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While
I have always nurtured utmost respect for Andre
Tanker as an artiste and performer the mention
of his name along with the indomitable Lancelot
‘Kibu’ Layne, by Mr. Clyde Weatherhead on radio
Eye 95.5 fm, during this week of commemoration
of Emancipation, gave a fillip to my affliction
of writer’s cramp. Lancelot, without question,
deserves an article by himself. Although as an
‘importee’, I may not be deemed the appropriate
person to express thoughts about such a notable
and esteemed cultural luminary as Andre Tanker,
my unwavering and resolute compulsion with the
artform of kaiso, calypso, soca, rapso, pan and
their tangential and myriad relations certainly
render me capable, if not qualified. Over twenty
years ago, I attended a concert with Andre and
his Contraband at Little Carib and was
thoroughly mesmerised by the performance of Gail
McClean singing Morena Osha, a song which has
captured my heart. I never had the good fortune
to meet or obtain an autograph from Andre
Tanker, but have always believed that he had a
deep-seated, trenchant consciousness which
resonated without and within. A quiet
consciousness which I firmly believe that
Trinidadians, (not Tobagonians), never realised
and even worse, fail to recognise. I always
remember the words uttered by Arthur Ashe’s wife
when required to speak about him at a public
forum after his death. She simply and
effectively stated, “He was in private
exactly what he portrayed in public”. How
few of us can boast of this wholeness and
completeness of self. I verily believe, without
empirical evidence as required by the
academics, that this profound statement is
what epitomised Andre Tanker as well!! I do
respect the right of Mrs. Christine Tanker, and
cultural archivists like Keith Smith and Peter
Ray Blood to either lend credence or correction
to this facile analysis.
Somehow at times like these, the unconquerable
spirit of such artistes comes alive. And his
measure can be seen when a ‘youthful’ group as
3-Canal could collaborate with Andre to create
the magnetism of Ben Lion as recent as 2003.
And on a personal note, I do trust that for so
many of us those powerfully magnetic words “I
went away, I leave and I forward home…”
carry a meaning beyond words.
T(h)ANKS
for the mystical music and the memories!!!
Dianne Marshall-Holdip
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