a grammar

Mighty Sparrow vs. Lord Melody — “Picong Duel”

For the past couple years, I’ve listened to a lot of old calypso music. It’s not a project or a big discovery: I don’t recall ever deciding to learn about calypso, or read about its history, or seek out the best entry points — none of the stuff I’d usually do when making an effort to step into some genre that’s new to me. I don’t know a ton about it. It’s just slipped seamlessly into my listening, sounding every bit as undusty and immediate as everything around it — even when the stuff it’s about has a very specific timeframe attached. Because in between jokes and stories and tales of drinking and carousing, old calypso contains a lot of actual news: the West Indies won the cricket game; this new politician is no good; the peddlers in town will rip you off; Chicago’s a nice place to emigrate to, but it is really, really cold; New York cabs are not going to pick you up; and don’t forget that back when food prices spiked, it was your wives and mothers who lined up at the market every day and managed to put together your dinner.

The track above is a duel of insults waged between two major calypsonians: Lord Melody comes out as the old tough guy, while Mighty Sparrow plays it cool and wise-alecky. The recording, by Emory Cook, is from a carnival tent in late-50s Trinidad, and yet it’s pristine enough that you can actually hear Sparrow suck his teeth before the first punchline, or the phlegm catching in Melody’s throat when he gets heated up. Insult topics include Sparrow’s mother, the belongings of Melody’s deceased uncle, a theatrical production of a Bible story, and the love lives of circus animals. It’s terrific.

There’s also a particular demeanor to it, one that I always associate with colonial spots. (Trinidad is almost doubly colonial, given that the British “imported” a huge amount of east-Indian labor from the Raj.) How to describe it? It’s a sort of ersatz Euro elegance, being used as a vehicle for bawdiness, swagger, and wit. Sometimes it’s like the sound of people who’ve absorbed British colonialist pomp but cannot take it particularly seriously, and are sometimes openly mocking it. You might hear some of this in the singers — the proud, be-suited way they sling the dozens — but it’s really in those horns: you hear those horns? They’re poised, they’re elegant, they’re arch, but they do it with a wink and a swagger and some jazz. And if you listen to this duel enough times, you may wind up like me: at this point, I’m unable to hear a really good burn without that horn line running through my head as punctuation.