Pe­ter Ray Blood

It is not that Plum­mer has com­plete­ly spurned the rhythm of ca­lyp­so as some of her new com­po­si­tions car­ry the ca­lyp­so beat but her lyrics and song are ded­i­cat­ed to the glo­ry of God.

Plum­mer doesn't share a view wide­ly held by many born again Chris­tians that ca­lyp­so is "dev­il mu­sic".

She said: "Ca­lyp­so and so­ca are still the rhythms that I use. It is on­ly the mes­sage that is dif­fer­ent. It's what you sing about and how you be­have when you are per­form­ing that de­ter­mines if it is ac­cept­able to God."

As a main­stream ca­lyp­son­ian, Plum­mer had mixed for­tunes and ex­pe­ri­ences.

She had a bru­tal in­tro­duc­tion to the com­pet­i­tive are­na in 1986 when she made her de­but at Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta, the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch se­mi-fi­nals at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do. The crowd at Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta is known for their fe­roc­i­ty to­wards per­form­ers it doesn't ap­pre­ci­ate, and they were not wel­com­ing to the for­mer pop singer. They threw or­anges and toi­let pa­per rolls at her. Plum­mer's re­sponse was to take the toi­let pa­per and wave it dur­ing her per­for­mance and for her brav­ery in the face of the on­slaught, she won the ap­proval of the rest of the na­tion.

That Car­ni­val, she per­formed Phase II Pan Groove's Panora­ma se­lec­tion, the now clas­sic Pan Ris­ing, by Len "Boogsie" Sharpe. Two years lat­er, in 1988, singing an­oth­er Sharpe com­po­si­tion–Woman is Boss–she was crowned the Ca­lyp­so Queen, made it to the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal and Phase II Pan Groove won Panora­ma.

Plum­mer's ca­lyp­so ca­reer was def­i­nite­ly on the rise and in en­su­ing years she copped the Ca­lyp­so Queen ti­tle on three more oc­ca­sions and the World Ca­lyp­so ti­tle three times. Plum­mer be­came the first woman to win the Young Kings ti­tle in 1990 and made it to the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal on three oc­ca­sions. In 2001, she won the cov­et­ed ti­tle singing He­roes and Nah Leav­in'.

Many of Plum­mer's fans are cu­ri­ous about her life change from ca­lyp­son­ian to la­dy of gospel and she re­spond­ed: "To whom much is giv­en, much is re­quired. I have been tru­ly blessed in my ca­reer and in my per­son­al life and have de­cid­ed it is time to give back to God for all he has done for me."

Say­ing that there haven't been ma­jor changes in her life, Plum­mer added: "It has af­fect­ed my life pos­i­tive­ly in every way. My fam­i­ly and I are clos­er than ever, my so­cial life is right where it needs to be and my ca­reer is boom­ing. No com­plaints. No re­grets."

Be­fore she was a ca­lyp­son­ian, Denyse Plum­mer was a lead­ing light in T&T's bur­geon­ing pop scene. She was a reg­u­lar at the Cha­co­nia Inn and her hits in­clude, You're What I've Wait­ed For, Jam­bal­aya, Nat­ur­al and a cov­er of Amer­i­can singer Lin­da Ron­stadt's sig­na­ture 1977 hit Blue Bay­ou.

The for­mer pop star con­tin­ues to per­form, per­haps more reg­u­lar­ly than when she sang ca­lyp­so. She said:"I per­form at many church­es through­out T&T and many gospel con­certs. Not long ago I per­formed in Nige­ria and I al­so re­cent­ly re­turned from an amaz­ing min­istry in Is­rael."

Af­fil­i­at­ed to World Out­reach Church Min­istries, Pe­tit Val­ley, head­ed by Pas­tor Carl Meade, Plum­mer con­tin­ued: "My coun­try and my cul­ture have been ex­treme­ly good to me and I trea­sure my na­tion­al award, the Hum­ming­bird Gold Medal."

In a T&T Guardian in­ter­view last year, Meade said: "Few peo­ple have come out of the dark­ness in one piece," he said. "But Denyse has sur­vived the crossover from dark­ness to light."

About her friends and fans, and their re­ac­tion to her new call­ing, Plum­mer said: "Some friends sup­port me from a dis­tance. My fam­i­ly, oth­er friends and most of the peo­ple of my na­tion are very proud of the pos­i­tive changes I've made in my life. I get tremen­dous en­cour­age­ment."

So, what lies ahead for Denyse Plum­mer? "I am writ­ing an­oth­er book," she dis­closed. "I have al­ready writ­ten and re­leased my au­to­bi­og­ra­phy ti­tled The Crossover. I in­tend record­ing more gospel al­bums as well. Trav­el­ling is al­ways in my plans. I plan to share my love, my time and the Gospel of Je­sus Christ through­out the world. I am al­so look­ing for­ward to hav­ing grand­chil­dren."

"To whom much is giv­en, much is re­quired. I have been tru­ly blessed in my ca­reer and in my per­son­al life and have de­cid­ed it is time to give back to God for all he has done for me."