The Miami New Times
The steel pan’s cheerful yet melancholic chime has mesmerized Mike Kernahan since he was a young boy growing up near the oil fields of Palo Seco, Trinidad. It is in his blood, he says — his two uncles on his mother’s side were both pannists in Red Army, one of the first pan bands formed.
But in 1963, when Kernahan was just 14 years old, his mother, like most parents at the time in Trinidad, strictly forbade his playing the pan. He wasn't even allowed to listen to pan music. The instrument’s street origins had given it a bad reputation, and though in-group fighting had ceased since its introduction in the 1930s, the instrument had already been marked.
Kernahan, optimistic and determined, didn't let his mother's disapproval stop him. One night, while he was staying with his grandmother in St. James, he snuck out and approached his four older cousins who played in the group Tripoli. They quickly invited him to the pan yard where they practiced, with 28 handmade steel pans standing in rows underneath the natural fauna. After some trepidation, Kernahan’s cousin told him, "You won’t learn anything standing out here." Kernahan shook off his fears and began learning by rote.
“When my mom saw I was playing she started to cry, but my older cousin told her, ‘I’ll take care of him,'” says Kernahan. “It seemed like [the pan] would call you out, so when you hear it you have to go, you know?”
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"yet melancholic chime"
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