Mighty Dougla

Cletus Ali,[1] better known as Mighty Dougla, was a Trinidadian calypsonian who won the island's Calypso King title in 1961.

Mighty Dougla
Birth nameCletus Ali
BornPort of Spain, Trinidad
GenresCalypso

Career

From the Hell Yard area of Port of Spain, Ali was a popular calypsonian in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was born a Dougla, to a Muslim Indian father and an African mother.

'Dougla' is a usually pejorative term used in the Caribbean for someone of mixed (African and Indian) descent. In addition to adopting this as his stage name, he referred to this in one of his best known calypsos, "Split Me In Two", dealing with the Dougla's position in the Black/Indian political division on the island and proposed repatriation ("I am neither one nor the other, six of one, half a dozen of the other, If they serious about sending people back for true, They got to split me in two").[2][3][4] This was one of the songs (along with "Lazy Man") that won him the Calypso King title at the 1961 carnival.[5] He finished in third place in 1963, behind Mighty Sparrow and Lord Kitchener.[6]

Another of his calypsos, "Man Nicer Than Woman" was a humorous tale of an argument between a gay man and his straight friend.[7]

He performed for six days at the 1963 Virgin Islands carnival as part of a Trinidadian package along with Mighty Sparrow and Lord Cristo.[8]

References
  1. Some sources have 'Claytis Ali'
  2. Deyal, Tony (2008) "Miles from 'Nowhere'", Jamaica Gleaner, 21 April 2008. Retrieved 19 September 2013
  3. Regis, Louis (1998) The Political Calypso: True Opposition in Trinidad and Tobago, 1962-87, University Press of Florida, ISBN 978-0813015804, pp. 11-12
  4. Edmondson, Belinda (ed.) (1999) Caribbean Romances: The Politics of Regional Representation, University of Virginia Press, ISBN 978-0813918228, p. 29
  5. Thompson, Dave (2002) Reggae & Caribbean Music, Backbeat Books, ISBN 0-87930-655-6, p. 5
  6. "Sparrow Crowned 1963 Calypso King of Trinidad Fete", Virgin Islands Daily News, 23 February 1963, p. 11. Retrieved 19 September 2013
  7. Reddock, Rhoda E. (ed.) (2004) Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities: Theoretical and Empirical Analyses, University of the West Indies Press, ISBN 978-9766401382, p. 393
  8. "Sparrow, Dougla, Cristo to Appear Here for Carnival", Virgin Islands Daily News, 23 February 1963. Retrieved 19 September 2013
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