De Riddim of Tings! A 2012 Overview

A tiny number of ideas can go a long way, as we've seen. And the Internet makes that more and more likely. What's happening is that we might, in fact, be at a time in our history where we're being domesticated by these great big societal things, such as Facebook and the Internet. We're being domesticated by them, because fewer and fewer and fewer of us have to be innovators to get by. And so, in the cold calculus of evolution by natural selection, at no greater time in history than ever before, copiers are probably doing better than innovators. Because innovation is extraordinarily hard. My worry is that we could be moving in that direction, towards becoming more and more sort of docile copiers.
"Infinite Stupidity: A Talk With Mark Pagel." Retrieved 15 December, 2011.

To say that riddim is king in soca 2012 would be partly true. All the breakout hits in the first week of parties and significantly on the radio have been riddim-based. But history has shown that the big winners of Carnival 2011 and before have been those unique soca compositions not shared with other artistes: Wotless (Kes The Band) and Advantage (Machel Montano), to name a couple. That's not to say that Benjai, hot off his "Give Away" riddim driven Ah Trini did not have an extended bumper 2011 with Wine to the Side on the "Honeycomb" riddim shared with Machel Montano and Lil Bitts. Riddim is it, and if you look sharp, a handful of riddims could dominate a TT Carnival season.

On Lionel Belasco, or The Politicization of Culture in Trinidad and Tobago

I

Attorney General, Sen. The Hon. Anand Ramlogan has shown his ignorance of Trinidad and Tobago culture. In making a claim that there was a misuse and abuse of public funds by the PNM via UTT in the purchase of 10 Bosendorfer grand pianos, including the Special Edition Johann Strauss model, (inspired by the instrument on which the great master wrote his compositions, and ultimately placed by former Prime Minister Manning at the Diplomatic Centre for recitals,) the following exchange of words were recorded by the Parliament Channel [
I await, like Colm Imbert to date, Hansard publication.Ed.: Link to Hansard.]:

Sen. The Hon. Anand Ramlogan: "...for those of us who are accustomed to the steel pan, the Dohlak and the Maghera and the “riddim” section; for those of us who are accustomed to listening local cultural music, the Bosendorfer Piano is the Rolls Royce among pianos in the world...My learned friend from Port of Spain North/St Ann's West [Patricia McIntosh, MP] is saying: “What is wrong with the piano?” I say nothing is wrong with the piano, but the day you could play a good calypso or chutney on it come back and talk to me...I want to see my learned friend take a piano and sit down and play a good chutney or a good kaiso on it...all we know 'bout it is ah lil' Bob Marley music, ah lil' kaiso, calypso and chutney. That is what we listen to, but this grand piano...We consider this to be a most shameful and disgraceful wastage of public funds...There was absolutely no need in a country that boasts of an indigenous culture that is proud of its calypso heritage and the steelpan. There is no need for a country like this to purchase 10 grand pianos." [My emphasis.]
—January 12, 2011. Anand Ramlogan, Attorney General. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). (Port of Spain: House of Representatives): pages 382-384.