Hosay david rudder biography

November 2015


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It is a living vibration / Rooted deep within my Caribbean belly.
Lyrics to make a politician cringe / And turn a woman’s body into jelly.

-Calypso Music,David Rudder

David Michael Rudder’s unique blend of calypso, pop, jazz, blues heavily influenced by the Shango rhythms of his childhood, transcends boundaries of genre, culture, ethnicity, language and geography. His lyrics have so captured the essence of what it means to be Trinidadian, Tobagonian, Caribbean, human – that many of his songs have become unofficial anthems across the region and resonate with audiences near and far.

He grew up in Belmont and began singing with a group called The Solutions when he was 11 years old. As a young man he worked as an accountant during the day while moonlighting as a back-up singer at Lord Kitchener’s Calypso Revue tent. In 1977, at age 24, he joined the popular band, Charlie’s Roots and in 1986 his solo career started with a bang when he released his first album, The Hammer, which contained what are now calypso classics: The Hammer and Bahia Gyal. The following year he issued another classic, Calypso Music and in 1998 came the Haiti album featuring the haunting song of the same name and the cricket anthem, Rally ’Round the West Indies.

David Rudder made history in 1986 by winning almost every calypso competition that season: the Young King title, National Calypso Monarch, the Road March and Panorama. By his own account, it was after he won the Calypso Monarch crown that none other than the Mighty Sparrow gave him a new name – King David. Since then the awards and accolades – locally and abroad – have continued to flow like water.

In 1992, now Professor Emeritus, Gordon Rohlehr heralded Rudder as “A Mighty Poet of a Shallow People in a Savage Time.” In songs such as Another Day in Paradise, Hosay and High Mas, to name just a few, David Rudder has used his music to hold up a mirror to Trinidad and Tobago soci

Q: Archbishop J, why a National Day of Prayer on August 2nd?

Democracy did not come easy to us. It took a long time for us to earn it, and a long time to understand its demands. And it will take time to evolve a mature democracy that best represents and reflects our multicultural, multi-ethnic and multireligious society.

On August 2, 2020, we gather as one people to pray and to thank God that we are a democratic nation.

The religious leaders who asked for this day of prayer recognise that our democracy was fundamentally challenged between July 27 and August 2, 1990. We understand the attempted coup was a violation of the sanctuary of democracy—our Parliament.

It was a significant loss of innocence to our young nation. The shooting of a prime minister, the hostages held at Parliament, at Radio Trinidad and Trinidad and Tobago Television, and the 24 people who lost their lives were a significant price to pay for democracy.

We did not want this event to pass unnoticed, without a national response, without national consciousness, or without the memory!

Memory

Memory plays a key role in the life of a nation. Without it, we repeat the same mistakes over and over. To recall past events of national significance and to ponder them deeply assist us in making better choices in the present moment and in the future.

The events of 1990 were immortalised in David Rudder’s song ‘Hoosay’. The song brings to mind the Hosay festival where the Muslim community gathers people of all ethnicities and religions in a street festival that brings unity.

This festival is contrasted with the attempted coup of 1990. In its raw fourth verse Rudder says:

Not in this house, not in this Garden of Eden

Oh, how we danced to the beat of this lovely lie, lovely life

Until a man opened a door and showed us our other side

And all our Mecca’d illusions walked right on by

Now Trini know what is Uzi diplomacy

Now Trini know what is SLR love

In ah these troubled times under the stars

Deb­bie Ja­cob

The lights blinked off in the Sa­van­nah stage and the crowd roared when a pic­ture of the late, great pan­man Rudolph Charles beamed on­to the gi­ant screen. When the lights flashed back on,David Rud­der raised his arm, clenched his foot and de­liv­ered The Ham­mer. And still there was one more weapon in that 1986 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals: the Bahia Gyul com­ing to life through Rud­der's Bap­tist chant. Ear­ly Di­manche Gras morn­ing, Rud­der walked away from Car­ni­val 1986 as the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch. He would be­come Road March King. He was al­ready the Young King. Ca­lyp­so con­nois­seurs knew they had wit­nessed a defin­ing point in ca­lyp­so his­to­ry.Look­ing back on those achieve­ments of 1986, Rud­der re­alis­es the strong re­ac­tions it evoked that Car­ni­val.

"Peo­ple were pulled all over the place...I re­mem­ber the morn­ing of the show, my moth­er went to a shop and the shop­keep­er was telling some­one there was a Bel­mont boy in the show. That guy in the shop said, 'Rud­der will come last.' That was mag­ic for me. Gen­er­al­ly, I don't feel pres­sure, but com­ments like that meant I felt even more re­laxed," says Rud­der. "Be­cause there were no ex­pec­ta­tions. No one thought I could win. I went to the Sa­van­nah that night, and I felt no pres­sure."Rud­der was ac­cus­tomed to work­ing the stage. As the co-lead singer of Char­lie's Roots (along with Christo­pher "Tam­bu" Her­bert), he was tread­ing on new ter­ri­to­ry in the Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals.

"The stage was like sec­ond na­ture to me. That's why I didn't put any girl or prop on stage. I want­ed to stand there and make peo­ple feel that Bahia gyul in their minds. I re­mem­ber when Gary Dore (who or­gan­ised the stage pre­sen­ta­tion in the Sa­van­nah) had said to me the on­ly per­son to have ever con­trolled that stage was Shad­ow. He just walked in a cir­cle. I want­ed that k

by Gerry Kangalee
published with the expressed permission of the author

© 2011 When Steel Talks - All Rights Reserved

A When Steel Talks Exclusive

“Out of pain this culture was born”

(David Rudder)

The above quote from David Rudder’s kaiso, Dedication, a magnificent Praise Song to Pan, sets the scene for understanding how and why Pan arose and developed. The story of Pan is a narrative of pain and of triumph. It is a story of the fierce contestation taking place in the cultural gayelle between the Canboulay (Cannes Brûlées) and the Mardi Gras – a reflection of the class struggle that has raged from the post-Cédula genesis of modern Trinidad and that is still raging today. It is a discourse on the playing out of the contradiction between oppression and resistance, which is at the heart of West Indian history. A lot of grand claims for a humble instrument/movement created by a class of down-pressed yet resilient survivors!

Out of the pain of slavery, indentureship, colonialism and imperialism and through continuing resistance to the causes of that pain, the working class in a tiny polyglot island in the Southern Caribbean created and shaped a culture central to which is this transcendent phenomenon called Pan - at once an instrument and a movement. The story of Pan, therefore, is a story of a movement of people up from forced labour, through colonialism and the false dawn of petty bourgeois nationalism toward genuine emancipation/human liberation.

The foundations of modern Trinidad were laid in 1777 when a moribund Spanish empire, unable to defend itself against the predations of the British in the Caribbean, moved to settle Trinidad (the gateway to South America) which had been a colonial backwater for three hundred years. Unlike the rest of the now Anglophone Caribbean which