THE Trinidad and Tobago Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (TTSPCA) and soca star Machel Montano were among the most recent to provide a backlash to Jamaican dancehall icon Beenie Man (Moses Davis) for his apparently ‘negative’ comment about Trinidad’s beloved street food, doubles.
The dancehall legend made the comment while on the Drink Champs podcast with hosts N.O.R.E. (Victor James Santiago Jr) and DJ EFN (Eric Fernando Narciandi), which premiered on Saturday.
The controversial statement came up when the hosts asked Beenie Man a follow-up question of whether he eats doubles, after Beenie Man said that Trinidad was his favourite country besides Jamaica.
‘I love Trinidad, but I don’t eat doubles, because dogs don’t eat doubles and I don’t eat anything that dogs don’t eat. I don’t eat doubles,’ Beenie Man said.
He then doubled down on his response, ‘It (doubles) is nice but once I threw it to the dog and the dog didn’t eat it…dogs eat chicken, dogs eat fish, dogs eat dumplings…but the dog won’t eat the doubles.’
His comment ignited a firestorm on social media, with many Trinis expressing outrage over what they see as a blatant insult to their national culinary pride.
Yesterday, the TTSPCA seemed to have responded to the controversy with the posting of a video showing a worker feeding doubles to a dog, with Kenneth Supersad’s hit chutney soca ‘Doubles’ playing in the background.
Also yesterday, Montano seemed to have his say with a video of him at a doubles stall wrapping the delicacy.
In the background was a parody of his hit song ‘Pardy’ which mentioned the word doubles.
On Tuesday, Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Dr Amery Browne took to Facebook to send his message.
Browne posted a photograph of himself delighting in a hot doubles, eaten on location at a vendor’s stall. Bennie Man has not yet responded to the backlash.