On the face of it, this is unremarkable.

Williams is supremely talented, wealthy and sexy. Such women tend to marry men who are also wealthy and, if not famous in the same way, at least highly successful and admired by their peers.

So Ohanian is the kind of man you’d expect her to go for. He’s also about the same age as she is and not a bad looking guy. Therefore he ticks some more boxes. It’s not like Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch, for instance.

We men can understand what Murdoch sees in her, but not necessarily what she sees in him.

When Hall’s track record includes a pop icon, Mick Jagger, what can she possibly find seductive about a controversial newspaper publisher? There’s money and power, of course, the twin magnets that have been getting non-studly men laid since the dawn of time, but surely Hall has enough of those things herself.

The case of Serena and Alexis is different, though. The objections to this proposed union come from one particular sector: black men.

Black men who don’t want “their” women being tampered with by non-black men.

This is profoundly hypocritical.

If the boot was on the other foot the world would be outraged, because there’s a six-letter word that sums it up, gentlemen. It starts with r and ends with m, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

To make an obvious comparison with the Williams/Ohanian issue, how about Kanye West and Kim Kardashian? Her gene pool may be a bewildering cocktail of nationalities from Dutch and English to Armenian, but black she ain’t.

West, on the other hand, is a typical 21st century African American success story. He is unmistakably, dark-skinnedly African and operating in a musical genre that owes little to non-whites. If the black world has to insist on seeing itself as “the black world”, West symbolizes the rise from the downtrodden days and the development of a worldwide culture that is largely defined by the colour of someone’s skin. But don’t objections to discrimination argue against that very thing? And now you’re offended by the fact that one of your most prominent women, a world leader in her field, is marrying a white man? How can that relationship be negative? Of course there has been – and still is in some places – racism directed against black people, but, as this column has pointed out before, that sort of thing is not solved by tit-for-tat. While resentment is hardly in the same category as violence and murder – and may indeed be fuelled by such things – it lays a sinister foundation on which extremists can build.

The way the world is going these days, with lessons of previous horrors of ethnic cleansing from Nazi Germany to Bosnia and Rwanda to Iraq being forgotten as every group stands up for itself, we’re in danger of finding ourselves with a global conflict that is not country against country or religion against religion, but colour against colour.

Racial integration has been progressing slowly but surely in many countries. Look at all the black players in world football.

Those emerging from Africa may be “pure” black, but in the English Premier League, for instance, many of the home-grown players are now mixed-race. This is progress. It is not just desirable but essential.

But they’re not usually referred to as mixed-race: they’re called black players because some of their genes are black. It’s the same with Barack Obama. We are coming to the end of the first black presidency of the USA. But have you ever seen a picture of his mother? Look up Ann Dunham and you’ll see someone who looks like a librarian in a quiet English village, whose nextdoor neighbour is Miss Marple.

She was as white as a movie star’s teeth. Her husband, Barack Obama senior, was from Kenya, and from their marriage, their border-crossing love, came a president who ran the country with perceptiveness and compassion.

We might not agree with everything he did, but to dismiss him as not black enough – as some have – is as bad as the whites who dismiss on racial grounds his wife, a woman as beautiful, intelligent and charismatic as ever graced the world stage.

The Obamas are proof that integration can work.

Serena Williams? She’s coming towards retirement after a glorious era as the world’s best female tennis player. And just like any other woman, she has the right to marry whoever makes her happy.

And yes, I’m a little peeved that she didn’t choose me, but then we’ve never met, so she doesn’t know what she’s missing, does she?

People like us, the poor and middle class in society; we want to see the economy improve; we want corruption to end, and we would like nothing better than to see crime plummet, but there are also many people with influence and affluence who thrive in this environment as they prey on our fears and exploit our insecurities for huge financial gain.

First on this list is what I call ‘Security Police’. These are members of the TTPS who take “protection money” from business people to keep them safe from criminal elements seeking to rob or do them harm. Instead of doing their jobs as members of the service, they use that same status on government time to park outside of business places at closing time for a fee, serve as private bodyguards while on duty, moonlight as bouncers at clubs and security officers at stores, and many have senior positions at security firms because without that ‘police link’, applications for precepts sit on a desk for months upon months at the Police Administration Building until a bribe is paid.

Second on the list, and competing with ‘Security Police’, are security firms. Security firms are on every street corner; the vast majority of which are not registered with the Ministry of National Security as required, nor are they even registered as businesses at the Ministry of Legal Affairs. Security firms are profiting from fear because even the smallest business person sees the need for a security presence, although the person may be unarmed and standing idly in a corner daydreaming. We even have former ministers of national security with significant ownership interests in security firms; how does a person benefiting from high crime rates convince us that he can ‘rid the country of crime’? Maybe now you understand why they were so incompetent.

Third up is one of the country’s most popular security firms.

This security firm has somehow managed to hold on to its exclusive multi-million dollar contract to transport prisoners. Security firms like this have significant influence and with them raking in millions of tax payers’ dollars, do not expect them to be vanguards for better prisons with video hearings and a system focused on restorative justice. The link between crime and benefits for this company is a direct one.

There is probably no company in the country happier about crime than this one.

Fourthly, lawyers abuse the process in courts and judges allow it without any resistance.

When some lawyers represent clients, they are not interested in getting justice; all they do is calculate how long and how much.

Simple criminal offences get dragged on for years by incompetent and crooked lawyers, aided by their equals on the bench and protected by a Law Association that is on the same level as the Police Service Social and Welfare Association. Many of these crooks exploit the flaws in our system and get rich off of crime; there is an evident correlation between increased crime and the size of their bank accounts.

Fifth on this list are the many business people who not only thrive on crime in several different ways, but they spearhead the whole operation. There are those, who, on top of ripping off customers in order to live their lavish lifestyles, facilitate the importation of drugs and guns into our country with their goods, and then they ship the drugs out, while the guns remain. These are the “big fish” that no one seems to be willing to catch because for those sitting in Parliament, financing during elections is much more important than the safety of society. Car dealers also benefit from crime as so many people, especially females, are now fearful of travelling anywhere. And if you purchase one of those ‘hot cars,’ the man who installs car alarms and GPS systems is licking his chops waiting on you to show up at his business place.

Last, but by no means least, are our politicians. Crime is the most pressing issue in our country and each election cycle, we are fed lies as to how the opposition would deal with crime better than the incumbent government. Dealing with crime is the best election message and they all sit in opposition hoping for the government to fail in that department so they could fool the foolish once more into believing anything they tell them at election time. Unfortunately, even the foolish are gaining knowledge and it is going to be much more difficult in 2020.

So, the next time you wonder why the government is not doing anything to alleviate crime, remind yourself that money talks.

j amille85@ msn.com

The year 2016 seems to have prompted several such insights. The outcome of the Brexit referendum in the UK surprised many, revealing disparities of views between regions and between age groups, which then prompted deeper analysis of the forces at work in British society.

Similarly, the election of Donald Trump defied the polls and caused analysts to try to understand what has been happening in American society and the differing views as between the east and west coasts and Middle America on immigration, America’s role in world affairs, the preservation of the environment, and the impact of climate change.

Perhaps the most significant epiphany is that globalisation has deleterious effects.

While it is true that across the world as a whole, fewer people are now living in dire poverty, it is also true that inequality has worsened within nations and among nations. It is also true that older workers who have lost jobs due to technological change, to immigrants, or to workers overseas – have found it difficult to adjust easily and find new employment.

Their expectations for themselves and for their children have been denied or badly dented.

It has not helped that the workers who have taken their jobs are not like them, adding a layer of ethnic tension, racial and religious intolerance, and xenophobia, on which Donald Trump and the British ‘Leave’ campaign were able to capitalise. It is surprising that many people have been surprised by these outcomes. The Catholic Church, through various papal encyclicals over the years, has decried unbridled capitalism and unregulated markets.

Most recently, Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium pointed out that trickle-down economics would not promote greater justice and inclusiveness. Pope Francis also spoke about the ‘globalisation of indifference’, a syndrome whereby we, caught up in the pursuit of wealth, become incapable of compassion, unmoved by the deprived lives of fellow citizens at home or elsewhere.

Recall the rich man and Lazarus; his sin was not that he was rich, but that he never ‘saw’ Lazarus and therefore could not treat him with the dignity and respect which every human being deserves.

There are already calls to reverse globalisation. In the USA, the incoming administration intends to pursue a policy of ‘America First’. In Europe, the intention is to reverse the flow of migrants. New multilateral trade agreements are being abandoned. The danger here is that the ‘baby’ is thrown out with the bath water’! In the past, populism has promoted fascist or anti-democratic policies. The problem then was identified as the ‘Jews’ or the ‘Japanese’.

The problem today is identified as the ‘Mexicans’, ‘Chinese’ or ‘Muslims’ or some ‘Other’.

The real epiphany is to recognise that the crisis of globalisation and capitalism is, at its root, not really a crisis of an economic system that will be resolved by ‘socialism’ or by taxation of the rich.

It is rather a spiritual and moral crisis, where the spiritual blindness of the rich and the aspiring rich needs to be overcome so that they see others, regardless of creed or race or class, as worthy of respect and dignity who must be lifted up to realise their human potential.

The globalisation of indifference must be supplanted by a globalisation of engagement and love of neighbour.

It appears as if they, that is the Government side, are either going through a period of forced detention in Parliament, having other more important matters to conduct outside of the House or adjourning early for an after-work Friday lime on Ariapita Avenue. This is how the people’s business is being subordinated by the red and ready.

Last Friday’s much anticipated sitting of the House was shambolic. The Minister of Finance apparently having been forced against his will, and shall I say against his political judgement that is a recurring rarity, reluctantly moved a motion to remove FATCA from the remit of the House Committee and be referred to a JSC.

In my view FATCA was no longer under the radar, possession and purview of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole.

The committee had concluded its work on the Bill with finality, having approved the amendments. It dissolved its ad hoc role on December 12, 2016.

The Speaker as committee chairman thereafter, now had custody of the Bill. She was then authorised to report to the plenary of the House and place the amended Bill back where it belonged.

The circus continued with the mover of the FATCA motion, Finance Minister Colm Imbert using verbal and non-verbal language/tantrums not only to hide and sublimate his embarrassing climb-down for having wasted the time of Parliament on the 9th and 12th of December last in the worst, non-productive, arrogant, and fruitless display of going-italone on a Bill that could go nowhere without Opposition acquiescence. That four-page pull-out on FATCA in the print media on amendments was wasteful.

It also appears that there was a virtual conspiracy between the Speaker and the Finance Minister to jointly and individually disrespect and embarrass the former Prime Minister and now Leader of the Opposition when the latter made spurious and distasteful allegations of non-existent absurdity against her.

As for the Speaker, even though there was ample time in the sitting to accord and allow the two important motions moved on Matters of Urgent Public Importance relating to the Petrotrin strike and the crime pandemic (second time) the requisite one hour each, she chose to reject again the crime motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition. Instead she opted to give the Petrotrin industrial impasse undue precedence even though she knew before-hand that the FATCA matter was going to be exclusively procedural and short.

In fact the House adjourned prematurely early at around minutes after 4 pm even though the Gambling Bill was up for discussion as if to freeup members to attend to their Ariapita Avenue lime.

STEPHEN KANGAL CARONI

I wonder how many more will join the bandwagon before the month is over.

First of all people who are working should be rewarded for performance. As far as I am concerned that is normal.

I hardly think that any organisation rewards anyone for low performance.

We have to really be naive to say that our Police Service is really close as top performers; the records are there in the eyes of the public.

I do not know who in their right mind can stand before the nation and give us the impression that the TT PS is doing an excellent job. Look at the state of the country in relation to crime.

The low detection rates cannot reach even a mega pass mark of 50% in so many categories when analysed.

I would like the president Mr Seales to understand that “performance equals payment”. What is being said to the taxpayers? That they must foot the new bill of police officers if an increase is granted while as citizens they continue to live in fear for their lives and family members. In no way that could be fair and reasonable to the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.

Mr Seales and all those concerned need to show this nation that crime have been dealt with seriously, then I can understand or listen to his cry.

I find this is being fair and reasonable. Our Police Service has been reached out too over the years but tell me what noticeable change is there? Please let us not fool ourselves and call a “spade a spade”. Performance equals payment.

ARNOLD GOPEESINGH San Juan

Political beauty lies, always, in the eyes of dedicated base supporters.

We are however consumed by ‘image being everything in TT’ and the Opposition lost good image many months ago. My angst with the UNC is that Jwala Rambarran was encouraged to play dolly house at Central Bank and mess up the FOREX platform with his nonsense.

Just like children being given castor oil or senna pods at the end of the school holidays (now called school vacation) the Opposition has us all in the FOREX toilet on the verge of being thoroughly cleaned out.

The other ‘stuff and nonsense talk’ is the pathetic remark that the PNM Government is insisting on ‘dwelling in the past.’ Our immediate political past was the execrable bad governance meted out to taxpayers from 2010 to 2015. We are all of us defined by our past.We are living in a time of high crime figures exacerbated by criminally inept governance during the Partnership administration.

The stupid disbanding of SAUTT and the ruinous Life Sport programme are the two weeping sores of bad political governance that continue to add fire to the flames of rampant crime. The abomination is using fear as a political football. The political ‘Delete’ button does not work and should never work for the sitting Opposition.

We are constantly being asked to ‘move on.’ We have. The general elections of 2020 will show how far. The sitting Opposition is obliged to reinvent itself in 2017 as the poor quality spin doctoring has made them giddy to reality.

Their medication is past its sell by date or/and they need a second opinion.

Readers are all very well aware that none of the above is fake news.

LYNETTE JOSEPH Diego Martin

In conversation with a vocal friend who works with Trinmar, the current situation with the losses of the company over the last few years is a matter which was constantly raised, but somehow never caught the public’s ear. He asserts that neither the media nor the public has ever taken it seriously.

I have also heard about the argument that the Petrotrin workers are the ones who earn the major income for the country, and as such they feel they should be rewarded for their work. As a result, the union has chosen to engage a protest, vowing to shut operations down if their members, the workers, are not offered a satisfactory increase in pay.

These arguments may not have garnered such public attention had our country’s economic outlook not been as it is. We are seeing a significant loss in income due to the drop in oil and gas prices, the decrease in production levels at the relevant companies and a severe shortage of foreign exchange.

Companies which have high import bills for products for sale have begun to raise the prices as they are unable to maintain income levels due to the shortage of US currency to purchase stock. Even in the midst of government having decreased the rate of Value Added Tax, prices have remained the same and in most cases increased, as the companies have sought to protect their enterprises.

The regular level of pay for public servants is generally low, and the same carries for employees of most state agencies. With the government being the largest employer through its ministries and other state bodies and state companies, this means that most employed persons in Trinidad and Tobago know that they are not highly paid.

It is in this context that the OWTU has drawn the ire of the public. While everyone loves to know that their friends and family members at Petrotrin are well paid, it is difficult to listen to an argument from the best paid employees in the twin island state complain that their salaries are too little. Truly we understand the nature of your job requires constant vigilance and that you work in a very high risk environment.

Similar arguments however, can be made for several other industries.

The risks may not be the same, but if there was some matrix comparing risk to remuneration, I am certain that the pay levels for these workers are far from comparable.

The situation then presents itself as though the man with one hand is complaining, and asking everyone with no hands to empathise with him. It just won’t happen.

Even in the face of this, the time is definitely not right for labour organisations to attempt to strike for increased pay.

If your argument is that a pay raise is due, then understand that just like the rest of us, these hard times may not be the right time to complain for more. If your strongest argument is that the company’s money was mismanaged, and that management enriched themselves and placed the company in a bad position, the answer is definitely not to put it further in debt. What is therefore required is a change of company direction, possibly a change of leadership and an inquiry into the practices that put the company there.

If we all took similar action, saying that “if he get I could get too” then I can safely say that we don’t have long before the entire country goes bankrupt.

It’s akin to employing a policy of “an eye for an eye”, which makes me reminisce on the quote from Ghandi which says that “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. Right now, many of us wonder if the OWTU is blind to the impact of its current actions. Maybe, their eyes are just closed.

MAURICE BURKE San Juan

The majority of our citizens have no training in dealing with these hardened and violent criminals, especially on this island. The police and the soldiers are supposed to be trained in the techniques in dealing with murderers and other hardened criminals. However, despite this, they have made no headway for the last five decades and have failed to stem the flow of corruption, murders, kidnappings and other forms of lawlessness on this island. In fact things have gone from bad to worse. This is reflected in the constant high rate of crimes reported on this island annually.

Mr Dillon and his associates have no crime plan at present to deal with our brigade of criminals or potential terrorists. I really don’t know what else our population could do to bring our politicians to their senses. One or two of the main answers to our crime scenario is staring them in their faces.

One is to restore the death penalty now and at the same time commence hanging those murderers who have been already convicted.

The other is to get a distinguished crime expert to draw up an effective crime plan that will work here.

If things continue as they are those in the corridors of power including Mr Dillon could find themselves sooner than later on the scrap heap.

We must send a message to out local killers that we have a deterrent and will use it where necessary.

G A MARQUES via email

When he penned “Pan In Danger” back in 1985, late calypsonian Merchant (Dennis Williams Franklyn) bemoaned Trinidad and Tobago’s difficulties in elevating the profile of the steelpan, the only new musical instrument created in the 21st century.

Merchant, though, perhaps never envisaged that the pan, which remains the country’s foremost musical invention, would actually reach the point of being under threat, decades after its inception.

The ongoing, bitter standoff between Pan Trinbago, the world’s governing body for the instrument and members of the fraternity over the alleged non-payment of monies owed to players for the 2016 Panorama competition, cast a dismal light on the operations of the organisation, so much so that pan men are threatening to stay away from this year’s competition.

The disgruntled panmen, who have formed themselves into a group referred to as United Players Movement, also are calling for the head of Pan Trinbago president Keith Diaz and his executive, whom they claimed, have thrown the organisation into disrepute and done little to advance the cause of the steelpan and members of the fraternity.

Diaz, though, remains warded at the St Clair Medical Centre after suffering a heart attack late Thursday in the throes of the controversy. Richard Forteau has since been appointed to act as Pan Trinbago president.

In addition, Minister of Community Development, Culture and the Arts Dr Nyan-Gadsby- Dolly, responding to recent reports of financial impropriety within Pan Trinbago, has said the organisation will be relieved of some of its responsibilities for this year’s Carnival.

For example, she said the National Carnival Commission will now collect gate receipts from ticket sales at Panorama – an activity that has always been carried out by Pan Trinbago.

For Beverly Ramsey-Moore, manager of the Tobago-based Petrotrin Katzenjammers Steel Orchestra, the panmen’s call for the Diaz-led Pan Trinbago to step down from office is just.

Since becoming a member of Pan Trinbago’s executive, back in 2010, Ramsey-Moore said she quickly realised that things seemed amiss in the organisation.

“I recognised from the first few months that we were in serious problems,” she told Sunday Newsday in a no-holds-barred interview.

Ramsey-Moore said she observed that Pan Trinbago did not, in her opinion, have a structure and that it gave “absolute power” to the president.

“And because of how it was worded, any president who was a megalomaniac would have abused the authority,” she said.

Ramsey-Moore, who had served as assistant secretary, said she and few other executive members at the time, also began questioning “certain practices” in the organisation.

“You cannot be spending millions of dollars and you have no financial rules,” she claimed, referring to the operations of Pan Trinbago at that time.

“The constitution called for committees to be set up and if you are interested in good governance and you really want to be a president with an executive known for good governance, clearly you would ensure that your finance committee is set up.” Ramsey-Moore, who had contested Pan Trinbago’s leadership in October 2015, said she and the other executive were adamant that the organisation was headed down a destructive path.

She said they questioned Diaz’ spending patterns “because as president you must have a limit.” “And then if you want to spend beyond a certain amount, you have to come back to the executive.

So, clearly, there was a oneman dictatorship,” she said.

Ramsey-Moore said they also questioned, then, the fact that Pan Trinbago’s board, comprising elected members, “should not have been serving as office managers and CEO because it is a case of himself to himself.” She added: “So, you have president as CEO, secretary as office manager. What the president was doing was that the majority on the executive, he surrounded himself with them and they were paid officers.

They were working full-time for their boss. I knew early o’clock that this thing would have crashed.” Ramsey-Moore said she wrote Diaz, suggesting that Pan Trinbago should have at least had quarterly reports about the organisation’s finances.

“The next thing I knew was that one of the members was thrown out of the executive…Madness and chaos was going on and I said this Tobago girl, all I have is my good name. I gone,” she said.

Said to be in the red by over $30 million, Pan Trinbago was established by an Act of Parliament in 1986, with extensive powers to “act locally and internationally in all manners to further the development of the steelpan and protect the interest and welfare of the members of steelbands.” Among other aims, the organisation’s website lists the advancement and protection of the welfare of steelband members as one of its objectives.

The powers given to the organisation in the Act includes the acceptance of subventions and donations as well as the responsibility to manage and invest all monies belonging to Pan Trinbago.

But the organisation, which has a membership of just over 200 bands, has long been dogged by controversy and allegations of corruption.

This reached a head recently when outgoing vice-president Bryon Serrette alleged that corrupt practices were taking place within the organisation.

Serette, who had served on the executive since 2009, alleged there was a laundry list of questionable financial transactions and the organisation was consumed by mounting debt to the tune of millions of dollars.

Serette had specifically questioned the alleged purchase of two cars, a BMW X5 and an Audi Q7, by Pan Trinbago’s president.

The organisation had described Serrette’s allegations as erroneous.

For Ramsey-Moore’s part, Pan Trinbago’s controversial arrangement with Nigeria several years ago, to expand the profile of the pan throughout the diaspora was a major sore point for her.

“That was where me and them break,” she said.

“They went there on a fact-finding mission. ‘Ent they supposed to come back to the executive and report on what they find. Instead when they came back, the company (Africa Trinidad and Tobago Steelpan Development Company) was already set up.” Ramsey-Moore claimed thousands of dollars was spent on establishing the company and accomodation and food for the Nigerian nationals “and when people asking questions, you (Diaz) behaving like a wajang in the executive.

“I pack up my traps and I left.

I warned them but they did not believe me,” she said.

“But the most painful thing is that he was able, under his dictatorship rule to convince panmen and women that we of the new visionaries, that we were bringing the organisation into disrepute and when they had an officer move a motion to have us being named as persona non grata.” The ATTSDC, a limited liability company, was set up with a vision to promote and expand the steelpan artform across the African continent with Pan Trinbago. The organisation had contributed 35 percent shares toward technical support while Nigerian businessman Chief Bowie S Bowei was a 45 percent shareholder in the venture Bowei had complained that Daniel Lambert of FCL Communications Ltd never met his financial obligation as a 20 percent shareholder and as such, he (Bowei) had been responsible for all expenses to facilitate a loan and other administrative expenses of the company.

Bowei subsequently pulled out of the venture.

Ramsey-Moore said when she had asked Diaz about the status of the initiative, he replied that it had been “eradicated.” “So, it is just a case of panman money going down the drain,” she said. Ramsey-Moore said the non-completion of Pan Trinbago’s headquarters in Tacarigua, a discoloured shell of a structure surrounded by overgrown bushes, also had scarred the steel pan fraternity.

She told Sunday Newsday: “The executive has made no effort to find a permanent home for the national instrument and that is a shame. I am really disappointed.” Saying that pan was a business, Ramsey-Moore said a beautiful home, befitting the dignity of the panman should have been constructed.

“Pan is a business and we can’t leave everything for the Government to do,” she said, adding that panyards were sacred spaces.

She said although the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) had constructed a panyard for her own band, Katzenjammers, the outfit’s leadership team was able, outside of that support, to “make a proper case for the youth” by encouraging corporate citizens to invest in the band to construct a world class facility.” The panmen’s call for the organisation to pay out outstanding monies to players has found favour with Ramsey-Moore.

“I support them 100 percent,” she told Sunday Newsday.

“This executive must go immediately.

They should bow their heads in shame.” She contends that the existing leadership has “destroyed the movement that our forefathers fought so hard for.” “Pan is the community’s soul.

It is the rhythm and the beat of the people, the movement of the people and the President has destroyed that.” Ramsey-Moore said Pan Trinbago should be disbanded and revamped to better serve the interests of the national instrument and members of its fraternity.

She pledged to do her part to advance the process.

“I love my steelband. I will continue to make my contribution but Trinidad have to sort out their business. They let this thing go on for too long,” Ramsey-Moore said.

It is a collective of creative persons, artists in the artistic spheres of music, spoken word, poetry, visual arts, and photography.

“I wanted to create a unifying group of all the arts because they are connected, therefore it made sense to connect them,” said Mark-Anthony Pierre, co-founder of Indigo Revolt.

The 20-year-old musician, composer, and producer conceptualised the collective in 2015 during the last year of his Bachelor’s degree in Music at the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT).

He told Sunday Newsday the idea came about while he was involved in a few dramatic productions at UTT. It made him realise how the lights, music, acting, backdrop design, other artistic aspects needed to be connected.

“It helped me to see how everything exists alongside each other, how if a single facet was missing, although you could still have the performance, it would be lacking. Also, being constantly surrounded by persons of various disciplines at UTT, I saw how we needed each other and I wanted to create a space for everyone to work together,” he said.

It also occurred to Pierre that musicians have access to other musicians, photographers to other photographers, painters to painters, and so on, but he wanted artists of different fields to have access to each other.

As a member of the local band Undivided, whose music was inspired by the alternative rap genre, Pierre went to his closest friends and bandmates about his idea.

And so Ren? Aleong, Mikhail Alexander, Rakeem Moses and Pierre eventually developed and worked out the collective’s operations, goals, logistics, and planned the initial releases in order to introduce the collective.

They recruited another friend and spoken word artist, D?ja Thomas, to help consolidate their schedules and work out the details to make it happen and began releasing new projects in December 2016.

So far, the members of Indigo Revolt include the members of Undivided – Pierre, Aleong, Thomas, Alexander, Moses, Emelia Aleung, and Aaron Smith – as well as photographer Matthew Creese, and spoken word artist, Alexandra Stewart.

In December, Indigo Revolt released four major projects – a mixed tape by Moses, a rapper; an e-book of poetry by Thomas; an EP from Undivided; and an orchestral album of cinematic music by Pierre.

Pierre produced all the music and helped design the e-book, while the photographer provided the cover art for Undivided’s EP.

Since those releases, other young artists have been expressing interest in the idea, contacted them to find out more and join.

He hopes to expand the forms of art provided by the collective, including film, painting, graphic de design and more. “It saves everyone a lot of time and will eliminate a lot of run around if you have people operating under one roof, when you need people for your projects,” said Pierre.

He stressed that being part of the collective did not mean that its members had to be involved in each other’s projects, nor would it stop its members from freelancing. Instead, he said, it was a way to create opportunities for each other.

“When the name and respect of any brand builds, being associated with the brand is a form of advertisement.

When Indigo Revolt constantly puts out high quality projects, the collective would become known for such, and clients would know that any artist associated with it would also be of a high calibre,” said Pierre.

Individuals interested in learning more about Indigo Revolt can check their Facebook page or visit www.indigorevolt.net.