What's our Cultural Mandate, Trinidad and Tobago? - Monday Morning Ep. 7
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- It's part two of our convo with Bella and Kemba Jo. This morning we talk Cultural Mandate, Rock Soca and why Jamaican sings their anthem better than we do.
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This is Monday Morning, a podcast by Creative Entrepreneurs Kyle Hernandez and Keevan Lewis. Ride with us every Monday as we dissect the business of doing what you're meant to be doing.
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I think the struggle with both the roots as well as the changing tides is a good struggle to ensure that we don't lose our heritage as well as don't stay stagnant
Great conversation: our national culture and identity is under threat, because we lack patriotism. It is neither fostered in most homes, nor practiced in the education system.
Great discussion
My cultural mandate: let’s have a proper balance of soca on our airwaves 365 days. Not just on “Soca Sunday” or when a DJ feels to put on a set. We have soca that is not just wine and jam or ragga ragga. Let us find (and I hate that I had to use the word find) the space on our airwaves so that artists do not think that they only have to release soca from August to December
Cultural Mandate: Lewwe start with the media, no less than 50% local music. Yeah, feel free to play yuh Billboard Top 100/200 hits, but we MUST hear more of ourselves year round. Following Kemba's point on 100% Soca during Carnival, I'd like to suggest 100% Calypso (including all its children and grandchildren). For us to say that Zess and even Trinibad have no room in carnival is just like our forefathers saying that Soca has no right to be in our cultural soundscape. What I will say further to that point is that we must be cautious when it comes to the stories that are being told and their effect on a people. To suggest that Zess and Trinibad have a place in Carnival is not to suggest that "badness" should have a place in carnival (btw badness was very prominent in carnival until government intervention and corporate sponsorship eh, lewwe not conveniently forget that... they just didn't have guns or the internet). We should look at the roots of badness and address those if we want the topics of these genres to vary.
NEXT, took a slight detour but we back: Investment. Whether that be public/private sector, investment is needed. It's time for us to move away from the prize money cop out and find real ways to support artists throughout. Following Kyle's point, this "support" is not necessarily a "Aye, look I doing something for the culture, buy muh product/pay for muh service nah" kinda behaviour but more so "Here's an idea to create a body of art which will hold cultural significance for generations to come, and here's the proof of concept. We believe that we will need $X0,000 to support the artists and additional personnel involved in the creation of the work and the publishing and ownership of this work will be divided amongst all primary shareholders and stakeholders."
I'll stop there for now. Cyah sell out everything for the next project but allyuh could take dis as a sample. Hopefully when the time comes, y'all will still be doing this only bigger and better and I could feature as a guest to discuss the continued evolution of our (arts, culture and tourism) ACT sectors further.
I feel like we do not keep these traditions alive. While change is good, traditions must still be kept relevant. When you have “carnival ambassadors” who are non Trinibagonian, then all everyone sees is the party and pretty mas. I have yet to see (from what I have seen) an ambassador visit the tents or ole mas or cover the more traditional elements of carnival.
Cultural mandate: learn more about your culture.
Make this conversation a series, I wanted more 🤌🏽 Bring on some of the Green House and Red Hotel builders too 🧐
My mandate is stop this "soca switch" and make it a Carnival switch. Soca is not the season, Carnival is.
aAyee lol