The ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty is mourn­ing the death of vet­er­an bard Con­queror (Leroy Paul) who died af­ter he was knocked down on Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day night. Con­quie, 71, as he was fond­ly known, was killed on his way to re­hearsals for Ka­lyp­so Re­vue in prepa­ra­tion for its of­fi­cial open­ing last night. The tent is based at the SWW­TU Hall on Wright­son Road but was due to have its tra­di­tion­al sea­son open­er in Ari­ma last night. Sev­er­al of Con­quie's col­leagues rushed to the scene of the ac­ci­dent which oc­curred just out­side the tent.

Eye­wit­ness­es said the ca­lyp­son­ian was still con­scious but in great pain as sev­er­al of his fel­low bards sur­round­ed him and tried to ren­der as­sis­tance. Among them was Sug­ar Aloes, who held the crit­i­cal­ly wound­ed ca­lyp­son­ian as he lay on the ground, and Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters. Con­quie was still alive when an EMS am­bu­lance ar­rive on the scene to trans­port him to hos­pi­tal but died some­time lat­er. The pop­u­lar ca­lyp­son­ian, known for his clas­sics, Fresh Wa­ter Yan­kee, Web­ster's Dic­tio­nary and Woman and Mon­ey, lived in the Unit­ed States but re­turned to T&T every Car­ni­val sea­son for tent per­for­mances. Known for his dap­per style of dress­ing, in re­cent times Con­queror had been in de­mand for vin­tage kaiso shows.

What hap­pened

A re­port said a grey Mit­subishi Lancer dri­ven by by a man of Barataria was pro­ceed­ing west along Wright­son Road when on reach­ing near SWW­TU hall struck Paul who was cross­ing the road­way.

It hap­pened around 9.25 pm. Paul suc­cumbed at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Cen­tral Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.