Chantwell

The weird, off-beat music known as "calypso" is played in all the English-speaking islands of the Caribbean, but the place to hear it at its best is in Trinidad, where it originated. Every year the calypso singers, or "chantwells," as they are called, hold a "war" to decide the championship. The singer whose songs are judged best by popular acclaim becomes "king" for the year.

Calypso began with the "chantwells." These were slaves who entertained plantation owners in colonial times. The chantwells made up songs about the people they knew and the things that happened to them.

Calypso has, however, been linked to the kalinda, to which stick-fighters chanted and fought. The chantwell, or lead singers, of the stick-fighting groups functioned as social commentator and haranguer and so may be considered very early calypsonians. The chantwells, however, were thought to possess supernatural powers, and so their pronouncements of the injury the opponent would receive were taken seriously.

Subaltern jamette women predominated as the chantuelle, the singers of topical song, who led bands of people in Canboulay rituals, including kalinda (stick-fighters). The chantuelle were the forerunners of the predominantly male calypso artists who emerged as popular singers in the twentieth century.