Micheal Mondozie
“Puppy yuh scrub yuh tongue boy?”
Kernal Roberts recalled that panicked shout from his father from the top floor of his Rain-O-Rama home with a huge laugh last Thursday.
Asked by the late calypso legend Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts) to collect an award on his behalf at the Hilton Trinidad, a 19-year-old Kernal felt on top of the world dressed in one of his father’s suits as he backed out of the driveway of the family’s Diego Martin home behind the wheel of Kitche’s prized Royal Saloon in November of 1999.
Kernal, who was given the nickname Puppy by Kitchener, recalled the happenings of the evening as if it were yesterday.
“He called me and ask me to go for the award because he wasn’t feeling up to it. I say daddy yuh hadda give me a nice suit. He say ‘go and choose one’. I pull out a nice pink suit. He jump off de chair, ‘yuh is a mad man or what?’. He say thas a suit to meet the Queen of England or to go a ball with the President or Prime Minster.
“He take out ah old grey suit and give me and tell me this good, go with that. Next ting yuh know time to go de show, ah feelin nice, me and my girlfriend in de car when I reach the gate way he run out on the balcony screaming. I say something happen to I pull back in the driveway,” Kernal related during a phone call with the Express.
An exasperated Kitch then enquired about Kernal’s oral hygiene, reminding him that he had to be at his perfect best to represent him.
“I say but wha really goin on with my father boy? But that shows yuh the class of de man and if yuh had to represent him, yuh have to represent properly,” a bemused Kernal continued.
Three short months later Kitchener passed away on February 11, 2000. Kernal wore that very pink suit to his father’s national farewell.
“The same pink suit he was saving for the Queen I put on for de funeral. That lesson teach me when you buy something, is to wear it. Now if I buy a new sneakers, I walking out de store with it on my foot. Tomorrow not promise to nobody,” Kernal continued.
The outpouring of love for his father from the grateful people of T&T at his funeral, all but washed away the pain of losing him, Kernal recalled. His uncanny physical resemblance and stage disposition of his father soon earned him the name Young Kitch among calypso fans.
“It was bittersweet. It was weird. In my father’s funeral I didn’t really get time to mourn and grieve. People were just rushing me for autographs. Just seeing how they were celebrating his life was special, everybody had a happy story to tell about Kitch.
“It was as if the king died and now they were all turning to his prince. I know I was the man to carry on his legacy and I know I had a hell of a job on my hands. The hugest shoes to fill. I didn’t try to make it pressure me too much but, yet still the pressure was there. He was so famous it helped absorbed some of the pressure,” Kernal said.
Ah bag of ‘silent lessons’
Living life to the fullest is just one of the many “silent lessons” a young Kernal learnt watching the Grandmaster of calypso at close quarters. Now 41 years young, he says, his father’s silence often meant his approval.
“I think he’s a man used to show, he never used to comment much. His silence was real loud. That’s the way he used to support. If he had a problem with it he would voice his opinion.
“I remember my first radio hit (‘Bum Bum Fly’) right before he died. We were in the car and it came on the radio. I tell him this is meh song playing on radio daddy and he just listen to it and he eh even tell meh nothing about. I say to myself how he eh sayin nothin’ he must be sayin what shit my son singing,” Kernal laughed out loud.
Kitch didn’t live to see his son blossom into the prolific Road March and International Soca Monarch winning writer he is today. Kernal has played music with soca bands Traffik and Xtatik and has worked with all the heavy hitters in soca music including Machel Montano, Patrice Roberts and Destra Garcia, among others.
He did however get to play drums for his father’s final performances at the Kalypso Revue as a teenager. And when he was too sick to perform it was left to Kernal to don Kitch’s suits and hats and emulate his famous one-leg dance during performances of what was Kitchener’s final composition “Pan Birthday” (2000).
“My whole journey, my dad didn’t totally want me to be in music,” Kernal said surprisingly.
“He never tried to mentor me in music. Or point me in that direction. He left it up to me to see what I want to do. Not because he is de grandmaster, or he is who is that I have to follow that direction.”
Kernal recalled winning the calypso competition at New Town Boys RC in Port of Spain and being told by staff and students it was “advantage that his father wrote his calypso”.
“I was like no I wrote my own calypso, but my composition skills were so advanced that it came across as if an adult wrote it. It was hard for the principal and teachers to believe I did it. My dad had to come in school and tell the principal to his face that he had nothing to do with the writing of the calypso,” he recalled.
Kernal said while not always vocal his father was a great provider and recalls a happy childhood in Rain-O-Rama for he and his three siblings. Kitchener has two other sons who lives abroad, he noted.
“I had a real happy childhood. A childhood full of everything a kid could want. I realise he was a famous man around the tender age, 5 or 6 years, when yuh realise when you go out with him how the public reacted to him, he always have to be waving at people. Everybody calling him out Kitch, Kitch. It never changed the way I look at him as daddy, I mean you would feel a special tingling in yuh heart meh knowing meh dad is a super star, but he was still always daddy,” he said.
His legacy lives on
Kernal said his feels his father’s presence whenever he makes music or performs on a live stage.
“His spirit does be with me. Especially when I doing emulating shows I does feel like him. Yuh have to have him in yuh cranium and real prevalent in your thoughts. Even when I’m doing soca music I am aware I have a great legacy to live up to. He is always with me in everything I do,” he said.
Kernal counted hundreds of hours spent with Kitch at the Santa Rosa racetrack among his fondest times with his father.
“We would go in the canteen to eat bake and cheese but it have a million flies. I could never forget that it used freak meh out but de bake and cheese was the bomb. And when he liming with de boys after Is de most amount of cussin I used to hear in meh life,” he laughed.
Kernal said all six of Kitchener’s grandchildren are aware of the importance of his legacy. His oldest granddaughter Kernecia “is already showing signs that she love de industry”.
“I make all of them aware. My first daughter was born in 2001, so he never get to see none of he grandchildren. But I make sure and implant him in their lives. The statue of Kitch (at the Roxy roundabout) used to frighten dem though, but we show them grandpa on YoutTube and pictures and now they are all proud of his larger than life structure,” Kernal concluded.
