Peter "Adonijah" Alleyne: Coming Again

I FELT IT coming, for quite a while.

There’s no doubt about it, competition, for me at least, stifles appreciation of others’ work, and that’s not healthy. And come on, it’s crazy to judge art! Can you see anyone lining up a Picasso and a Van Gogh and saying which is definitively better? Ahhhhmmm, not really.

So this year, free from the chains of competition, my music is different. As a journalist, creative writer, and writer of musical lyrics, words are my tools. So spoken word, as in “Yuh Tink We Foolish,” was particularly appealing this time around. No need to think about melody, just words. Cool! The fact that the words are sharp made it even more important for there to be no diversion—just words.

This means that the orchestration had to be different as well. As much as I love the full orchestral sound, which is expected in songs for the Pic-o-de-Crop calypso competition, a less smooth sound was required—tuk!

The sound of calypso, or at least popular calypso/soca, has changed. Year after year, I have listened and watched while some very good up-tempo songs with the traditional brass orchestration have had absolutely no traction across the board on the dance floor. Most of the popular songs have been synthesizer-based, without the traditional phrasing.

So veterans like me have a choice to make. Do we stick with what we have practised for over three decades and be satisfied with minimal rotation on the radio, or do we go with a current sound?

Having no desire to be a dinosaur, for me the choice has been easy this year. In both my releases, the other being “Ah Coming Again,” synthesizer, drum and bass are the centre of the songs. The traditional band introduction, verse, chorus, then band introduction are not present.

And no, it’s not about trying to be a “young boy.” The creaking from my joints on mornings rules that out. It’s about choosing to be current rather that consciously producing music that I know will be sidelined. Producing music is a costly enterprise, and it doesn’t make sense to me to pay to be forgotten.