GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Dressed in a bright yellow hat, garish green shirt and oversize red tie, De Professor danced onstage, his waist-length dreadlocks following behind while he sang of government wrongdoing.
Mighty Rebel, 67, the president of the Calypso Association in Guyana. “We are the mouthpiece of the people,” he said.
“With all de corruption dat taking place, we is de ones they blame,” the song, “God Nah Sleep,” went. “While dem a thief, thief, thief, we just sit down like if we lame,” he continued, complaining of public inaction in the face of widespread graft.
The performance was so well received that it delivered the 43-year-old singer, whose real name is Lester Charles, a victory early this year in the annual calypso competition in Guyana, a tiny country on the shoulder of South America.
By National Communications Network
De Professor performing “God Nah Sleep” at this year’s calypso competition in Guyana.
But the song so angered the government minister for transport and hydraulics, Robeson Benn, that he stormed into the state radio station’s offices soon after and, according to numerous accounts, demanded that it be banned, along with an array of other competition-winning calypsos.