Popular entertainer Edwin Yearwood is imploring Barbadians not to stifle the creativity of young people.
His comments come amid public criticism of the National Cultural Foundation’s (NCF) introduction of the Bashment Soca genre into the Junior Monarch competition. The decision sparked public debate over whether it was appropriate to have children perform bashment soca songs which are often accused of being lewd. There was only one entrant in the category and it eventually had to be scrapped.
However, while a guest on Starcom Network’s Fireworks programme today, Yearwood defended the NCF’s move stressing that there is nothing wrong with young people expressing themselves in this genre.
Yearwood himself isn’t a stranger to criticism. When he first entered the calypso arena around the mid-1990s the public outrage was equally harsh with many, including fellow entertainers and radio deejays, highly critical of him “debasing” the artform by entering the preeminent calypso competition singing everything but kaiso. Songs like A Voice in My Head, which earned him the Pic-O-De-Crop title in 1995 and Something Greater the following year were both criticised as so-called rhythm and blues.
The five-time Party Monarch king also highlighted the perceived hypocrisy of the outrage to the show’s host Ronnie Clarke, as he drew similarities between the lyrics of some authentic calypsos and bashment soca.
“In calypso, there are a few with lyrical content that makes all of us drop our mouths open like, ‘wow, did he actually sing that?’ Yearwood quipped as he pointed to Clarke as one such person.
Clarke has never shied away from songs with controversial lyrics like Boxy Theology and Reading For Pleasure to name a few.
Yearwood continued: “I think at the end of the day it is all about expression. It’s what today’s artistes are feeling. I remember there were calypsonians when I started, when I got into the whole soca and calypso arena who threatened to retire and all because they thought I was mashing up the artform. . . .Things will change and we all will not necessarily accept it but it is right. If you have people being able to express themselves there is nothing wrong with that. It is here. I have no problem at all with bashment soca – not one problem.”
“At the end of the day just leave people to express themselves. I think that you [should] help people to harness their skills in this particular genre, there are very creative guys, and we all just need to get together and share ideas– this belongs to now,” he emphasized. (KC)
