By Mel Cooke, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
AFTER THE Happy Smilers had put a grin on the faces of the large audience at the Devon House East Lawn, Hope Road St. Andrew, last Saturday, Charles Hyatt put the performance in larger perspective.
"An if a hear one a oonu go outa street an talk bout dancehall again! Yu see where it coming from? The music of dancehall today go right back to them days. Not just the lyrics. Where yu tink Lady Saw get it from?" he demanded.
The Happy Smilers opened 'Mento in May', an Institute of Jamaica production with a bang, literally and somewhat figuratively, with the Jolly Boys, Freedom Mento Band and Rod Dennis Mento Band following in that order. Among the songs that got the audience going were raunchy numbers Love In The Cemetery and Big Bamboo, gales of laughter greeting lines such as Chiney man wife divorce him quick, she want the bamboo not the chopstick.
'Maas Charlie' Hyatt was in sparkling form as he traced the roots of mento. "We know where it come from. It come from de Jamaican language dat we talk. It come from Africa, it come from Europe, it come from Latin America. Because we could not talk our language; dem forbid us to talk it. They said 'learn our language'," he said of the former masters.
Saying that the Bible was used as the primary tool of teaching English, Mr. Hyatt said "It made Jamaica Christian all of a sudden. As a result, any illiterate persons today can quote the Bible. My grandmother could not read, but don't mess with har Bible. If yu misquote, she correc' yu."
Illustrating the simplicity of Jamaican language, Charles Hyatt used hand and 'and' and their various uses in Jamaican language. "Whether yu talking about hand or and is just and. It jus' depend where yu put it in the sentence. 'An him tek di stick an in lick me pan me an'," he illustrated, to the audience's amusement.
Moving from speech to song, he said "since de boss man don't like when we use our language, me jus sing a song". De boss man is a bitch, di boss man is a bitch, di boss man is a bitch, when him using the whip, Mr. Hyatt demonstrated. "And since de boss man jus' hear di harmony..."
"Yu stan up an' singing an' cussing him an' him lissen an' him clap. An' him sey (Hyatt switches to accent and all) 'you know what we should do, we should take out the best voices and form a choir'. So at Crop Over they got all their friends over - but the buggy driver know what dem was singing," Mr. Hyatt said.
The buggy drivers then went back to the estates and said that "This is the way to do it!" Then, Mr. Hyatt said, choirs and music groups sprung up all over the place, a tradition that has continued to their day and been formalised in a music industry.
"So our music has been travelling a long, long way to get here," Charles Hyatt said.
In concluding that research has to be done into the Jamaican language and music, Mr. Hyatt said "...We are an oral people, and there is nothing to be ashamed of, because a book that stays on the shelf informs nobody."
Then, when the applause died down, he introduced the Jolly Boys.
