- This is to remember the great Colvin George Scott, the best Jamaican reggae singer and songwriter, born on 3 September 1949 – and died last year on 11 March 2025. And Zeno Obi Constance is by far the best in the Caribbean and beyond. This article is part of an attempt to reach, teach and increase our knowledge and commitment to our development.
By Tony Deyal
Cocoa tea is a traditional Caribbean hot beverage made by simmering grated or pounded pure cocoa balls or sticks with water, aromatic spices, and milk. As a three-year-old boy in my grandma’s house we get our breakfast with three options- coffee, cocoa and tea. I told everyone that tea is for babies. I was born to drink either coffee, cocoa or both together. Throughout the Caribbean some had their cocoa with nutmeg, manilla and cinnamon; some like the Jamaicans talk about cocoa powder and “wulf” for hot beverage, another came up with flour “seastrongbakush” which is really a strong baker’s flour; and in Guyana, there is coco tea as well as coffee tea. More, one group calls the cocoa tea even though it includes farrine inside.
Actually, the best way to understand, learn and agree about the “mix”, so to speak is to listen to Lord Relator who they say is decked off across performance in traditional colourful calypsonian wear, through the classic black-and-white bow tie look, the usually elegant, tan-coloured suits, and a beret as he first talks about the “COCOA PAYOL 2001” and afterwards, go for the “Senorita” and even “Senoritas” ready to rumble. He started with, “Now, um, um, we you a cocoa panyol. What you, what is a cocoa panyol. A cocoa panyol is very light skinned with very dark hair. Now, this lady is light-skinned, but she has kind of reddish hair, the lady in the third row. But a cocoa panyol would look like what that lady there in white. You see here? In Trinidad, in Trinidad, we have a lot of coca panyols, you know? And the first girlfriend that I had was like that lady there, you know? But the relationship didn’t last as long as the Red House fire. I tell all of you go out of the room. A.A. So, um, a cocoa panyol means a brown-skinned Spanish panyol, Spanish, you, see? And that relationship didn’t last long. As we are on this um the topic of infidelity. So, I wrote a song about what happened. That was the first knuckle that I got um knuckle like horn, right?”
Then the Lord Relator, having written a song about how the relationship of a Spanish senorita related with him: So, I wrote the song about how the relationship went. She was a Spanish senorita. And this is how it goes.
I met a Spanish senorita in a farewell party up in Marabella
I met this Spanish senorita in a farewell party up in Marabella
Well, after the formal introduction,
She opened up a Spanish conversation.
Well, as I was there, I took the privilege
Because I know a little of the language.
She tells me hasta manana I said hasta banana,
She tells me hasta manana I said hasta banana
She said donde vive usted?
I said well hablo espanol muy pequeno senorita
But the Relator eh so stupid.
When she tell me uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, and then ask me what that mean.
I said well if you know dose Andrews liver salts, me carry you in el grande latrine.
That mix of humour and egging the Spanish made a few people join the humour about Cocoa Tee like, “Why did the cocoa laugh?” It was stirred up.; “What did the cocoa say to the marshmallow?” You’re sweet!”; “Cocoa told me a joke yesterday; it was really rich.”; “Chocolate comes from cocoa; which comes from trees- that makes it a plant, so chocolate officially counts as a salad.; “Why is chocolate cheaper than therapy?” Because you don’t have to make an appointment, and it works faster. Then there are a few more like, “Chocolate is like duct tape – It fix everything”; “What’s a chocolate lover’s idea of a balanced diet?” A chocolate bar in each hand.; “I could give up chocolate, but I’m not a quitter!”; “My doctor told me I needed more magnesium…so I’ve stocked up on dark chocolate!”; “Put the chocolate in the bag, and nobody gets hurt!” and, “It’s not that chocolates are a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. Chocolate is, let’s face it, far more reliable that a man.”
For many of the cocoa folks it might be totally true, especially when the “COCO” (or “coconut”) are really for sex and fun to regional slang. It is said that there are two types, the “Spelling Coconut” or “sexual technique” where women were told that while on top (the cowgirl position) they would move their hips to trace the letters “C-O-C-O-N-U-T”, and the “Appeal to Writers”, bloggers, and musicians use this slang for “fun” and raunchy content because the circular and back-and-forth hip motions are physically designed to provide optimal stimulation, especially in music hooks and romance articles. In the region and Caribbean slang there are “coco” or “koko” in regional Caribbean dialects like St Lucian Creole and French Patois are the male and female genitalia.
The “Coco Bred” in Jamaica culture is a beloved staple food, but in literal and comedic writing, it is sometimes used as a playful or provocative double entendre regarding physical intimacy and bodies. Just to understand who is doing what and to whom, Kes the Band with his “Make Me Reel Swell” included, “When I’m feeling under the weather/ You make me feel sweet/ The C te use the sugar/ And together we are complete…” Then there is “Mysterie” with “Coco Sticks/ Coco for Sale (Coco Sticks/ Coco for sale,” – “We getting hot, have to try something, a have to try something, to work a living…” Added to it are “Talking on the phone”, “Coco Chanel, Coco Chanel, coco for tail, cooking for tail” and “Coco, coco you an get it…Who buyin it, who buying it.” And there was “Tallish” humourist with “MORE COCOA” with, “I don’t know what to say about Mina/ The coco proprietor daughter/ Yes I have to sit back and wonder/ What wrong with them people daughter/ the gyul have a strange appetite/ She want COCO each and every night/ Is her parents who give she this Coco deal/ To work in the COCO field.”
And to go back to Lord Relator, “I plan to go down Venezuela/ On holiday by the Spanish senorita/ It tell myself I can make a mass/ So the she switch the talk right away/ I still tell she I coming after carnival/ So she said, “Cuando Cuando.”/ I said Marlo Brando/ She say, “De que pais es usted?”/ I said Trinidad in Port of Spain by where they Northen Range is situated. / She then tells me bolero, / “Baila, bolero”/ I said, “Please, please, take it easy. I said if I go bailar and start a bolero, somebody might want to do me the same.”
*Tony Deyal was last seen a Spanish senorita in a pretty party but nowhere close to the Caribbean.
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