Come again, Farmer Nappy

This week’s column offers three responses to Farmer Nappy’s Hookin’ Meh 2019 soca hit that is taking the carnival season by storm. Hinds’ article appeared in Barbados Today on February 1st, and Hosein’s column was carried in the Trinidad Guardian on February 12th. We carry both, along with an introductory comment by Roberta Clarke. Roberta Clarke is a human rights and social justice activist. Marsha Hinds is a lecturer at the University of the West Indies, public relations officer of the Barbados National Organization of Women. Gabrielle Hosein is a Lecturer at the University of the West Indies, and also writes a column in Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.

The 2019 soca song by Farmer Nappy, ‘Hookin Meh’, has caused a stir for those who are unable to ignore the messages embedded in so much of Caribbean music. Soca music is dominated by men, both front and back of mic and stage. And a particular view of women’s instrumentality to men’s happiness - all carnal, whether on the dance floor, bed or in the kitchen is a dominant theme. There is little popular soca that is romantic, evoking a kind, tender, giving, sensual love and enjoyment between people whatever their gender identity and sexual orientation.

Instead, we are treated, annually, to a diet of limited words and meanings- jump, wave, wine, bumper, rollback, possession, and also a recurring fantasy of the man who can jam all night long.

We feminists want to resist this music but can find it hard when sexism comes wrapped up in irrepressible rhythms. Soca is quintessentially happy music. And so we move to the melody or powerful rhythm, singing chorus and verse, and staving off that left brain which wants to do social analysis. It’s like Johnny King sang in ‘Wet Me Down’:

Seriousness does make me guilty The message is I don’t care

When I drinking Vat, Whiskey and Beer

Trinidadian mas makers intend to free up at carnival time. To free up, the body and mind have to be in consonancethe mind should be kind of empty to allow the body to flow to all the vibes. When the mind reasserts itself and is engaged outside the rhythm, it can be hard to enjoy a lot of soca – for its gender stereotyping, for the limits of lyrical and intellectual content and for the narrow scope of themes.

And so once again, we are frustrated that soca is not capturing the changes in gender relations for which feminists are working. Farmer Nappy’s hit is about a man refusing to accept the end of a relationship, begging and putting the responsibility on the woman to explain how she could be so good for him yet not want him.

Marsha Hinds Layne finds the song evocative of unequal power relations. It speaks to some men’s impulse to control women, to resist taking no for an answer. It promotes an insistent intrusion on women’s autonomy. She has some support. But others wonder what the fuss is about. After all, when one party wants to call it a day and the other does not want that, begging back, refusing to go, is a predictable first response.

In time for Valentine’s Day, Gabrielle Hosein questions Farmer Nappy’s incomprehension with his partner’s decision. Instead of telling her how good she is for him, should he not be telling her how good he is for her? How is he present to be an equal partner? Does he share the tasks of the household? Is he an engaged father and an attentive partner? And how come he was unable to pick up clues that his wife had had enough of him? Why is he so dotish, in other words?

Both writers raise questions that we must address in promoting healthy, emotionally intelligent relationships between boys and girls, women and men. The feminist saying that ‘the personal is political’ means that all individual choices and actions have meaning and contribute in ways, major and minor, to cultural norms and power structures. We will never be able to transform social relations in politics, in the workplace, in faith institutions, on the sports field or in communities, if intimate and familial relationships between women and men remain unreconstructed with men taking for granted and taking advantage of women’s work and bodies.

Popular culture matters. That is what both Marsha and Gabrielle are articulating. Let’s engage with that instead of telling them, ‘steupps, your timing off. Iz just a song. You too serious!’

I was thinking about all of that as I was swept up with the crowd singing along with the fantastic Renegades steelband rendition of Hooking Meh: “You pack all meh clothes in a garbage bag Baby don’t do me that, you go break my heart’. **

Part II – Marsha Hinds

Sometimes – scratch sometimes – advocacy in the women’s and girls’ space is always lonely, painstaking and melancholy work. The frustrations are many; there are people who seem to thrive on perpetually misunderstanding and misrepresenting what women are fighting for. Most disappointing and confusing of all though, are the women who remain deeply invested in patriarchy.

Trinidad Carnival is gearing up and the music sweet as ever. One song has struck a chord with me though, and it is not for good reasons. Farmer Nappy has a tune called ‘Hookin Meh’ that is to be added right up there with some of the more problematic songs in the various Caribbean genres of music.

I think the most dangerous thing about the song is that it is neither ‘Ragga Ragga’ nor bashment. The sound is a mellow, methodical, sweet soca but the lyrics