Holder

Reading Time 8 mins   December 30, 2021 A beautiful creek runs across the 400-acre estate where I live in Belize, a nation of some 400,000 people, locked between Mexico to the north, Guatemala to the west, and Honduras to the south, on the Caribbean Coast.  The creek originates in the mountains with five cascading waterfalls, only accessible by hiking for two hours upstream along a narrow valley. There is nothing but tropical forest for miles on either side; a jungle inhabited by countless little animals; wild pigs that run in highly dangerous packs; agile deer; a few lumbering tapirs; and… Read More »VIEWS FROM BELIZE-Dr. Geoffrey Frankson