9788: Re: 9747: T-Vice vs Sweet Mickey (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Gage Averill <gage.averill@nyu.edu>

The T-Vice and Sweet Mickey is just one more of these diadic competitions
(Nemours & Sicot, DP and Scorpio, etc. ) that have motivated partisan
audience participation at Haitian carnival for the last five decades,
something that I've spent some time analyzing.   Of course, there's
something about the competitiveness of carnival that brings this out.  The
competition between major recording/carnival stars becomes a kind of
pop-cultural extension of the sometimes violent competition between
neighborhood bands and their supporters.   But the structured competitions
(for best mereng kanaval) add fuel to the fire, with every band wanting to
take away that year's prize (or claim that the jury was rigged).  But in
the aftermath of the early Nemours-Sicot polemic, commercial musicians
realize that there is nothing that can sell albums or bring out crowds like
a good controversy between two groups.  As a result, bands will often
provoke these kinds of fights in order to heighten fan allegiance.
(Phantoms v. Zin, Skah Shah vs. Tabou Combo and anon).  I remember one
carnival song where a band mocked the drug addiction of another band's
former lead singer!

Anyway, this is just to put the current polemic into more of a historical
context.

Gage

Gage Averill, Chair
Department of Music
New York University
24 Waverly Pl., Rm. 268
New York, NY 10003-6789
(212) 998-8302 (bus)
(212) 995-4147 (fax)
e-mail: gage.averill@nyu.edu


	NYU Music Department: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/music/