Music producer and composer Andrew Dorsett says young people are not to blame for Calypso's declining popularity — the music, he argues, has simply failed to reach them.
According to Antigua Observer, Dorsett made the remarks during a recent interview, asserting that Antigua and Barbuda has no shortage of talented young musicians, but that a drop in the quality of Calypso has left the genre with little to attract them. Dorsett, who trained at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, is the driving force behind the Calypso 2030 initiative, a programme launched to revitalise and preserve the art form.
"We have an amazing number of talented young people in Antigua. We see it in the different bands. We see it in gospel music. We see it in all the different genres. We don't think a lot of them realise how significant and how sophisticated Calypso is because the quality has waned. So there's nothing musically attractive to most of it," Dorsett said.
He also pointed to structural failings within the industry as a barrier to growth, suggesting that even veteran Calypsonians would be open to evolving their craft if the incentive existed.
"I think anyone would be open to evolving and improving their craft if they see the point of doing it. I think the structure that is in place now doesn't really care. Let's be honest. I mean, Calypso is what it is, but it's not at the forefront of our creative output. So there's no incentive to really go all in," he said.
Dorsett argued that the path forward lies in affording Calypso the same cultural reverence given to steel pan and classical music — art forms that endure despite offering limited financial reward to their practitioners.
"We have to put things in place that make it attractive to younger people. That's another thing we have to do, and eventually they will appreciate it, just like they appreciate pan, just like they appreciate classical music," he said.
Dorsett added that building that level of respect for the genre will require deliberate, coordinated effort from government, philanthropists, and artists alike.
