Author: Dara Healy

Carnival Origins Dara E Healy “Some of them competed at the Trinidad Calypso and Musicians Advertising Association tent in Nelson Street late in January (1939), in a competition organised by the Carnival Improvement Committee…Ras Kassa won the first prize of $10 for Unemployment, Invader was second with Education and received $5, while Growler earned the […]

Carnival Origins Dara E Healy “By the 1920s the calypso tent was born. It marked the withdrawal of the calypsonian from the streets to the concert stage. It meant the beginning of a new role for the calypsonian: the advent of the professional singer.” – Hollis Liverpool, Rituals of Power and Rebellion MUSIC AND song […]

Dara E Healy Jean: “What make you feel that you better than the rest of us? After all these years, insisting that you never make a fares yet. Everybody does laugh at you with that sh-t Dinah. Everybody know that between you, Winnie, Alice Sugar, Isahoe too and even Big Six, allyuh probably make the […]

Dara Healy   “I heard a tap on the glass…I could see the barrel of the gun close to the window. I can see the eyes of the person who was holding it…he could have fired at any moment. I screamed and to explain to you how these thoughts came together, thousands of them at […]

Dara E Healy “…in my journey I would realise why our Obeah is so strong, what was our Obeah – our mask and our masking. Masking as the implementing of self, and manifestations of self, masking as a stage of manifestations. How we see ourselves, what we communicate with, how we view our source, our […]

Dara E Healy Music is the atmosphere Sweet music is everywhere Even in the back, in the dark, a blind man can find a melody Music fills the world with happiness Plenty sweetness and togetherness Music have no friends or enemies Everybody could dingolay Dingolay! – Mighty Shadow, Dingolay HIS JOY while he was playing […]

A traditional mas Christmas Dara E Healy “I am the Pierrot With word skills fuh so I am an orator from long ago And bonjay, I could fight too! Me and my band of pierrot Claim we space We defy colonial masters And take over the place With we bois and speech We safeguard we […]

Dara E Healy A traditional mas Christmas “Oh ho! Don’t play you didn’t know I am a pierrot, like the griot from long ago They say I am French, but only in name My clothing and speech are from Africa I proclaim! From the Yoruba came the strips of cloth In honour of the egungun […]

Dara E Healy “He walks on extraordinarily long wooden legs and because of this enormous height is a magnificent, stately floating presence, high up in the sky…African griots expounded tales of these tall statuesque figures literally floating, in the dead of night, through darkened villages and forests as the symbol of an avenger to those […]