If you are going to talk the talk, you must walk the walk.
This is the message a veteran Crop Over bandleader is sending to governments which say they are going to walk a mile in the masqueraders’ shoes but at the end of journey, it’s only the bandleaders who are crying out for cramp.
Trevor Chase, of the Grand Kadooment band Ooutrage was speaking to the DAILY NATION after he was asked to give his views on the outcome of a recent post-mortem on Kadooment that the bandleaders had with officials of the National Cultural Foundation.
“Governments and ministers of culture come and go and everyone thinks that it just another festival,” Chase said. “I beg to differ, as I said to them on countless occasions, as a customs broker I see other persons get duty-free concessions from Government. I therefore think everyone of the bandleaders who have paid their dues should be afforded that privilege [of concessions].
“You come and build Bushy Park in one single year and everybody has duty-free concessions; and I challenge you to tell me that Bushy Park does more than Crop Over. There is no way that Bushy Park can bring in the kind of personnel to generate the kind of interest.”
