<PERSON>, the Trinidadian percussionist who made African drumming a church staple, goes to his Creator · Global Voices
Trinbagonian musician <PERSON>, who died on October 15, 2021. Screenshot taken from the music video for Kutunza Uhuru (Cherish Freedom) by Mawasi Experience on YouTube, from the album of the same name. Video by <PERSON>.
Musician <PERSON>, whose fiercely original and experimental percussive style moved a nation, is being mourned by Trinidad and Tobago netizens after his death on October 15. He had been admitted to hospital on September 30, after complaining of “pain and discomfort.” A music enthusiast from childhood, when he began playing with his lifelong friend, the exemplary flautist and saxophonist <PERSON>, who passed away this past August, <PERSON> was a deeply spiritual man whose Roman Catholic faith was intertwined with every note he created. He was 63 years old.
As young men, he and <PERSON> would play at various community events—they were just as adept at disco music as they were at soca, the newly burgeoning music genre—and they gigged at many Carnival parties. In October 1980, <PERSON> founded the band Mawasi Experience, into which he poured his love for music and merged it with his purpose-based faith. Yet, according to rapso performer <PERSON>, who spoke with Global Voices by telephone, <PERSON>'s music “didn't feel heavy,” preachy or overly religious. Rather, it felt spiritual. Describing him as “a true giant of a man and the definition of a patriot,” <PERSON> remembers <PERSON> as “always being clad in red, white and black,” Trinidad and Tobago's national colours.
That unique combination of spirituality and cultural pride is an integral part of <PERSON>'s legacy. In keeping with the Second Vatican Council, which began under Pope <PERSON> in 1962 and ended under Pope <PERSON> in 1965, there was a recommendation that the church should adapt to local cultures, “including philosophical and theological adaptation.” As a result, churches in Trinidad and Tobago began to welcome the participation of folk choirs, but <PERSON> led the charge in bringing the concept of African drumming into the celebration of the Catholic mass.
Cultural activist <PERSON> said on Facebook:
I cannot even begin to fathom the battles that <PERSON> must have fought to get the African Drum & its Musics accepted by and integrated into the Catholic Church (and by osmosis-others). Also because his version of Drum Music was not neutered of African Revolutionary Sentiment and Civilisational Subversive Retentions…Yet he fought that battle-AND WON!!! He has a whole Liturgy with songs throughout the life cycle of Catholic worship. 357
He was musical director in a major Port of Spain Convent! Drums are now everywhere in the Church. African music is everywhere. And all its children are inside the Church proper…
Many fought those battles-but that's <PERSON> and the Mawasi Experience doing that heavy lifting…
In a telephone interview, <PERSON>, who began her friendship with <PERSON> as a member of the folk choir at St. Theresa's Church on the outskirts of Port of Spain, described his work as “the wholeness of the music ministry” in the local Catholic church, saying, “Our music liturgy—for me, that was <PERSON>.” She remembers him forever experimenting, making his own drums, and showing up to church with his “battery of instruments,” many of them made from local materials such as bamboo.
Of his numerous liturgical contributions, <PERSON> was probably best known for his inspired “O Creator,” a startling and spirited piece that most people heard for the first time on February 5, 1985, during then pontiff <PERSON>'s celebration of Holy Mass in Trinidad and Tobago's National Stadium as part of his apostolic journey to the Americas. Its bold and unapologetically exuberant percussive backbone was strong, joyous, and freeing, and got everyone in that stadium moving to a deeper rhythm while connecting to a higher source.
Facebook user <PERSON> called the piece “the beginning of the evolution of our liturgical music,” while <PERSON> described the experience of hearing “O Creator” as “humanity attempting to talk to God”:
The song was that big, oceanic, and powerful. I could not get enough of it. Nothing else mattered for its duration. There was something so Ancient and Elemental about it. Direct. Heartfelt. Monumental. And Honest. 357