Newly-elected Pan Trinbago president Keith Diaz remembers getting licks from his grandfather for ’associating with bad boys’ when he first started beating pan with San Juan All Stars as a young boy. Now that he is charge of that pan fraternity, Diaz has a wide range of ideas on what he wants to achieve.

Q: Congratulations on your election as president of Pan Trinbago...

A: Thank you very much.

Did you actively campaign for the post?

Yes, I did. I began my campaign probably about six months prior to the elections. I really wanted to have some change. I had a manifesto done (A 19-page document titled Blueprint For Change - A Contract with Pan Stakeholders). First of all, I want to make it clear: I didn’t go out washing any dirty linen in public. I did a different type of campaign in which I Iooked at issues that may be affecting the pan movement. I tried to talk to steelbands in their panyards throughout Trinidad and Tobago. I went to 80 per cent of the steelbands.

How many actual steelbands are there?

There are nearly 300 steelbands.

What would be some of the highlights of your manifesto?

First of all, the establishing of Pan Works Ltd...

What does that company do?

Right now, Pan Works produces pans which we sell to schools. And people throughout the Caribbean may look to buy a ten-man set, a 20-man set, which comprises tenors, double tenors, double seconds, guitars, tenor base and so on. This is an entity that will help Pan Trinbago to be self-sufficient. That is what I’m targeting Pan Trinbago to be, self-sufficient. While we still want government help, we want to show the corporate sector that we can do something for ourselves. We can’t have an organisation in 2009, looking to the future, and every Monday morning we have to come up with what we used to call a ’begging letter’. We want to form a partnership with the corporate sector. We’re looking at every steelband in Trinidad and Tobago arriving at financial stability. I am not just going to look for money to put on a pan show. We need to get the fine minds in the financial sector to change the mind set of steelbandsmen. And while you do that, you also develop the organisation overall....This is something I’ve started already.

So is Pan Works to be focussed on selling pans locally?

No. I want to go further. Trinidad still has the sweetest and the cheapest pans in the world. The price of a tenor pan in England or America - a tenor pan costs about US$3,000. But in Trinidad, it costs between TT$5,000 and $6,000. So we want to do business with the world. The company has its own board. It’s a separate entity. The second thing is, Pan Trinbago must join the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association. I once said, about 20 years ago, that pan will make more money than oil for this country. You have Latin America. You have Canada. You have Japan. You have China. Right now we know the biggest investment is going on in China. I have to take note of that. To do business, we have to look world-wide.

So when you say we can make more money than oil from pan, you mean from the sale of pans?

That’s right. Remember, God give Trinidad and Tobago the steelband. People don’t understand it, you know. It’s a high scientific spiritual thing. Today it’s spread to America, China, Europe. Asia. From a little twin-island state, a dot. And look where it’s gone. So we must be professional in marketing the pan. We also need to organise the tuners. The greatest set of tuners in the world is in Trinidad. I am suggesting that we introduce pan tuning in schools.

Is pan tuning on the curriculum of some schools?

No. That is what I’m saying. You can’t make a machine to tune a pan. I am suggesting we have dialogue with the Ministry of Education, aimed at having pan tuning being done in the secondary schools. You have people in the pan world who can teach them that.

Do you think that one of the ways of keeping young people from getting into trouble is through the steelband movement?

Yes. It is happening all around the world. When I went to England 40 years ago a young fellow came to me. He was a bad boy. A white boy. A Teddy boy. He told me when he first heard the pan ’that changed my life completely.’ In Chicago, in Harlem, in New York - I’m talking about places I’ve gone to. These are some of the places that have real problems with young people, with survival and so on. But when they get involved in pan, they change their lives. Tell me, for the past 10 years, when did anybody ever get shoot, stab, rape in any pan activity? There must be a reason that’s stopping that. When it started you used to hear about gang warfare, badjohns and so on. But it never had fight in the panyard. The fight was always on the road, between bands. The panyard from that time to now is sacred territory for every single steelband. The baddest man in Trinidad knows that. So, what I’m saying is that we have to be strong in what we’re doing...

How else then to develop, to strengthen the pan movement?

We need to get involved at the level of the University of the West Indies and the University of Trinidad and Tobago. Look at Eli Mannette, a born Trinbagonian, an elder, a tuner. A great, great tuner. But who is he teaching? He is teaching at the University of West Virginia in the US. White folks. I am not against no white boy. Cliff Alexis, down in Chicago. He changed a whole factory. Where they were making piano, they are now making pan. I know. Because I’ve seen it. We have to wake up. We have to make Bertie Marshall a professor. We need to talk to the Ministry of Science and Technology to establish this. It’s already happening outside. I’m not knocking it. They’re opening our eyes... This is a serious wake up time in this country with pan...

What about external relations?

If you remember, a long time ago Bob Marley sang a song, ’I Shot The Sheriff’, and the Jamaican government spent almost US$300 million to promote him on a world tour. That’s why I need to have dialogue with the Ministry of Tourism. We need to think about what we need to get pan out. If you go on the net, you’ll see that other countries have pan factories. But they don’t have the tone. We have to keep the title of the World Governing Body for steelpan. The first steelband organisation was in 1949... There are steelband associations in St Vincent, St Lucia, Antigua. There are similar organisations in New York and in London. We need to put out a newsletter. (Quotes from manifesto on the setting up of a world pan body based in Trinidad and Tobago). We need to talk to Jack Warner, using the FIFA model. And that doesn’t make me a UNC. We need to ask Jack Warner for advice.

What about making more use of the pan in more local shows?

Success breeds success. When we demonstrate that we can attract a large audience, we will get support from the business community. We have to create small events during the course of the year. Put a little small side in front of a grocery. When you have parang, for example, have a little steelband by the side. And when you promote Trinidad and Tobago as a tourist destination, you have to have steelbands performing so the tourists will see this is the land of the steelband. We have four regional organisations. And we need to get some land to build regional headquarters. This is a long-term plan.

What about the development of Panorama?

Well, Panorama is the pinnacle of steelband events. Today there is Panorama in Grenada, St Vincent, Antigua, New York, London. Panorama is our World Cup. Panorama has been responsible for the development of a whole range of new pans. Like the double tenor. The rocket pan. Quadrophonic. Chrome pan. Inventions that come from our people through Panorama. There are new inventions now that are being patented. It’s why we need a Tuners Association. These are part of new structures that we want to develop. We need to have quarterly magazines. To showcase the ordinary people. We don’t look at the ordinary individuals making their contributions. The most disciplined person you can find in this country is the panman. We want to bring back pan programmes on television and radio. There’s not much of it happening now. There used to be a show on TTT. I played on it. I was so shy I was afraid to look at the camera. In Trinidad and Tobago right now, 75 per cent of the players are between the ages of seven and 19 with an enthusiasm to play the pan. Our youths are reaching out for the pan. We, as an organisation, have to wake up, focus, re-focus. We have to reach out to these young people. It’s not going to happen overnight. But we need to start somewhere so it will develop and grow.

What about a bit of your personal history?

I was born in Petit Bourg, San Juan. Born at home, eh. With midwife. I went to Tranquil Boys. We used to talk about pan in school all the time. I started playing with a steel orchestra in Petit Bourg. I was about 15, going on 16. Now them days was badjohn days. Some neighbour went and tell my grandmother how she saw me playing with them bad boys. I had to hide, sleep outside. I get licks. But I never turn my back on the steelband from that time to now. I played with bands like San Juan All Stars. And Merry Makers. We used to play every weekend in Chaguaramas. Then I went to St James Tripolians to play pan round the neck. Then City Symphony behind the bridge. Then Starlift. Then I ended up playing with Desperadoes. I remember one year we were coming down Park Street, playing ’run, you run, Kaiser Williams run you run’ and the whole of town coming behind us. When I tell you pace! And when we reach by the corner of Frederick Street and Park Street, fight! That is how it used to be. I always felt close to Desperadoes. Because I used to idolise Rudolf Charles. We were close friends. I joined Pan Trinbago in 1984. Then I became a trustee on the national executive in 1986. Then I travelled with Phase Two to the US. I started to do broadcasting on radio in 1991. And when I started that programme the only person who helped me was a man called (former CNN CEO) Ken Gordon. He was a friend of my father and mother. It was because of him that I established a number of radio programmes. Then I went on television and did a five-part series called Pan Jumbie and I did a three-part programme dealing with the elders of the pan movement. These men had a hard life. They used to be on the run from the police. I was elected chairman of the Northern Region of Pan Trinbago in 1994 until I was elected president this year...