Originally written in 2021, my friend Keegan shared his unbroadcast interview with his late mentor Acid. I knew that I had to use it responsibly. Acid was a vision in the gayelle, like Keegan he made kalinda look like dance. His death is a lasting loss, and he like so many in T&T deserve justice.

The National Carnival Commission (NCC) shuttled the entire stick fighting competition in 2020 after a disagreement over the payment of fees to the fighters could not be resolved. Bois men complained then that despite their skill, and willingness to put their safety at risk, they are not treated with respect.

Some believed the cancellation of the stick fighting competition signalled the beginning of the end for the indigenous martial art.

Coincidentally, to advertise the semi-finals the NCC used an image of a former King of the Rock, David Matthew Brown to advertise the competition which was then aborted. In a grim foretelling of his future, Brown was killed on June 21. His murder remains unsolved. 

Brown was shot in the chest and died in the bedroom of a female friend the initial police report described as his wife. His killer stood outside the bedroom window to fire the fatal bullet. More than a year later the case of who killed him and why is still being actively investigated.

Brown’s death is not the only tragic loss to the stick fighting fraternity. July 31, 2021, just a little more than a month after Brown’s murder, marked the second anniversary of the shooting death of another champion stick fighter Karl “King Kali” Swamber.

David Matthew Brown remains a legend among stick fighters. He had many names. He was known as King David, Acid or King Acid.

For Brown’s friends and admirers, the fact that his case remains unsolved is particularly galling. Moruga is a small village, and rumours abound as to what happened to a man that many described as one of the best to have entered the gayelle.

In his later years, he was an avid teacher of stick fighting. In an interview recorded by his student Keegan Taylor in 2019, he speaks of giving “venomous” encouragement to his students. He later expands on his love of teaching saying that some of his proteges enter the gayelle thinking that they know what to expect, that they have what it takes…But it is only through training that they can come to understand the sport, and themselves.

Jamie Philbert, a pointer, or director of Bois Academy, an organisation that was created in 2010 by Keegan Taylor and Rondel Benjamin to bring stickfighting, or kalinda, out of the shadows into the light agrees with Brown’s sentiments.

Brown, she said, was “an example of what a bois person is inside of our space.” He was “a rebel, complete and total. He was the epitome of liberation.”

Philbert does the work “that helps people better understand what kalinda actually is, because, in the space, people only know it as stick fighting.”

She prefers to use the word kalinda because “this is a spiritual practice,” she says. “This is a way of life.”

While Philbert and her associates support and promote kalinda and its practitioners, Trinidad does not seem to have a lot of sympathy or respect for stick fighters.

In Philbert’s own words, it is “very hard to be a kalinda person in this space (Trinidad).”

On that Friday night in the Arima Velodrome in 2020 when the NCC stick fighting competition ended long before it ever began, bois man Terrance Marcano, who commented on both the impasse and on how they are perceived by the administration and the public, said, “They done calling us pipers already. Give we something. Uplift we! This is we game, uplift we.”

Moses Ralph of the Moruga A Gayelle was more direct. “NCC so long knowing warriors. Seeing how they die. Seeing that a man lost a finger. A man damaged, and if they don’t have that consideration among stick warriors, they have no heart.”

NCC has as its vision to make Trinidad and Tobago Carnival the global leader. Its mission is “to preserve the traditional heritage of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival whilst ensuring its sustainable development as a viable industry.” But making our Carnival a “viable, national, cultural and commercial enterprise” has been a challenge. Most competitions are state-funded, and Carnival organisations are more known for their dependence on government funds than for their self-reliance.

Darian Marcelle is the NCC commissioner with responsibility for Regional Carnival and Traditional Mas. Despite the cancellation of the competition in 2020, he said, “NCC will never not be involved in stickfighting, but the question is in what role?

Marcelle was on site on the night that the event was cancelled and could be seen conferring with fighters. He said there was never any attempt by the body to not pay the fighters. A mistake was made and their cheques were left behind in error. “This was simply, you know because is Carnival, there is so much going on and it’s simply a package was left, was forgotten, and the staff went for it, so it was on its way,” he explained.

For fighting in the preliminary round, each stickfighting gayelle, which is made up of a manager and three fighters, was entitled to $3,800. Marcelle in recognition of the error offered to pay the fighters for their transport as well, but the offer was rejected. “I mean there’s a time where you have to draw the line,” he says. “You can’t hold us to ransom. We love stickfighting. We love it. It’s part of us, but the NCC has a remit, and you have to draw the line somewhere. As painful as it was.”

Marcelle said the time may have come for independent promoters to step up to the plate. That they may have to take up some of the work to make stickfighting more attractive to the mainstream. To advertisers and audiences because the work of the NCC may only go so far.

But Brown’s cousin and stick fighter Raymond De Leon who is also a NCC ringmaster for their official competitions isn’t sure that independent producers can lift that load without the assistance of the State, although he is aware that even the State has its limitations.

“Right now independent people ent really have the funds to support it, right? The Government much better,” he says. “What happen, as people say, the money not really quite correct, but is what the Government give NCC. It’s what they (have to) work with,” De Leon says.

The situation, much like Brown’s murder, remains unresolved.

When we met up with reigning King of the Rock Roger Sambury and De Leon in Moruga on a Saturday afternoon in July, they took up their bois and carrayed in the street for our cameras.

 The cancellation of the 2020 competition meant that Sambury retains the title he fought for and won in 2019. Speaking about Brown, he says, “This last year before he die, he stand up with me. We gone Mayaro, me, Acid and Raymond, and everybody backing. Everybody backing in Mayaro. Hear me nah! Next year he come and he die. It hurt me in my heart, you know.”

Sambury said in the year preceding Brown’s death he tried to get him back into the ring by forming a gayelle with him and De Leon.

“In 2019 Acid real perform. Like, I don’t know like sometimes in life, people know they going to meet their maker, they does see a sign,” Raymond De Leon says.

 “And 2019, Acid real perform and he support Roger Sambury real big. Because of what he had done, he inspires Roger that he could go forward more.”

Sambury said when Brown first offered to train him, initially he wasn’t too sure about it. “I say boy, you can’t show me things, cause this is a…something where you pick up your nature, your style.” But he relented. “And the shot where I practice with Acid, me ent let go that yet,” he says with a smile. The reigning King of the Rock said he was coming back with a secret weapon whenever gayelles reopen. “Them stickman ent know what I coming with yet!”

Sambury said when he told his cousins that he wanted to step into the gayelle, they warned him not to, but the call was too strong. “My cousins tell me I’s a mad man, what you like that for? But it in my blood. This is a generation thing, you know?”

De Leon’s sons were with him when we visited. He said they already love the sport and he would not prevent them from entering the gayelle when they get older. De Leon said he no longer wants to be a ringmaster to referee the bouts. “I doubt very much I will be doing ring mastering. I want to go and play in the gayelle.”

The teacher in David Matthew Brown may be thrilled to see the fight to ensure kalinda prospers despite its challenges.

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