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BC Pires
AS PIRES PK
My name is Joshua Ballantyne and I run a club night in London called Ariapita Social Club, inspired by Ariapita Avenue in Woodbrook.
I am a Trinbagonian. I grew up in London.
I am a musician.
Even an economist. Really.
I was born in London, but my Trinidadian father, Andrew Ballantyne, came to England when he was 11 years old.
My immediate family is myself, my father, my mother, Christine Mellors, (she is English,) and my younger sister Ianthe Mellors.
We have an older sister, Ama McKenley, whom the father had before, and two brothers from another mother who live in Trinidad, David Lee Skinner Ballantyne and Daniel Che, after Che Guevara. I didn’t know about them until I was 18.
I’m not in a relationship.
My mother is white and that’s fine in Trinidad. You can walk around Trinidad and look though and no one bats an eyelid.
However, growth in England was not good. If you’re not in (a big city), there’s a lot of, like, racism and ignorance of different cultures. Too much pressure to assimilate.
I grew up in Bedford, a random town in England.
I was 23 when I first went to Trinidad.
It was cute. I stayed between a friend in Curepe and my brother in Tacarigua.
I was doing an internship at the UN Economic Commission based in Trinidad. And my brother was getting married, so I thought it was time to go.
The first night I arrived, he took me to the Avenue. I had my first two. Which was, like
the best food in the world!
There is a place in London where you can get doubles that is not embarrassing but actually good. For example, if you had it in Trinidad, you would still love it.
My father is an educational psychologist, so I could read before I went to school.
I read Lord of the Rings when I was five. I stopped halfway through The Two Towers because I got bored. There were some really long passages of just one dialogue.
Because things came easily to me, I think I stopped pushing myself.
I still did pretty well. I did history at University College, London and then an MA in economics at SOAS.
There would have been very occasional occasions when I would have been called to church. Very occasionally. My parents were not religious.
Passionate atheism is quite arrogant. I think Christopher Hitchens and those guys are a bit stupid. The only logical position is, you don’t know the truth of the universe.
I wouldn’t call myself an atheist or agnostic or anything. I don’t feel the need. I don’t know why everyone has to put labels on everything.
I think it’s sad when people allow their belief systems to be set by something that is clearly imposed, like in the Caribbean and West Africa. Why does everyone around us believe in this particular religion?
Oh, yes: because we were forced into slavery!
People need to talk about these things. They can make the same decisions at the end of the day, but they have to be honest with themselves first.
Usually I’ll say, “My dad’s from Trinidad, my mom’s English.” And leave it at that.
Or I can say, for shorthand, I am Trinbagonian or Trinidadian.
Because if there’s any place I’ll identify with, it’ll be there. I feel much more at ease with people from there. Although I spend more time with people from England.
The first trip to Trinidad was not a holiday atmosphere. I lived there for four months. I was working, going to work with maxi, I was in the city and other things.
I got more of an experience of what it would be like to live there full time.
And then I went back every year or two since that first trip, for a few weeks each time.
I think BC Pires may be right that this may be the worst time for humanity in the last 60 years.
It’s the rise of the right, the brainwashed kind of left (their moral position is correct) and one is feeding off the other. Like we had the issue of Brexit and I was struck by the arrogance of the Remain people. They didn’t necessarily have an economic argument – although it would obviously be better to stay in the EU – but the problem wasn’t the fact of Brexit views either. It was the division that was being created.
And the lack of actual dialogue and everyone’s attitude that they are right! And they have high moral standards!
People are feeling hopeless now.
My generation knows what’s wrong; we just feel there is nothing we can do about it. The people in power – who may espouse liberal ideology, but they are still controlled by business interests – have carved dissent into small camps. Where people just argue on social media; and dissent is dispersed there. It is distracted from actual meaningful political change and channeled into a space of social media debate.
So even when we may object now, they know how to maneuver it, so it doesn’t matter if we do.
I make music (but haven’t released it yet). I DJ. And I run my Ariapita Social Club.
And I also work part-time as an economist in the civil service.
My time is divided between DJing and … well … the economy.
Being a part-time economist was fine when Covid happened. I would have been screwed if I didn’t have that income.
There are many soca events in London, but Ariapita Social Club is unique.
I was thinking about my first night in Trinidad and trying to recreate that feeling. And also capture the connections between Trini and Caribbean musicc – soca, dancehall, but also some reggaeton, afrobeats.
So it was inspired at the center by Trinidad and Avenue, but then bringing those other broader communities into one. It’s all connected.
It feels like somewhere between a house party and a nightclub. This happens every six weeks, two months something like that.
Ariapita Social Club is very cosmopolitan. Trini big crowd. The Latin crowd. Jamaicans and Nigerians in soca. Arabs, Indians, Europeans.
It’s really versatile, which is one of the cool things about it. I thought, Trinidad is really diverse, so instead of trying to stick to one thing too narrow, why not take that Avenue spirit?
I had a DJ from Bahrain last time – and why not? Because we have an Arab population in Trinidad.
I run all the work myself, but I employ other artists, mostly DJs.
I love live music, but then everyone is on their feet looking at one person. With a DJ, there’s a background for everyone to interact with and I’m more interested in that.
The best thing about Ariapita Social Club is the people who come and the atmosphere. He’s not trying to be cool, he’s not posing. It’s just warm and fun energy. It’s not a rowdy crowd. Everyone is there to dance.
The downside is that it’s a lot of pressure. There is a lot to do.
A Trinbagonian is someone with the best sense of humor.
Trinidad and Tobago is the country that has produced, in soca, the most entertaining music of any culture in the world. I challenge
everyone to find music that will make you happy.
Read the full version of this feature Friday evening at www.BCPires.com
