FIMBER BRAVO

Trinidadian pan legend Fimber Bravo recounts its origins on his ebullient protest track ‘Can’t Control Me’, starting with the banning of the playing of oil drums in the 19th century by the British colonial oppressors, then the outlawing of the precursor to the steelpan – the percussive tamboo bamboo – in 1934. Players of the pan – a chromatically-pitched percussion drum – were imprisoned by colonial police in the 1950s, but the steelpan persisted. It’s joyous and defiant din became the sound of the Black Power Revolution in Trinidad and Tobago in the late ’60s which Bravo was a part of. Bravo moved to the UK in 1971 with the 20th Century Steel Band, who tasted fame briefly in 1975 as finalists on the TV talent show New Faces, competing against the eventual winner, Marti Caine, and a 16-year-old standup comedian from Dudley called Lenny Henry. The band broke up read more...