Who is popular today?

To my forever shame, I met Narrie Approo only once, and it wasn’t even my gig. We hear a lot about the people who design mas, but not a great deal about those who make masquerading an art. He was one of the few who played so much mas and played them so magnificently he could not escape being known.
I was lurking, in an entirely uncreepy way, while he was being interviewed (I was busy being awestruck by how many shades of black he’d worked into a jacket) when he said the thing he said. Was it a lament about something specific? Maybe. Was it about the state into which he felt all things of his art had fallen? Sure. What he said was: “They mash up the Carnival.”
That was nearly ten years ago, and I think about it all the time. Have they mashed up the Carnival? They have and they have not. They have mashed up and mashed down and still Carnival remains. And who are “they”? The gatekeepers? The gatecrashers? The people who insist on dragging the old traditions on and on and say only that is real mas?
Not a word on semi-demi-nudity. Not a word on lyrical inanity.
Here’s the thing I’ve noticed about low-hanging fruit. If it’s still there by the time you’ve got to it, something must be wrong with it. In this instance, everyone has already taken a nibble. Nothing left for me.
Carnival is full of contradictions, so my normal ambivalence feels right at home in it. Can Carnival succumb to being mashed up? That feels like asking if someone can really break your heart – how much is their fault, how much should you take responsibility for? We can experience different levels of mash-upness of Carnival, and we can blame everything from shrinking attention spans to crime.
We can look at what we have done and what we have failed to do to build Carnival. Is Carnival history sufficiently taught at school? If we don’t update the history books, someone else will. And we’re not going to like it.
To be in and of Carnival – like to be in and of a family or a country or a people – does not mean you like or agree with everything. I do not think Carnival is mash-upable. The mas, the music, the way the J’Ouvert is played, they evolve. Imagine, there is a generation that will see Machel as a sort of Jack Nicholson of soca. Older, seasoned, a man with many accolades and road marches. A man with bad knees. The road is no longer made to walk on Carnival day. Try crossing the street when any of the behemoth all-inclusive bands are making their way, cordoned off by rope and security guards.
Carnival will survive because that is what it has always done. It is in constant change. Maybe one bead at a time, but I know there is change. And if the music is irksome unto you, remember, that was how people once felt about Sparrow.
Change has happened in your lifetime. That is why you are able to bemoan the loss of the good old days.
A few months ago, in a thwarted attempt at a conversation with a person under 30, Peter Minshall’s name came up. The young person said, “Yeah, I don’t really know too much about him.” And I could see she was trying really hard not to ask questions like: who is that? Is this a living person? Is he someone I was supposed to have studied at school?
The only one of those questions I was really willing to answer was, yes, school should have done something about what you know – not only about Minshall, but all the significant mas designers. The great designers. It is almost like reciting something you learned by rote: Bailey, Saldenha, Berkeley, Velasquez. Ken Morris may be uncategorisable (a most desirable position).
Take away the international exposure and awards from everywhere. Strip away the cult-like status that surrounds him. Minshall’s work has been seen more as art than mas – a line has been drawn. But only for him. He is the innovator. The unsurpassed. How lonely it must be for him.
I cannot argue with this. But I can worry about what we’ve done that has not allowed more talent of individuality and courage to emerge.
Tomorrow, January 29, will mark a year since the death of Prof Emeritus Gordon Rohlehr, the man who spent much of his life keeping the study of calypso and soca relevant. Hope you’re doing good wherever you are.

Headspace may not always focus on a disorder or condition, but your mental health is always on our minds. In this short Carnival season, if you’re feeling alienated from your peers or environment, if you’re feeling out of your element, please ask for help.
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