Deconstructing “The Equalizer” Beyond A Balance of Terror: The Equaliser

Abstract

During the Calypso season of 1998 a well-known calypsonian, Singing Sandra, presented her major offering for the year at Kaiso House; it was the calypso The Equaliser, which like her 1999 smash hit Voices from the Ghetto, was written for her by Christophe Grant. It was mainly The Equaliser that was responsible for her presence at the Calypso Fiesta semifinals and for her winning of the ―”Peoples‘ Choice—Female” title in 1998. There had been 27 women murdered in 1997 in incidents of domestic violence, and there had been 2,282 reports of domestic violence that year. The Equaliser was condensed into four stanzas and its choruses represented the enraged outcry of women against all categories of male violence against women: rape, incest, child molestation, battering, and verbal and emotional violence such as insults, threats and terrorism. The Equaliser was an appeal for vengeance in the form of punishments that were meant to be poetically appropriate to each crime of violence