“Mash in Guyana” is 20!
Guyana Chronicle
January 21, 2007
PANCHO might have moved on to another realm, but there is no disputing that Rudy Grant’s “Mash in Guyana” has become the anthem of the country’s Republic anniversary celebrations.
The song is an unbelievable 20-years-old, Grant is overjoyed, enough to go “crazy.” It has never been remixed, and remains true to its flavour, always compelling some waist action, even if you’re in a passenger minibus cramped for space.
The magic of “Mash in Guyana”, perhaps the only song made about the country’s celebration that has survived, is as puzzling as the way Grant came to write the song.
A grown man, Grant came back to Guyana in December 1986. He was visiting from England, where his family was settled.
When his friend, Guyanese radio icon Pancho Carew, suggested that he write a song about Mashramani, he hadn’t a clue what to write. Why, he had never heard of Mash before! “Nothing from here (Guyana) came to England, so I didn’t know about Mash,” he said.
But Pancho insisted. He told him what Mashramani (called Mash for short) – thousands reveling in the streets, steelpans, basically people have a “crazy” good time. Of course, when Pancho mentioned carnival, Grant was in tune.
So, he started writing. Mashramani seemed too long a word, it wasn’t flowing. So he chose to go with “Mash”. And it sounded good: “Mash in Guyana, people going crazy, moving left to right, shaking up their bodies.”
Grant asked the then national TV station, GTV, to share with him some video of Mash in Guyana. He left Guyana on January 19, stopping in Barbados. He left the video footage – just in case the song made it big, a video could be made.
Back in England, in the next three days, he had agreed on the music, except brass. That was on January 24. On the morning of January 25, brass was added. On the 25, he left the family’s Coach House studio for headed to the Hollywood Studio, since he wanted the music to be different “to give me an edge.”
Soon, a copy was in the hand of Pancho. The response? “The song kicking up!”
Mash in Guyana became an instant hit and would move on to grab the lead spot on the UK’s first Soca chart, selling out the 20, 000 copies which were produced. It took over the immigrant community in the UK at the Nottingham Carnival, with a first ever Guyanese contingent using the song.
It was an extraordinary feat for Guyanese music at a time when soca music from Trinidad and Tobago continuously dominated.
The song went on to make it big and Grant was basking in the success. He came to know how the song had moved on when a Zimbabwean air hostess told him she loved the song.
&It’s good to see the song has stayed the course and is still one to be reckoned with,” Grant said this week.
However, he thanks Guyanese for taking the song into their hearts and for singing and dancing to it every time they hear it.