Shh, Shell: It’s time for your music lesson

We Trinibagonians seem to be causing the international community no end of confusion.

The latest chapter in the ‘what shall we do with these islanders and their strange customs’ saga involves a familiar topic on this blog: the T&T national instrument, the steelpan.

The pan is familiar, to the avid reader of this blog, to your everyday Trinibagonian and to FIFA officials in Germany, who are trying to ban the instrument from the World Cup stadia.

Steelpan music is an integral part of Trinidad & Tobago’s carnival culture. The steelpan is the only acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century, but its origins can be traced back to the African drums played by the slaves who were brought to the islands of the West Indies. Nowadays, it is taught in schools around the world and can be heard everywhere, from rap (like 50 Cent’s PIMP) to theRamones.

Even Sepp Blatter is a fan. “Oil drum music is infectious,” he opined recently, saying also that audiences would go “wild” when exposed to our music. (Little does he know that’s all part of the plan…)

Alas, the nice people over at Shell, however, are clearly not up to speed with Trinidad’s musical heritage. A spokeswoman at the company was stunned when asked for her thoughts on with their “musical oil barrels.” Justifiably, since despite reports to the contrary, it is not the case that “history’s first steel drum” was made from an “empty barrel of tractor lubricant bearing [Shell's] distinctive clamshell insignia.”

I’m also sceptical about the claim that “Shell oil-barrel pans made between 1946 and 1967 are as renowned and desirable as the Cremonese violins of Antonio Stradivari, Nicolo Amati and Giuseppe Guarneri.”

Shell also seems to be taking credit for the very invention of the steelpan. According to the Bloomberg article, “sixty years ago, Shell bankrolled the invention of the modern pan drum.” Erm. No.

In the meanwhile, the higher-ups in the company are making lots of noises about their hygience and safety regulations, affirming that “these prevent the use of empty drums for anything but Shell oil products” and that is “against company policy” to hand drums out.

Sigh. There are some important lessons to be learnt here. In no particular order of importance:

1) If you know our history, then you will know were our Warriors are coming from
2) The world really is watching. Attention, T&T Government: please don’t waste this opportunity.
3) Corporate greed knows no bounds. Neither does Trinbagonian inventiveness.

Watch out world. The Warriors are coming - and we’re bringing our culture, our music and our propensity for bacchanal along with us.

[steelpan images courtesy Georgia Popplewell; a photo essay on pan can be found here]