Nationalism and the Soul: Gospelypso as Independence

Nationalism and the Soul: Gospelypso as IndependenceAuthor(s): Timothy RommenSource: Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring, 2002), pp. 37-63Published by: Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and University of IllinoisPressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1519964 .

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NATIONALISM AND THE SOUL: GOSPELYPSO AS INDEPENDENCE

TIMOTHY ROMMEN

"What use will you make of your independence?" -Dr. Eric E. Williams (Cudjoe 1993, 266)

If they hadn't just called it gospelypso, everything would have been fine!

-Roddie Taylor

What might or should a Christian response to national independence sound like? What musical shapes can contribute a constructive, uniquely Christian perspective to a nation-building project? For that matter, how can music perform a redemptive task in a post-colonial, post-Christian society? These questions occupied Trinidadian Protestants during the drive toward political independence from Great Britain beginning in the 1950s and continued unabated after Dr. Eric Williams became the coun-

try's first Prime Minister in 1962. The ideological agenda mapped out by the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, furthermore, created an atmosphere within which these questions were trans- formed into burning issues.1

Enter gospelypso! Not that gospelypso was a new innovation-far from it. Rather, gospelypso was refocused and came to be understood as a means of answering many of the questions that so concerned

1. For an excellent retrospective analysis of the political, economic, and social climates that fueled the Black Power movement, see Ryan and Taimoon (1995).

TIMOTHY ROMMEN is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a specialist in the music of the Caribbean, and his research interests include folk and popular sacred music, popular music, critical theory, and the intellectual history of ethnomusi- cology. His articles and reviews have appeared in Black Music Research Journal, the Journal of Religion, The Yearbook for Traditional Music, the International Dictionary of Black Composers, and the Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World (forthcoming).

37



38 BMR Journal

Trinidadian Protestants of the time. More to the point, it provided a vehicle that lent shape to a particular type of response to these issues, for Protestantism itself was engaged in a struggle for independence. Different in kind and degree from the national movement toward political autonomy, Protestant discourse nevertheless drew on nationalist themes and found itself inextricably bound up in the political agendas of the 1960s and 1970s.

This article examines the ethical and religious dilemmas produced when local expressions of Protestant faith in Trinidad and Tobago intersect with a transplanted, North American, Pentecostal worship-ideal. Specifically, it investigates the central place that gospelypso occupies in

mediating and articulating these dilemmas. Because gospelypso has in

large part grown out of Pentecostal churches and in order to contextual- ize the discussion that follows, I should like briefly to review a few key aspects of the Pentecostal presence in Trinidad and Tobago.

Pentecostal missionaries invited themselves into Trinidadian history during the middle third of the twentieth century and introduced a new

paradigm for thinking about and performing worship. The missionaries

preached a faith and practice that refocused and heavily emphasized the

spiritual and metaphysical aspects of Christianity. The importance that Pentecostalists placed (and continue to place) on spiritual gifts, healing, and the work of the Holy Spirit within the church offer the most striking evidence of this new emphasis. While these teachings were not wholly absent in the worship-life of other denominations, the Pentecostal mes-

sage placed them center-stage, making that message a powerful and

unique alternative to more long-lived paradigms. Pentecostalism, however, not only challenged the practices of the

Baptist, Methodist, and Moravian denominations, among others, but it also necessitated certain equivocations and adjustments on the part of new converts. North American Pentecostal missionaries were working in Trinidad and Tobago at the very moment that national independence from Great Britain became a political reality; moreover, the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s forcibly articulated the need for, and right to, autonomy, thereby strongly influencing the thinking of Trinidadian Protestants.

Eric Williams himself, attempting to maintain the credibility of his party's political platform during the height of the unrest, put the following spin on the task at hand: "[The people] must, after more than four hundred years of being acted upon, act for themselves" (quoted in Cudjoe 1993, 92). The ironies embedded in this statement notwithstand- ing, strong currents of national pride and cultural empowerment were indeed enjoying wide circulation even as missionaries were spreading



Rommen o Gospelypso as Independence 39

their good news. Consequently, an overarching ethical dilemma came to

occupy local Pentecostal discourse about worship during the 1970s and 1980s-a dilemma focused on fundamental questions concerning the

appropriate measure of national autonomy and the proper place of cultural identity within the larger Christian community in Trinidad and Tobago.

Within this religious and political context, music provided an expres- sive mode through which competing visions of Protestant Trinidad and Tobago could be articulated. In fact, I suggest that musical style was, and continues to be, so closely linked to the ethical concerns of Protestants in Trinidad and Tobago that it is possible to formulate a concept that I call the "ethics of style," which is constituted in and through a discursive field within which religious histories, political agendas, doctrinal imperatives, personal aesthetics, and communal identities intersect with one another and find musical expression. It is principally concerned with the performative linkages forged from those intersections and with the ethical freight that musical style is subsequently obliged to carry. It constitutes a flexible, scalable approach to the myriad internal and external ethical challenges confronting Trinidadian Protestants, an approach that clears space for multiple levels of local agency. The ethics of style is con- tinually being enunciated from different subject positions, creating vast- ly different interpretations of the same musical and historical situations and challenging dominant articulations in the process. In other words, the ethics of style is both the product of and the catalyst for mutivalent discourses about music and practice in Protestant Trinidad and Tobago. Throughout this article, I seek to illustrate the ways through which the ethics of style has become a highly sophisticated mechanism of local con- trol over religious identity, and in order to illustrate this concept, the following pages offer an analysis of gospelypso's reception history.

Stuart Hall (1996, 4) cautions us that, "Precisely because identities are constructed within, not outside, discourse, we need to understand them as produced in specific historical and institutional sites within specific discursive formations and practices, by specific enunciative strategies." With this advice in mind, we can trace the beginnings of modern gospelypso in Trinidad and Tobago from the early 1970s. It was during this decade that pioneering artists associated with the Youth for Christ organization coined the term gospelypso and began to wield the style in direct, Christian response to the imperatives laid out by the Black Power movement, acting for themselves after four hundred years. Following the watchwords of the Youth for Christ organization-"Geared to the Times, Anchored to the Rock"-artists worked to organize the first gospelypso concert at Greyfriar's Hall in Port of Spain on February 5, 1972. The con-



40 BMR Journal

cert was deliberately planned to coincide with the height of the carnival season and demonstrated the commitment of Youth for Christ members to reaching their nation with the gospel. This, then, constitutes the historical site and moment within which artists chose their enunciative strat-

egy-gospelypso. What necessitated this new use of style? A partial answer lies in the

institutions within which the artists were at home. Trinidadian Pentecostalists had inherited an American, intensely spiritualized, and by this I mean gnostic, faith that demanded surrender to the rightness and

superiority of the cultural and aesthetic models that the missionaries left behind.2 In a discussion of the basic "turn within" that characterizes

gnosticism, Philip Lee (1987, 10) observes, "the concentration on self is a natural result of the passionate need to escape the world. Because no one can escape the real [or physical] world except by death (suicide being the ultimate self-actualized escape), the only other solution is to effect an

escape by withdrawal into the self." Lee seeks to illustrate that Christians have historically approached gnosticism through the act of pitting the

physical (evil) world against the spiritual (pure/good) world. The problem with denying the physical is that the physical world-

along with its attendant complications such as environmental concerns, social welfare programs, world poverty, and any number of other pressing issues-can be (and often is) written out of the agenda in favor of more pressing spiritual concerns. But this approach to spirituality is significantly complicated when it is put into play in Trinidad and Tobago, because much of Trinidad's religious heritage is bound up in Yoruba

practices that make no clear distinction between the sacred and secular realms and where the relationship between the spiritual and the physical world is configured much differently.3 Protestant Christians in Trinidad and Tobago are thus heavily invested in making these distinctions clear in the face of a culture that has historically conflated them. As an out-

raged character in Margaret Laurence's The Messenger of Heaven exclaims, "It must be quite a procedure-to tear the soul out of the living body and throw the inconvenient flesh away like fruit rind" (Laurence 1984, 74).

2. In using the term gnostic, I am attempting to highlight the radical dualism that is main- tained between God and Creation and, by extension, between human beings and their world in gnostic thought. Addressing the problem of evil by removing God from any and all responsibility has remained a popular solution within Christian circles from the earliest gnostikoi (those who know), such as Valentinus and Marcion. I remain convinced that a hier- archical understanding wherein the spiritual takes pride of place over the physical-a hier- archy that is in evidence in Pentecostalist worship and worldview-is a continuation of the same system of thought.

3. For more information on the impact of Yoruba religious culture on Trinidad and Tobago, see Warner-Lewis (1986).



Rommen * Gospelypso as Independence 41

While this type of reading clearly overstates the case for the majority of Protestants, the conclusions that it reaches are only a logical step away from the mentality that drives everyday understandings of spirituality. Biblical passages such as "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24, New International Version) are believed to indicate that the Christian life is not found in the flesh: the Christian life is disembodied. By extension, this type of interpretation implicitly codes the physical world as evil, or at least inferior to, the spiritual realm, which is understood to be good-the locus of true life.

It is, therefore, not coincidental that, in Protestant, missionized Trinidad and Tobago, the local is today almost invariably conflated with the physical (body), whereas that which is not local is equated with the spiritual (soul). For example, if a Trinidadian congregation wishes to express joyful praise (physical/centrifugal) during a worship service, it is likely that a Trinidadian chorus will be used. If, however, that same congregation wishes to attain a worshipful (spiritual/centripetal) atmosphere, it is virtually guaranteed that a North American gospel chorus will be sung. The implicit inferiority of local cultural production is clearly illustrated in this tendency, and the gnostic imperatives linking spirituality and interiority are eminently observable in the closed eyes and sub- dued body movements of the congregants during these latter moments.

Not surprisingly, some artists began to question the value of this spiritual inheritance and to look for ways of expressing themselves within (or in spite of) it, and I suggest that the turn to gospelyso constitutes a reac- tion against the gnostic paradigm of worship inherited from Pentecostal missionaries. The institutional site and discursive frameworks that led to artists' identification with gospelypso thus grow out of the Pentecostal church and its emphasis on the spiritual and, by extension, the nonlocal aspects of being a Christian in the world. Earl Phillip (2001), one of gospelypso's foremost promoters and performers, articulates the dilemma as follows: "We have accepted both the message of Jesus Christ and the culture that came with it. We have not yet been able to split the message from the culture, [to] put what God give us with the message." The cul- turally local and socially empowering rhetoric of the Black Power movement, set as it was against the backdrop of national independence, provided an additional rallying point that had a profound impact on the imaginations of pioneering gospelypso artists such as Merle Tellersford, Vernon Clark, Leyland Henry, and Andrew Thomas.

A genealogy of modern gospelypso reveals at least two antecedents, both of which are crucial to its development and subsequent reception. The etymologically obvious antecedent-calypso-provided artists with a stylistic model and a palette of sounds with which they were already



42 BMR Journal

Figure 1. Earl Phillip in concert, San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago, 2000. Photo courtesy of the author

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intimately familiar. Little needed to be changed in terms of musical performance or compositional technique, although significant modifications were made to the content and function of the poetry. The minor-key calypso and the storyteller tradition were easily adapted to gospelypso. The formulaic chord progressions of both the major- and minor-key




calypsos were readily appropriated and served as the framework for melodies that now were charged with carrying strongly evangelistic and

edifying lyrics. The less obvious antecedent is embedded within a body of song known

as the "Baptist choruses," a repertory of communal songs that has circu- lated in the oral tradition of Trinidad and Tobago since the early years of the nineteenth century. The links between these Baptist choruses and Pentecostalist-driven gospelypso are not coincidental and provide a great deal of insight into the early development of the style. The values invested in and communicated through the Baptist choruses mirror the needs and ethical dilemmas that motivated the pioneering gospelypso artists. In addition, because Baptists had a relatively long history in Trinidad and

Tobago, these choruses were widely known.4 Thus, many Pentecostalists who had recently transferred their membership from other denominational affiliations (including the pioneers of gospelypso) were intimately familiar with these choruses. Simon Frith (1996, 124) observes that, "Music constructs our sense of identity through the direct experiences it offers of the body, time and sociability, experiences which enable us to

place ourselves in imaginative cultural narratives." Using the three areas identified by Frith, I highlight in the following excursus the importance of the Baptist choruses to the development of gospelypso.

Excursus

Body The Trinidadian choruses are generally performed in unison and

incorporate a limited amount of heterophony, the heterophony being generated both by accompanying instruments and by the free improvi- sation of various members of the congregation. The principal accompa- nimental instrument is the tambourine, and a rhythmic cycle consisting of one eighth-note followed by four sixteenth-notes and another eighth- note is the most common and characteristic pattern performed on the instrument (Ex. 1).

This pattern provides the rhythmic basis for almost all of the songs, generating congregational involvement in the process (generally in the

4. Baptists have been a part of the Protestant landscape in Trinidad and Tobago since the arrival, between 1814 and 1816, of approximately 700 freedmen (and their families) who had fought for Great Britain during the War of 1812. These ex-soldiers were given property and settled in six company villages. It is commonly held that they continued to practice the Baptist faith that they encountered as slaves in the United States. For a detailed account of Baptist histories in Trinidad and Tobago, see Hackshaw (1991).



44 BMR Journal

Example 1. Tambourine rhythm

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form of hand clapping and dancing). It is in this constant movement that a striking characteristic of Trinidadian Baptist worship becomes evident. The bodies of the congregants become actors in the performance, simul-

taneously contributing additional rhythmic complexities to and deepen- ing their own personal identifications with the song.

This active, bodily participation on the part of the congregation reminds me of what Antonio Benitez-Rojo (1996, 10) refers to as walking "in a certain kind of way." In an analysis of the writings of Pere Jean- Baptiste Labat, Rojo observes that "it is rhythm-not a specific cultural

expression-that confers Caribbeanness" (75). Benitez-Rojo takes pains to demonstrate the impossibility of pointing to one rhythm or any coherent

system of rhythms in order to define or delimit the Caribbean. Rather, he describes it as a region of intense polyrhythms and of crosscutting sets of

tempi, occurring in music, literature, politics, art, and in all other forms of human creative activity. Although I wish to avoid overdetermining the

bodily experiences of the congregants, I tentatively take Rojo's concept a

step farther and suggest that the bodily interaction coupled with the context within which it occurs confers a certain sense of Trinidadian

Baptistness. What becomes significant in the context of the early development of

gospelypso is the fact that artists were able to identify a positive and vibrant approach to embodied expressions of worship-a celebration of the body's spiritual capacity-that specifically counterbalanced the Pentecostal emphasis on the spiritual (and, hence, nonphysical) aspects of being in the world. This body of song explicitly celebrates the body as instrument, as actor, as performer, and the rhythmic content of the choruses provides the catalyst for this celebration. To put it another way, the experiences of the body that these choruses offer constituted a tangible confirmation of gospelypso's viability-a confirmation that was needed in the face of intense pressure to abandon the project.

Time

The choruses are sung as many times as the song-leader feels is appropriate. Thus, it is not unusual to repeat a chorus fifteen or more times, and there are even occasions when it becomes important to sing a particular song for upwards of ten minutes. This is especially true in processional




situations. For example, a baptism involves a public procession that finds the entire congregation marching through the town on its way to the nearest body of water. Processional time is always filled with songs; it is understood to be a public proclamation of faith, and, at times, a single song can serve this function. The flexible timeliness of the choruses is embedded in the structure of the choruses themselves. For many of the choruses are cyclical, leading straight back to the beginning of the

melody and making it musically necessary to repeat the melody at least once (see App., nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5).

In addition to the physical passing of time that occurs during performance, the texts of the choruses often deal with the mythical past or with the timeless future (which is equally mythic). For example, the song entitled "We Shall Have a Grand Time" refers to a brighter future in heaven where believers will be "walkin' with the angels, singin' 'Hallelujah"' (see App., no. 6). Mythical characters are also activated in these choruses, as is evidenced in "Way Jonah Gone?" Here we see the biblical character of Jonah mobilized for use during baptismal services (see App., no. 4). The traditional typological interpretation of Jonah's experience in the

belly of the great whale is that it prefigures Christ's own death and res- urrection. Thus, the myth of Jonah is recovered here as a metaphor for the believer's death and rebirth into Christ. It also serves to connect the com-

munity with the timeless roots of its shared past. A further type of relationship to time is found in "Something Deep

Down Inside," a song that finds the narrator saying, "Something deep down inside, tellin' me to go on" (see App., no. 7). In this case, the imme-

diacy of the here-and-now is painfully present. The text-the narrator's confession-is articulated in direct relationship to the hardships of life. Furthermore, that "something deep down inside" is not particularly helpful for offering the singer a point in time when this "going on" might come to an end. This timely/timeless ambiguity serves to reinforce the conception of life as pilgrimage.5 A similar sentiment is in evidence in "We Will Meet Jesus By and By" (see App., no. 8). Here, however, the ambiguity of time is stated in a more positive light, in a hopeful rather than doggedly determined manner.

On the most general level, this repertory of songs, by its very existence, constructs a sense of the legacy of Baptists in Trinidad and Tobago. In other words, these choruses are believed to be a particularly Baptist form of expression and, as such, are considered the aesthetic property of those who participate in Baptist life. Added to this sense of timelessness or

5. This chorus might also fruitfully be read in connection with Max Weber's (1976) articulation of what he called the Protestant ethic.



46 BMR Journal

mythical past is the fact that these songs have, almost without exception, been created by composers who remain anonymous, affording this genre a kind of folk vitality while simultaneously serving to maintain a strong sense of community ownership.

I believe that the timeliness of the Baptist choruses provides a vital link to the early development of gospelypso, a period during which artists were searching for a form of expression that would allow them to tap into the national sentiment. Here was a specifically Christian, relatively long- lived (at least by comparison with Pentecostal song repertories), and

uniquely Trinidadian body of songs that could provide a historical link with the wider Protestant community while simultaneously referring to the history of the nation. I do not mean to suggest that gospelypso artists used the choruses in any direct fashion but merely to point out that the artists could refer to these choruses as one of the roots upon which gospelypso was built. So, for example, in a conversation that I had with

Leyland Henry (2000), he made a point of repeatedly stating that gospelypso had been sung in the churches "from long time."

Sociability Trinidadians do not initiate the singing of these choruses with an

instrumental introduction. Rather, the song-leader begins singing and the

guitarist spends the first two or three bars searching for the right key, joining the tambourine in accompanying the congregation once the proper chords are found. The concept of relative pitch prevails, as the prima- ry objective of the song-leader is to start the song on a pitch that will accommodate the range of the melody within a comfortable tessitura for the congregation. The voices of the congregants are the most important element in the singing, a fact made clear by the structure of the singing itself. Instruments are secondary at best, and the function of the leaders is limited to starting the song and encouraging the singers, and this

approach to the act of singing goes a long way toward reinforcing a sense of community.

But the experience of sociability goes beyond the physical act of

singing, extending to the texts and music of the songs themselves. Many of the songs in this repertory such as "Way Jonah Gone?" are functional in the sense that they are tied in a very direct way to specific events- usually life-cycle events such as birth, death, and marriage but also including spiritual occasions such as conversion and baptism. The social dimensions of the choruses are embedded within their texts. An excellent example of this type of chorus is "Go Down the Road," a chorus that is often sung at revival meetings and at the time immediately following




conversion (see App., no. 1). The text of this chorus calls for the faithful to, "Go down the road and sound the jubilee, tell them, fire go burn them." It is at once a reminder of the fate from which the faithful have been "saved" and of the need to fulfill the "great commission." In this chorus, the common theological foundations of the community are made clear through an articulation of what the members are not and a simulta- neous call to common action.

The song "Hallelujah Anyhow!" illustrates the role that encourage- ment plays in constructing experiences of sociability in Trinidad (see App., no. 9). Here we find the narrator(s) urging the listener(s) to "never, never let life's troubles get you down." A final example of the sociability of these choruses is "Somebody Watching Me" (see App., no. 10). Here, the worshiper is understood to be in relation to/with the Divine. The individual's relationship to the community is, in some measure, also inti-

mately bound up in the personal relationship that each member of the

congregation has with the Divine. In a sense, sociability is achieved not

only in such relationships but also out of the common spirituality that the individuals experience together. I suggest that gospelypso artists saw in the Baptist choruses a means of generating links to the broader Christian

community in Trinidad and Tobago, and the continued movement of this

repertory into Pentecostal worship services would seem to support this idea.

An important aspect of these choruses is the fact that they are the aesthetic property of the Baptists. Dale Bisnauth (1996, 196-197) has com- mented that, "The membership of the Baptist church [almost exclusively black] was responsible for that church's reputation that it was a 'poor man' church." This reputation is expressed in more negative terms by Pastor Roddie Taylor (2000), who points out that most other Christians believe that "Baptists are still in the bush." I suggest that these choruses, widely perceived as the property of the poor, backward Baptists, provided an encouraging parallel for gospelypso artists-a musical parallel to their own, ultralocal and controversial project.

A final thought regarding time and sociability leads me to the words of Hollis "Chalkdust" Liverpool (2001, 202-203). In an attempt to trace the early history of calypso, he notes that, "kaiso ... was enriched melodi- cally by work songs and religious Yoruba music, particularly the Shango chants." He goes on to cite linguist Maureen Warner-Lewis, who con- cludes that, "religious chants have survived to this day through the vitality of the Shango religion. And, their lyrics left behind, the melodies of some chants were co-opted by early minor-key calypsonians." What remains significant here is that the Shango influence, like the Baptist choruses, dates from pre-1838. Baptists have been practicing their faith in



48 BMR Journal

Trinidad and Tobago since 1814, a fact that further strengthens the ties to the legacy on which the gospelypso artists drew. Both Baptist and Shango chants, furthermore, contributed significantly to the sound and style of what calypso eventually became. Thus, gospelypso artists were able to claim that, by infusing calypso with religious lyrics, they were actually going back to the true source of kaiso-that the true roots of kaiso were

actually Christian. This discursive strategy is captured by Noel Richards' (2000) assertion that, "we've been singing kaiso in the church long-time." Connections to the sacred past, then, served as a means of legitimizing a new use of style, providing justification not only to the calypso fraterni- ty, but also to the Christian community.

Gospelypso and the Ethics of Style

Allow me to pick up the story in the year 2000 and work my way backward a bit. The song entitled "Gimmie Room," performed by Marilyn "Destiny" Joseph, places its lyrical finger directly on the open wound of

gospelypso's reception history:

Well you know I'm a Trini, I'm a Trini to my heart, and I'll be a Trini till I dead.

When it comes to praising, all I want is a start. Praising God does really get to my head.

So when you see me dancing, when you see me prancing, I don't want you think that I've gone astray. If my behavior cause you worry, then my friends I'm sorry. You don't have to join me, you don't have to agree! All I ask

of you is to clear the way.

Gimmie room! Gimmie room! Gimmie room, people, just give me some space!

Don't you find this amazing, is my God I'm praising. Push your chair up, gimmie room to praise!

This is a defiantly resigned song. Throughout its almost thirty-year history, gospelypso has been actively resisted by a majority of Protestant congregations. While many Christians applaud the ethical decisions that foster emphasis on local cultural production and consider gospelypso preferable to American gospel music in that regard, gospelypso still tends to be excluded from worship services in most churches and across denominational lines. The standard explanation, given by any number of pastors and lay people, stresses that gospelypso is still associated with the perceived moral evils of carnival.




Figure 2. Marilyn "Destiny" Joseph in concert, Point-a-Pierre, Trinidad and Tobago, 2000. Photo courtesy of the author

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50 BMR Journal

In the first verse of "Jump for Jesus,"6 Nicole Ballosingh acknowledges as much, telling us that people accuse her of "acting as though [she were] still in the world":

Some folks say I'm crazy, some say girl, you're brave! To go on stage and sing at something and wave. Some say listen Nikki, you losing it girl! You acting as though

you still in the world. They don't understand why I'm acting so. I'm singing this

song just to let them know, That Jesus has set me free and He's living in me! So I'll sing

and dance for all eternity.

Hers is, in fact, a doubly coded confession in that it refers to two separate (if interrelated) failings, namely, musical associations with carnival and a

questionable spiritual life. This association with bacchanal, which casts

gospelypso in an ethically and, by extension, spiritually suspect light, prevails in spite of the fact that almost everything that is sung or performed in services throughout the country relies on a base of rhythmic and textural materials that is understood and acknowledged as calypso- and here I am thinking not only of the Baptist choruses but also of the

hymns and American gospel songs that are sung to soca or calypso accompaniment.

A genre born out of an intense desire to bring Trinidadian artistic

expression to the nation, and to Protestants in particular, is thus considered ethically incompatible with Christian worship. This is the moment at which I believe the ethics of style can usefully be brought into our discussion, because gospelypso artists see this style as a performative solution to the ontological realities and ethical dilemmas attendant to Protestant Trinidadians. In other words, gospelypso is simultaneously seized upon as an effective response to those Pentecostal worship paradigms that marginalized local culturalisms and as a relevant, uniquely Christian intervention in the life of the nation. This attitude is amply illustrated in Noel Richards' song entitled "Gospelypso":

I said, Gospelypso is taking a bible passage and putting it in the language,

So that locals could get the message all in the village It is bringing the bible to ordinary simple people, oh lady, that

is gospelypso. 6. "Jump for Jesus," recorded in 1993, is the first gospelypso radio hit, and it did not go

unnoticed that this hit was generated by an East Indian woman who has generally performed more North American than Trinidadian music. While no gospelypso artist would ever openly criticize her work, that artistic community's estimation of her can be measured by the simple fact that her name was never mentioned in a four-hour forum on radio FM 94.1 entitled "Gospelypso through the Years."




Figure 3. Noel "The Professor" Richards in concert, Point-a-Pierre, Trinidad and Tobago, 2000. Photo courtesy of the author

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52 BMR Journal

I said, Gospelypso is using what God give us to bring glory to Jesus

From the first verse to the last chorus, ask Lincoln Douglas, he could tell you.

The thing is a vehicle for reaching we people, oh Lady, that is gospelypso.

She said, Gospelypso is sweet gospel music, flavored with West Indian lyrics,

With a rhythm that's slow or quick you can take your pick. And I said, it is using we culture to present the scripture, oh

Lady, that is gospelypso.

Trinidadian Protestants, in contrast, cannot see past the moral history of the genre itself and, consequently, reject the efforts of gospelypso artists on ethical grounds. We see an entire genre rejected because of associations that still link calypso and bacchanal in the public imagination. Many recent gospelypsos narrate this rejection with a view toward ame-

liorating misunderstandings and misconceptions among fellow Protestants. Marilyn Joseph (2000) has remarked that, "Trinidadians need a change of mindset" with regard to gospelypso. In a song entitled "They Say," Noel Richards spells out some of the accusations that are leveled

against gospelypsonians:

They say that we causing trouble. They say that we causing bacchanal.

They say we are crazy people. They say this thing isn't scriptural. They blame Nicole Ballosingh for starting the jumping thing. They say that she causing revolution. But what I want them to know, Jumping started long ago,

cause it have a lot of jumpy people in the bible. And this is the example! And I tell them ...

David danced for the lord, (I jumping for Jesus). He was singing praise to God (I jumping for Jesus). Israel used to celebrate (I jumping for Jesus), When the lord did something great (I jumping for Jesus). You think they were wrong? (No!) To sing happy songs? (No!) They couldn't stop the dancing, the feeling was strong. We doing the same, man, why we getting blame? We just want to praise His name and jump, and jump, and

jump, and jump!

It is useful to think of these opposing discursive geographies as the product of what Homi Bhabha (2000, 190) has called the poetics of identification, which "strives to represent the process through which intercul-




tural relations in-between class, gender, generation, race, religion, or

region are articulated as hybrid identifications." In other words, the poetics of identification looks for linkages that make these processes visible, and I believe that gospelypso serves this very purpose. Gospelypso is enunciated within and in response to the Pentecostal churches of Trinidad and Tobago, institutions that are, after all, themselves intercul- tural. It is not insignificant that gospelypso artists have, for reasons related to theology and community, chosen to remain active within the insti- tution that continues to reject their artistry-to continue affirming their links with the very community that accuses them so bitterly of being worldly and "getting on too bad." And yet, the church community does welcome them and offer them a home of sorts. They are simply expected to leave their baggage (their gifts) outside. By rooting themselves in this

place in-between, the musical style that they perform is freighted with the ethical weight of the discourse and, by extension, becomes insepara- ble from it.

A related aspect of the ethics of style is bound up in what I call the

negotiation of proximity. Answers to an inquiry regarding this or that

aspect of gospelypso will vary depending on who is asking the questions. For example, local Christians are very quick to champion gospelypso as an example of Trinidadian faith and musical expressivity when speaking with visiting (nonlocal) Christians. Within the boundaries of Trinidadian

practice, however, gospelypso is subjected to a much more rigorous standard where the moral imperatives of Protestantism take precedence over

stylistic considerations. I suggest that these trends are dictated in part by the peculiar logic of the negotiation of proximity.

We can get at this idea by thinking about the degree to which North American gospel choruses (of the type popularized by Bill Gaither and

Andra6 Crouch, among others) permeate worship services across the

country. These types of songs are readily accepted as appropriate for worship in most Protestant denominations but remain, no matter how closely they are currently tied to the Trinidadian Protestant landscape, funda- mentally Other. This distanced position creates an atmosphere within which firm statements about their moral and ethical content are easy to pronounce. Gospelypso, however, is situated much too close to home to remain unfettered and uncomplicated. It is implicated in the messiness of everyday life and is, as such, much more difficult to incorporate into the pristine landscape of gnostic spirituality toward which Trinidadian Protestants aspire. Earl Phillip (2001) articulates this idea from the oppo- site perspective: "Our music is doing well abroad, but in Trinidad we still trying to get it off the ground." Another way of getting at the negotiation of proximity is articulated in Noel Richards' song entitled "Gospelypso":



54 BMR Journal

Lady you know when them big foreign artists come down, We does pack up the Jean Pierre Complex and National

Stadium. All Helen Baylor songs we know good, but we don't even

know who is Larry Harewood.7 Pop, Dub, and Reggae, we love to sing and then we criticize

we own thing. We never treat we own as we should till some foreigner tell

we it good Gospelypso, lady, is greatly misunderstood.

I believe that this paradoxical relationship, by virtue of which the far becomes near and the near far, points to deeply embedded issues of what Michael Herzfeld (1997, 6) calls cultural intimacy: "Embarrassment, rue- ful self-recognition: these are the key markers of what cultural intimacy is all about." What could look more traditional, less modern, in the face of a transplanted, North American religious paradigm than a local music-and a local music associated with bacchanal, at that? Like so

many other culturalisms throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, gospelypso is talked up to outsiders and embarrassing to insiders. By way of example, just think of the trajectories that Cuban rumba, Argentinian tango, Trinidadian steel pan, and any number of the region's authors and intellectuals had to travel before gaining any measure of

respectability in their own nations. Each had to travel far in order to become near, as it were. And even at that, there remains the uncomfort- able thought that these journeys might not matter at all. Earl Lovelace voices this as follows: "[T]hey don't want to hear you. They just want to know they have a writer" (quoted in Harney 1996, 35).

The case of gospelypso is particularly interesting to me in this respect because it involves a double embarrassment. First, it builds on calypso, which is a source of perennial embarrassment to the nation. Here I am

thinking about the impact that the long history of the genre has on the sensibilities of the state, because the various injunctions and laws passed with the goal of limiting or eliminating carnival and calypso point to some rather dark chapters of history-chapters linking calypso to slav- ery, dubious race relations, and class struggles, to name just a few.8 These are hardly the modern images that a self-proclaimed, multicultural nation-state wishes to incorporate into its international face.

Second, gospelypso is enunciated from within Pentecostal institutions,

7. Helen Baylor is a gospel artist of international reputation, and Larry Harewood is a three-time winner of the gospelypso competition as well as a prolific composer of gospelyso music.

8. For more detailed information about the early history of carnival and calypso in Trinidad and Tobago, see Cowley (1996), Liverpool (2001), and Stuempfle (1995).




which is a source of perennial embarrassment to these churches. Just as the "nation-state is ideologically committed to ontological self-perpetua- tion for all eternity" (Herzfeld 1997, 21), the leadership within the Pentecostal churches in Trinidad and Tobago is invested in maintaining a

metaphysical link to American, nonlocal musics and paradigms for all

Eternity (in every sense of the word). This commitment is in evidence not

only in the musical material that makes its way into the services but also in the consciously adopted American dialect that pastors and music directors use during services and in the suits that approximate the image portrayed by pastors on the American-based Trinity Broadcasting Network. And in the midst of this project, some of the church's own members are "causing revolution"; by drawing attention to the trans-

planted nature of Pentecostalism within Trinidadian culture, gospelypso artists simultaneously undermine and embarrass the leadership.

In so doing, gospelypso artists are themselves adopting a method of cultural (and ethical) critique that bears a strong resemblance to what Herzfeld calls social poetics. Herzfeld explains that the "specific task of social poetics is to reinsert analysis into lived historical experience and

thereby to restore knowledge of the social, cultural, and political ground- ing-the cultural intimacy-of even the most formal power and the most abstract knowledge" (26). By thus introducing gospelypso into the performative history of Trinidadian Pentecostalism, artists have reinserted

analysis and, by extension, ethical critique into the fabric of both nation and church in a most visible and audible fashion. Gospelypso, then, can be understood as a means through which Trinidadian artists claim their

place in the (independent) nation and their independence within the church.

Even so, many of the lyrics of recent gospelypsos express the hope that the church will come to accept gospelypso as a legitimate, Christian art form. The last verse of Noel Richards' "Gospelypso" is a case in point. The lyrics narrate a conversation between Richards and a woman who is initially very skeptical about gospelypso's merits. By the end of the conversation (the last verse), however, Richards not only convinces her that gospelypso is a good thing but also makes her an evangelist for the genre.

She said, young man, I appreciate what you've told me. And from what you've said I see gospelypso differently. No more will I ever criticize, what you tell me open up my

eyes. I see the thing as a ministry for reaching lost souls in this

country. But don't limit yourself to Trinbago, go sing a song for the

world to know. That the word of God could be spread though gospelypso.



56 BMR Journal

Both the resigned tone of "Gimmie Room" and the overly optimistic flair of "Gospelypso" narrate the position that gospelypso occupies in relation to the church. Although there remains a strong desire to gain acceptance from the leadership, gospelypsonians recognized early on that

they needed to provide a forum for the performance and promotion of the

genre. This situation led the Youth for Christ organization consistently to

stage rallies, to promote open-air meetings, and to rent venues such as the

Greyfriars Hall or Spektakular Forum for concerts. From 1972 until 1983, these represented the only avenues open to most gospelypsonians.

In 1983, however, the Petite Bourg chapter of Youth for Christ orga- nized and hosted the first Gospelypso Competition, complete with

judges and scorecards, in the yard of the St. John's Anglican Church. Just as the first-ever gospelypso concert was scheduled at the height of the carnival season in 1972, offering Christians and non-Christians an alternative to the calypso tents and fates, so the gospelypso competition was

designed to be gospelypso's alternative to the Calypso Monarch competition. After several successful years of competition, the national chapter of the Youth for Christ, under the leadership of Herman Brown, took up sponsorship of the event and continued to sponsor the competition annu-

ally until 1997. In 1999, gospelypso artists were provided with a new venue for per-

formance. Under the direction of Earl Phillip, the "Jubilee House"

Gospelypso Tent opened during carnival season. The tent operated in 2000 as well but, due to financial difficulties, was not open during the 2001 season. Earl Phillip had expressed the hope that both the competition and Jubilee House would be opened again in 2002; however, they were not.

These alternative performance venues all point to the difficulties that

gospelypso artists continue to experience in their relationship with the

larger Protestant community in Trinidad and Tobago. I believe that the continued search for performance venues illustrates the strong convic- tions of the gospelypso artists concerning their music and their place within the church. On the one hand, they could simply capitulate to the will of the majority of church leaders and stop performing altogether, but this is not an acceptable option for most gospelypso artists. On the other hand, they could cut their ties with the church and discontinue their attempts to make inroads in Protestant worship, however, this option is also unacceptable to most gospelypsonians. They deliberately maintain a strong connection both to the genre and to the church, seeking to find ways of bridging the conceptual gap and theological framework that makes their music so difficult for church leaders to accept.




Thinking through the connections between ethics, religion, musical

style, and politics in Trinidad and Tobago leaves me intrigued by the

prospect of thinking about and analyzing music through the ethics of

style. As I see it, the ethics of style becomes the discursive home for a wide range of self-making and identificatory techniques where the result-

ing enunciative strategy is a musical one and where the style can subse-

quently be made to substitute for the discourse itself. I believe that, with so many people invested in the success (or failure) of gospelypso, the

genre itself has become synonymous with the rhetoric surrounding it. Indeed, success or failure continues to be a major concern, for one of

the challenges facing gospelypso as a genre is a lack of young artists will-

ing to perform it. During the mid to late 1990s, many of the performers were between forty and fifty years of age, and only a handful of young performers continue actively to promote the genre. Today, it is much more fashionable to pursue hardcore soca or rapso than it is to sing kaiso. While this trend is bemoaned by the pioneers of the genre, the desire of

young artists to pursue other musical avenues should not be surprising, because it mirrors the reasoning that served as a catalyst for gospelypso itself. Leyland Henry (2001) has remarked that the early gospelypso artists were self-consciously attempting to "be hard-core and radical." Nevertheless, there is widespread concern that soca will ultimately over- run gospelypso.

And what is to be made of the various other genres that are currently competing against gospelypso for air time on the radio, for space on concert bills, and for sales in record stores? As Noel Richards says:

All Helen Baylor songs we know good, but we don't even know who is Larry Harewood. Pop, Dub, and Reggae, we love to sing, and then we criticize we own thing.

DISCOGRAPHY

Ballosingh, Nicole. Jump for Jesus. Calypso worship, volume 1. Nicman Productions NIC004 (1998).

Joseph, Marilyn. Gimmie room. First fruits 2000. Noma Music Productions (2000). Richards, Noel. Gospelypso. We Ting-Noel Richards and Marilyn Joseph. CCAN 014 (1995)

. They say. Make some noise. Noma Music Productions 0002 (1999).



58 BMR Journal

REFERENCES

Benitez-Rojo, Antonio. 1996. The repeating island: The Caribbean and the postmodern perspective. Translated by James E. Maraniss. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

Bhabha, Homi. 2000. On cultural choice. In The turn to ethics, edited by Marjorie Garber, Beatric Hanssen, and Rebecca L. Walkowitz, 181-200. New York: Routledge.

Bisnauth, Dale. 1996. History of religions in the Caribbean. Trenton, N.J: Africa World Press. Cowley, John. 1996. Carnival, canboulay, and calypso: Traditions in the making. Cambridge,

England: Cambridge University Press. Cudjoe, Selwyn, R., ed. 1993. Eric E. Williams speaks: Essays on colonialism and independence.

Wellesley, Mass.: Calaloux Publications. Frith, Simon. 1996. Music and identity. In Questions of cultural identity, edited by Stuart Hall

and Paul du Gay, 108-127. London: Sage. Hackshaw, John Milton. 1991. The Baptist denomination: A concise history commemorating one

hundred and seventy five years (1816-1991) of the establishment of the "company villages" and the Baptist faith in Trinidad and Tobago. Port of Spain: Amphy and Bashana Memorial Society.

Hall, Stuart. 1996. Introduction: Who needs "identity"? In Questions of cultural identity, edited by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, 1-17. London: Sage.

Harney, Stefano. 1996. Nationalism and identity: Culture and the imagination in a Caribbean dias- pora. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Zed Books.

Henry, Leyland. 2000. Interview with the author, Port of Spain, Trinidad, July 26. . 2001. Interview with Noel "The Professor" Richards on Radio FM 94.1, Port of

Spain, Trinidad, February 2. Herzfeld, Michael 1997. Cultural intimacy: Social poetics in the nation-state. New York:

Routledge. Joseph, Marilyn "Destiny." 2000. Interview with the author, Port of Spain, Trinidad, June 14. Laurence, Margaret. 1984. "The merchant of heaven." In The tomorrow-tamer and other stories.

Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Lee, Philip J. 1987. Against the Protestant gnostics. New York: Oxford University Press. Liverpool, Hollis "Chalkdust." 2001. Rituals of power and rebellion: The carnival tradition in

Trinidad and Tobago, 1763-1962. Chicago: Research Associates School Times. Phillip, Earl. 2001. Interview with Noel "The Professor" Richards on Radio FM 94.1,

February 2. Richards, Noel "The Professor." 2000. Interview with the author, Trincity, Trinidad, May 9. Ryan, Selwin, and Taimoon Stewart, eds. 1995. The Black Power Revolution of 1970: A retro-

spective. St. Augustine, Trinidad: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the West Indies.

Stuempfle, Stephen. 1995. The steelband movement: The forging of a national art in Trinidad and Tobago. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Taylor, Roddie. 2000. Interview with the author, Point Fortin, Trinidad, February 17. Warner-Lewis, Maureen. 1986. Yoruba music: Its linkage with calypso. Paper presented to

the Seminar on the Calypso, University of the West Indies, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Research, January 6-10.

Weber, Max. 1976. The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. London: George, Allen, and Unwin.




APPENDIX

1. "Go Down the Road"

- W - - W j Go down the road and sound the ju - bi-lee, tell them fi - re go bum them. Go

down the road and sound the ju - bi-lee, tell them fi - re go burn them. Fi -

re go burn them, fi - re goburn them, tell them fi - re go bum them. Tell-

back - slid - ers fi - re go burn them, tell them fi - re go burn them.I

back - slid - ers fi - re go burn them, tell them fi - re go burn them.

2. "In the Morning"

In the mor - ning, When I wake up, in the

cor - ner, I hear a groa - ning. Said wait, I

com-ing! I put on my long white robe!



60 BMR Journal

3. "Lend Me Your Wings"

Lend me your wings I want to fly in glo-ry. Lend me your wings I want to

fly in glo - ry. Lend me your wings I want to fly in glo - ry.

Bless-ed are the pure in heart. Je - sus!

4. "Way Jonah Gone?"

Way Jo - nah gone? Jo - nah gone to Ni - ne - veh. Way Jo - nah

gone? Jo - nah gone to Ni - ne-veh. Way Jo - nah gone? Jo - nah gone to

I - Ni - ne - veh. In the bel - ly of a whale, Jo - nah gone to

Ni-ne-veh. In the bel-ly of a whale, Jo-nah gone to Ni-ne-veh.




5. "'When the Hurricane Blow"

When the hur-ri-cane blow, hold me in yuh hand.-- Hold me bles-sed

Je - sus, hold me in yuh hand.

6. "We Shall Have a Grand Time"

We shall have a grand time, up in hea -ven.--

We shall have a grand time, up in hea-ven, have a grand time.

do i- no Walk-in' with the an - gels, singin' Hal - le- lu - jah!

G7

We shall have a grand time, up in hea-ven, have a grand time.



62 BMR Journal

7. "Something Deep Down Inside"

Some - thing deep down in - side, tel-ling me to go on.

Some - thing deep down in - side, tel-ling me to go on.

Some - thing deep down in - side, tel-ling me to go on. Go

on, go on, go on! on, go on, go on!

8. "We Will Meet Jesus by and by"

We will meet Je - sus by and by. We will meet Je - sus by and

by. We will meet Him by the way with a ti-cket in His hand. We will

meet Je - sus by and by.




9. "Hallelujah Anyhow!"

Hal - le-lu-jah a - ny how! Ne-ver, ne-ver let life trou-bles get you

down. When life trou-bles pass your way,-- lift your head up high and say--

Hal- le-lu-jah any how! Hal - le-lu-jah a - ny how!

10. "Somebody Watching Me"

Some-body watch-in' me O. Some-body watch-in' me. Some-bo - dy watch-in' me ov0.er yon - der. Some-bo - dy watch-in'- me.

Some-bo - dy watch-in' me ov - er yon - der. Some-bo - dy watch-in' me.



Nationalism and the Soul: Gospelypso as Independence

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