Two-day Jump-Up?

BHTA chief suggests double dose of Kadooment

By Marlon Madden

Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) Ryan Forde had suggested that Grand Kadooment be held over two days and the return of Cohobblopot to the Crop Over calendar.

Meanwhile, the Barbados Association of Creatives and Artists (BACA) has called for more local music to be played during the annual jump-up.

The recommendations were offered by stakeholders who spoke to Barbados TODAY about parts of the festival in need of review and tweaking.

“I would add a second day, but the second day starts when the work shift starts to boil down – around 4 p.m. – and all the bands that want to participate, jump for four hours and they collide in one big pasture at a massive stage show,” explained Forde, who is also bandleader for Vida by Esquire (VXE).

“You bring back Cohobblopot but you jump on the road for four hours and then you’ve got something called Collision where all the best artists from Crop Over perform, all the bands come together and let us really show them that Barbados has the best carnival/festival in the world.”

Cohobblopot, which is a melting pot of local and regional talent, was last held in 2014 at the National Stadium. This was once a significant highlight on the calendar of events for the Crop Over season, consisting of a huge entertainment package delivered the night before Grand Kadooment.

Forde told Barbados TODAY he was satisfied with the overall production of this Crop Over festival which officially began at the end of June and climaxed on Monday.

Meanwhile, several revellers vented their frustration on social media that there was insufficient local music played along the route.

BACA president and veteran calypsonian Colin Spencer told Barbados TODAY he had received numerous messages in the last 24 hours about the lack of local music and he was baffled by the situation.

“I personally saw a number of messages on my phone; I saw messages on Facebook regarding that same issue. It’s kind of confusing…. It’s baffling. We don’t know what is driving it, we don’t know what is the cause of it, can’t find words to say, but it is out there that people are concerned that you are not hearing the abundance of local music on Kadooment Day.

“It’s hard to figure out; it’s hard to think that something that should be so normal to hear – your local music – [is a problem]. I mean, after all, a number of people would have invested in the recordings. Don’t tell me that you now have to come and regulate that.”

Spencer said while some may suggest regulation or offering incentives to encourage promoters and DJs to play more current local tracks, he believed that would send the wrong signal.

“To provide an incentive to play, I mean, it’s like we have lost our way culturally….It’s not like the music was bad. That is used as an excuse, but I heard a lot of good party songs this year,” he said, though admitting that work still needed to be done to improve the number of lyrically strong soca pieces.

“The music across the board needs to improve, though. I think that . . . when people set about producing music, there must be some kind of consideration for the paying public. The dancing and the gyrating and whatever is fine, but people are comfortable paying whatever for an event that would be of a decent standard, and the quality of the music is such that they can really enjoy it.”

Former Soca Monarch Michael Mikey Mercer agreed that based on the number of people who complained there was not enough local music played on trucks that accompanied the bands on Kadooment Day, it should be examined.

“From what I am reading on . . . social media, people are saying they are not hearing enough of the local music in the fetes and on the road. On the radio, a lot of it was playing, but if so many people are saying this about the music on the road it needs to be addressed,” he said.

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