The stirring presentation of the Tallawah Mento Band on the coded communication messaging of folk and mento music struck a key note at the recent Marcus Garvey Symposium in Limon, Costa Rica.

The venerable Colin Smith, a founding member of the South Florida band, highlighted in his half hour presentation of interactive audience engagement and performance, how the infectious rhythms of both music forms often masked and shielded pointed critique of plantation life. Lyrics, in our own dialect, that an increasing number of cultural custodians and educators insist on being classified as a national language and not broken English, readily mocked the ‘owner class’, Smith acknowledged.

“These musical artforms,” said Smith, “simultaneously lightened the challenges of slavery and harnessed resilience. It was storybook of our very survival spreading news of plantation activities and developments that was entertainment and information network to avoid detection and comprehension by the planter class.”