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Wit and popular music: the calypso and the blues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Cynthia Mahabir
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Abstract

Calypso is an art form that laughs at pain. That's the way we deal with our blues. We begin to heal ourselves immediately, through our culture and our music.' (David Rudder, Trinidad, New York Times, 31 March 1991)

When you see me laughin', I'm laughin' to keep from cryin', but the laughter of these songs, implicit or overt, as often as not absorbs the tears.' (Langston Hughes 1966, p. 97)

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , January 1996 , pp. 55 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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