From Reuters.com ( edited by this blog)
By Neil Marks
GEORGETOWN | Fri Mar 1, 2013 5:36pm EST
(Reuters) - Mash Calypso lyrics decrying corruption and excess have so irked Guyana's government that new songs from the popular Caribbean music genre have been banned from state airwaves.
But the politically spicy lyrics of some recent songs have been too much for the government. Staff at the government-run National Communications Network, or NCN, received a directive this week prohibiting the broadcast of new calypso songs.
Public Works Minister Robeson Benn was so angry at one tune on NCN radio that he drove down to the station himself "to find out what the hell was going on," an official spokesman said.
One of the calypsos that offended authorities blasts the government's corruption record.
"With all de corruption dat taking place, we is de ones fe (they) blame, while dem a thief, thief, thief," the song, which won a local competition, goes in the local creole language.
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| Lester Charles 2013 Mash Monarch |
"Calypso lyrics are spicy," said the piece's singer, Lester Charles. "Either you laugh your head off or it get you real vex."
Six-time national calypso champion Geoffrey Phillips, who goes by the stage name of "The Mighty Rebel," described the state media ban as "petty and disgusting."
"Calypsos are the spirit and passion of the people," he said. "If we are being forced to tone down, then calypso would lose its soul."
(Writing by Girish Gupta, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Peter Cooney)
Mash 2013 in photos
Sponsored by A Portrait of Hope and Peace-- The Message to the world by Surinamese Young People at AlphaMax Academy.
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