BRUTALITY NOT THE ANSWER

She made the comments during her full length concert SoCalypso held on Friday night at the Grand Stand, Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain.

The topic of domestic was introduced while Rose was performing her song Abatina from her album Far From Home which copped a Victoires de la Musique award World Album of the Year, the French version of the Grammy Awards. Abatina is about a woman who is beaten and eventually killed by her husband.

During her performance Rose simulated being beaten with fake punches and kicks. She also spoke as the abuser to the victim and said “put the phone down”, “shut up” and “go to your room”. At one point she just said the word “brutality”.

She then spoke directly to the audience which included Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley who had received praise from some quarters and criticism from others for his comment about domestic violence at a public meeting in Maloney where he said he was not in women’s bedrooms and they needed to be careful about choosing their partners.

Rose said: “Guys never put your hands on your wife or girlfriend.

Respect them. Because (of) your mother. You came from a woman.

Brutality is never the answer.” She then had a nugget of advice for women and told them “never marry a man for money like Donald Trump”.

Rose’s hit for 2017, Leave Me Alone has become the rallying cry of the eponymous LeaveMeAlone/ LeaveSheAlone anti-gender based violence campaign. During her performance of the song the members of the campaign joined her on stage wearing T-shirts with the slogan “leave me alone”, or “leave her alone” for men. One of the founding members is former Miss TT Universe, fashion designer and entrepreneur Anya Ayoung-Chee and she led the group on stage as they danced, pumped their fists and chanted the slogan.

In a release yesterday, the group said the presentation, a collaboration between artist collective TogetherWI and anti-gender discrimination and gender-based violence group Say Something, was meant to bring attention to gender-based violence within the Carnival space.

“During the performance on Carnival Friday night, the group celebrated the ownership of a woman’s space, within the Carnival space as well as beyond that.

The song and campaign symbolise that claiming of a woman’s space without inciting violence against men. Calypso Rose has given the group the blessing to use this song as the mantra of this awareness of this campaign, and to close the show with her on stage,” the release stated.

“As far back as Camboulay, the celebration of Carnival is about freedom from oppression and the message of both the song and campaign are to to leave others to be as they choose. It is particularly relevant within the context of Carnival because the festival symbolises freedom of expression, but also pays homage to Calypso Rose who exemplifies the artform of calypso as a woman staking claim within that musical space.” TogetherWI, the “WI” standing for West Indies, is a collective of artists and creatives “who have dedicated themselves to re-imaging and re-imagining our region and by extension our world through the power of their work”.

The LeaveMeAlone/LeaveSheAlone campaign is the group’s first, in partnership with CariMan and Say Something.

“Ultimately the music exemplifies the spirit of carnival and so the message expressed here becomes even more poignant at this time of year. The song became popular during the formation of TogetherWI, and so the collective and its first project took shape at the same time,” the release explained.

The group began on February 1 and the LeaveMeAlone campaign was launched on February 14.

The group, the release explained, is a collective of creatives “initiating change in our society, one poster, T-shirt, video, photo, song, conversation at a time” and added that TogetherWI believe “art is a crucial part of creating social change”.

On February 5, Jamilia DeReveneaux, 27, reportedly received a phone call and left her place of work at the Mandiero’s Peri Peri Grill at MovieTowne at about 8.15 pm. Minutes later, after loud screams were heard, she was discovered dead with her throat slit. A 30 year-old man, Matthew King, is currently before the court for her murder and DeRevenaux is one of a number of women who have been killed in the past few months.