bigdrumnation

Reading Time 3 minsNovember 3, 2024 As the 2024 U.S. election season intensifies, anxieties are running high amid economic uncertainty and growing geopolitical shifts. Once the world’s undisputed economic leader, the United States now faces new global challenges, fueling nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiments across the political spectrum. This election cycle has seen a sharp rise in anti-immigrant and anti-Black rhetoric, echoing the grim historical precedents of the Great Depression and other times of national economic stress, when marginalized groups were often scapegoated. For many in immigrant communities, this rhetoric is triggering, stirring up painful memories of violence and exclusion —… Read More »WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? — Martin P. Felix

Reading Time 10 minsOctober 19, 2024 The 36th Annual SUNSHINE Awards celebration, a global event, is scheduled for today, October 19, 2024, at the Robert Treat Hotel, 50 Park Place, Newark, New Jersey. The program will begin with a cocktail reception from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm, an Awards Presentation, and a live show featuring the Trinidad and Tobago Female Police Band. Among today’s Awardees are: Samraj “Rikki Jai” Jaimungal (Trinidad & Tobago) Samraj “Rikki Jai” Jaimungal (Trinidad & Tobago) is a Cultural Icon and Musical Ambassador–with a career spanning over three decades. His musical journey began in 1986 with… Read More »CELEBRATING THE SUNSHINE AWARDS 36TH YEARLY CELEBRATION

Reading Time 2 mins October 17, 2024 With its well-intentioned curricula of the Theory and Practice of the many aspects of its rudimentary ‘Mas Course,’ all being well, Caribbean Yard Campus would succeed in unearthing what goes on here and thereabouts in the region. Without embarking on the need to solidify the life-bleeding sustenance of the Culture Complex that greed has derailed from its trek along the communal path towards socially rounded development and consequently detoured Carnival unto the limitless highway of money making, let’s reflect on my growing up days in cosmopolitan Belmont from 1938 through adolescence. From Sir… Read More »ALL HAIL CARIBBEAN YARD CAMPUS — Duff Mitchell

Reading Time 7 minsOctober 15, 2024 ‘Haitian dishes represent a unique culinary tradition… Distinguished by its syncretic blend of African, French, Creole, and Native American influences, Haitian cuisine offers a distinctive gastronomic experience.’ David Rudder’s 1988 masterpiece of a song, “Haiti I am Sorry,” from the album Haiti, reflects on the Caribbean nation’s accomplishment and the irony of collective ignorance of its impressive contribution to our history.  But it has now become a political fashion among conservative extremists to insult Haitians. It seems like a weird kind of political sport. First, we had the Trump and JD Vance attack on… Read More »HAITI, I AM SORRY! — Martin P Felix

Reading Time 2 minsOctober 14, 2024   ‘As a young man, I faced the world bravely and confidently because of my education on the street.’   Two points in the discourse on The Campus Yard Interview resonated deeply. Gibbons’ portrayal of the ‘lime’ as a form of theatre instantly transported me to a vibrant era in Success Village, Laventille, a time and space when our community thrived. Liming was a pastime and a catalyst for flourishing sports and cultural activities: the numerous football and cricket teams; the iconic steel bands like Highlanders and Savoys, the festive Carnival and Christmas bands;… Read More »A Reflection on Rawle Gibbons’ Caribbean Campus Yard Interview – Monty Guy

Reading Time 1 mins October 14, 2024   As we commemorate Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the U.S.A. today, The Big Drum Nation Collective is delighted to highlight Caribbean Yard Campus, an innovative educational enterprise designed to network traditional knowledge systems in the Caribbean. The great cultural diversity of the Caribbean has bequeathed its people’s ways of being, seeing, knowing, and doing, which are informed by places of origin, historical conditions of arrival in the Caribbean, and encounters with other cultures in this space.  This body of knowledge and lived experiences, know-how, wisdom, and values constitutes traditional and indigenous knowledge that continues to shape… Read More »Caribbean Yard Campus

Reading Time 4 mins September 16, 2024 Lately, I’ve contemplated national mottos, those of North and South America and the Caribbean. I thought that forging a collective identity was a significant component of nation-building in these parts. To my mind, all of these countries in the New World were populated by some combination of indigenous natives and immigrants from Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and just about anywhere else. They were smashed together by European colonialism and its genocide, slavery, racial oppression, and immigration. As such, I expected all, or most, would have had a motto addressing the central… Read More »FORGING A COLLECTIVE IDENTITY: TOGETHER WE ASPIRE — KIM JOHNSON

Reading Time 1 minsJuly 9, 2024 Big Drum Nation joins millions worldwide in recognizing ‘Sparrow Day,’ Slinger Francisco’s 89th birthday. Renowned for his lyrical prowess and charismatic persona, onstage and offstage, time after time, Sparrow has been acknowledged by his many fans as the embodiment of the people’s aspirations. His accolades extend beyond Trinidad and Tobago, where he received the prestigious Chaconia Gold Medal in 1993 and the Order of the Republic in 2023, to international recognition, such as Chief of the Yorubas (Chief Omo Wale of Ikoyi) during Nigeria’s Festac in 1977. Cementing his legacy throughout his six-decade career, Sparrow… Read More »BDN Celebrates July 9th as Sparrow Day!

Reading Time 8 minsJuly 9, 2021 Happy Birthday, Slinger Francisco, aka Mighty Sparrow! On this, his 86th birthday, Big Drum Nation is pleased to republish Winthrop R. Holder’s Reflections on “Soca Anthology: Dr. Bird- – The Mighty Sparrow.” – BDN Editors “That little poowatee man… A little piss’n tail, man.” Jean in Tony Hall’s Jean and Dinah: A Lordstreet Lime “… they fighting for progress to stop.” Mighty Sparrow “The year introduced a calypsonian who was destined to be the most popular for most of the rest of the century. His contribution in 1956 made an impact that no calypso before or after… Read More »Celebrating the Genius of Slinger Francisco: Reflections on the Sparrow Anthology–Winthrop R. Holder

Reading Time 7 minsJuly 9, 2022 ‘Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.’ (Lewis Hyde).  Slinger Francisco, the Mighty Sparrow, has been pronounced dead in the past so many times before that he will surely pinch himself on his birthday, July 9, to reassure himself that he yet breathes and lives. The trajectory of his career, beginning with Road March and Calypso King titles in 1956, is nothing short of amazing. He has since won both Road March and Calypso King titles eight times, has… Read More »SPARROW’S TWO SONGS OF SOLOMON-Ken Jaikaransingh