Kitchener: A View of Discovering

21, Feb 2000
Kitch never sought to possess any of his work, he kept no records, and every year he started afresh to "find out" melodies Kitchener succeeded, the fact that the Muse persisted is indeed testimony to the depth of his creative genius.

It has been reported that Kitch once said that somewhere around the age of eight he began to "find out" melodies. I have always been fascinated by the concept of the Muse that sometimes, only sometimes, stirs the very soul of a human being and so unleashes a burst of creative energy and logic, the combination of which results in masterpieces of work.

Such work seem always to be the least laborious, it happens with a purity of its own making even from the very inception. If it is a poem, a song, a calypso, the creator of it will never ever recall having to learn it, and if it is a masterpiece of sculpture or painting it will talk even to the deaf.

But the Muse does not always come, or it comes after a long period of labouring, so the tendency of most artists or creators of artistic-constructs then is to hold on to what has already been done, to possess it forever and forever. But not Kitchener. He never looked back, he never sought to possess any of his work he kept no records, it is said and every year he started afresh to "find out" melodies and the fact that he succeeded, the fact that the Muse persisted, is indeed testimony to the depth of his creative genius.

The artistic manifestation itself can attain permanence, but Kitch seemed to be saying the very process of creating insisted on transience and a kind of childlike innocence and inquisitiveness and curiosity to "find out" things, that is never to be limited or be impinged upon by the solid categories and fossilised thought-patterns and constructs of the past.

Jimi Hendrix after every concert used to mash up or burn his axe (guitar) on stage, a tribute to the transience of his means and art of communicating with a particular community at a particular place, space and time that would be no more.

Kitchener was also that kind of artist, committed first and foremost to the process of doing, to the exercising and engaging of the Muse. And when it was done, it was done.

I recall listening to All Stars back in 1977 putting down Kitch's "Republic Dance" and saying to my friends around that melody should be the melody of T&T's National Anthem.

I must confess to hating with a passion the music and lyrics of our present Anthem for its slick, "wishy-washy" nature, its lack of "fight", spirit and drama, its lack of compassionate resoluteness, all typical elements of the fraudulent Creole, Mulatto-type nationalist psyche. No wonder we never seem able to muster the guts and the balls to sing it loudly, even boisterously as other people do with theirs. We should have changed it when we became a republic in 1976.

Now that Kitchener has temporally passed on, I wish to demand that his "Republic Dance" be declared a national song and the lyrics can be suitably changed for back then in 1977 Kitchener was composing expressly for the Carnival season jam and with that in mind he sought to take the republic idea and work it in context of the interplay between man and woman in the midst of Carnival festivities. Kitchener said:

"Come and dance, come and prance
The Republic is the dance for Carnival
Come and wine, jump and grine
Yuh have an invitation to join de bacchanal.
Yuh gotta make a spin, but don't yuh over-balance
Let yuh body move with true elegance
Then yuh jump together and embrace each other
So now yuh doing the Republic dance..."

The concept of republic had to involve poise and "elegance", one could not go overboard and "over-balance", and destroy what had been built up painstakingly over the years of social transformation after independence.

The last vestiges of colonialism were being discarded but no one was to get "out of hand" and run riot. "Balance and elegance" had to be the order of the day. Our "embracing of each other" and moving or "jumping together" in unison and harmony had to be imperative.

So "if you wish to make a move/with a 1977 chick/yuh better pick up with the groove/people going Republic". At the end Kitchener warned that "if you can't keep the Republic up/ they shall have no uses for you," just as we have "no uses" anymore for the semblances and vestiges of British authority once our own authority has been clearly established.

The controversy in respect to who first called him Grandmaster was brought up again while Kitchener was on his deathbed, and in deference to the man and his family, I said nothing then. In this space today I shall reiterate what I said in 1974 and again in 1993, and let the readers deliberate and consider.

If anyone can present to the public a reference to Kitchener as Grandmaster before February 1974, then I shall concede to whomsoever made it.

In February 1974, I wrote an article after Carnival that appeared in the Guardian under the title "Shadow thief we Head" and in that article I was arguing that there were eras of calypso that coincided with specific periods of political and social consciousness, a pet subject of mine, in fact I used to argue elsewhere that Sparrow's era (56-70) coincided with the birth and demise of the PNM, the nationalist period, and that "Jean and Dinah" was the best and most timely manifesto the PNM ever had.

In the article I suggested that Shadow represented something new, a new calypso form or structure (ie "Bassman"), a break with tradition, to suit the new mood and the new level of political and social consciousness.

Christopher Laird reprinted that article in his magazine" Kairi under the title "New Calypso Structure to suit the New Mood", utilising thereby the major theme and logic of the piece. Interestingly the first line in Shorty's "Endless Vibrations" of the following year was:

"Change yuh musical structure!" However, extending the logic I said the following about Kitchener:
"Undoubtedly Kitch is a Grandmaster. He is the only man that has been able to span three consecutive eras of calypso and social consciousness; the era before Sparrow, the Sparrow era, and now the era that has abandoned Sparrow. Kitch saw and felt what was happening and sat down to work. He had to suit the new mood..."

The logic suggested that he spanned three generations like a grandfather, father and son. The Grandmaster concept did not come like a "ray of sunshine" hitting anybody in their eye as they lay in bed and so wake them up with sudden, sublime inspiration, it came from the powers of agitated logic and the process of "finding-out" things.