‘Don’t disrespect calypso!’

Describing calypso as the “mother of Caribbean music,” president of the Calypso Association Hassan Kennedy has called for more respect to be shown to calypso.

He noted that when various genres of music came out of calypso, such as soca and ragga soca, they have been getting financing and much publicity, calypso has been ignored and treated with much disrespect. {{more}}

He said moves are being made to upgrade the art form and that by the end of Carnival 2005 several persons would come with an upgraded system for next year’s calypso season. “We have to change with the times but we must remain with Kaiso. All the other art forms coming out of the Caribbean, whether it’s soca music, even reggae music, the beat comes out of kaiso.

“Kaiso comes like the mother that brings forth the children in all the other art forms we express. We have to nice up the mother so that the children could be nice also. So we’re on the verge of nicing up kaiso to bring forth all the other entities that would come out of it. And I’m sure other music would come out kaiso.”