Malis­sa Lara

Sharp and vi­brant just as she per­forms, Mc Cartha (Ca­lyp­so Rose) Lewis delved in­to is­sues of crime and cul­tur­al changes in T&T. Lewis, 70, has sur­vived two bouts of can­cer and paved the way for women when she be­came the first Ca­lyp­so Monarch in 1978. Sit­ting in her friend's bal­cony in Care­nage she asked, "Where are the guns com­ing from to in­fil­trate our is­land?" She said in the crim­i­nol­o­gy field T&T has gone way down. "The crim­i­nals have tak­en over the coun­try with crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties and crim­i­nal minds," she said. Rose pon­dered quite of­ten through­out the Sun­day Guardian in­ter­view, en­sur­ing that every point was clear.

"Where are the drugs com­ing from to de­stroy the minds of our youth?"

These were the ar­eas that she asked the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry to be heav­i­ly in­volved in. She called for more po­lice of­fi­cers on the streets and pa­trol of our wa­ters. "You could do things with­out fear, you could say things with­out reprisal but now one has to be care­ful how they walk the streets, one has to be care­ful of things that they say," she said. She said cer­tain peo­ple have a lack of re­spect for the law, fam­i­ly, neigh­bours and for them­selves.

T&T's mu­sic has changed

Burst­ing in­to song at in­ter­vals, Lewis said: "We had Ca­lyp­so, we had So­ca, now what we have I don't know." She said, cul­tur­al­ly, the mu­sic has changed im­mense­ly. "Where years ago you could hear a good lo­cal mu­sic or ca­lyp­so, with lyrics that you could un­der­stand, now in the con­text, the lyrics have been tak­en out of the mu­sic and it's on­ly pure rhythm, you don't know what they're say­ing, what they're do­ing," she ex­plained. She said that Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans years ago, could have earned a liv­ing af­ter Car­ni­val world-wide un­til the fol­low­ing Car­ni­val be­cause of their cre­ativ­i­ty.

In fact, re­trac­ing her steps to 1968, Lewis said she want­ed her mon­ey and in­ter­est owed when she sang over "Fire In Meh Wire". "I was told to sing over Fire in Meh 1968. I won the Road March but they say they couldn't give a woman. I want mon­ey they owe me for fire fire in 1968." Though she said it with a smile, she said, "put that down", to en­sure it was not­ed. In 1968 the Road March cham­pi­on re­ceived $1000 and as­sum­ing an av­er­age of eight per cent, Lewis would to­day col­lect, $25,339.48.

Emp­ty seats speak vol­umes

Speak­ing from ex­pe­ri­ence as she has been liv­ing abroad Lewis is aware of the Caribbean Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who per­form in North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope. "Af­ter Car­ni­val this year there were some Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who they brought to New York, in March and April to per­form and the shows were emp­ty, so that tells you what is hap­pen­ing," she said. Lewis called no names."You got­ta give them want they want, they want lyrics, they want to go home and lie down and say, yes, that is Ca­lyp­so." Lewis al­so be­lieves that com­put­erised in­stru­ments have failed T&T's mu­sic.

Some achieve­ments

1966 - Fire In Meh Wire be­came an in­ter­na­tion­al an­them and was trans­lat­ed in­to eight lan­guages.

1978 - Crowned the first Ca­lyp­so Monarch with I Thank Thee as be­fore there were on­ly Ca­lyp­so Kings

Won the Road March with Come Leh We Jam.

Run­ner up with Her Majesty.

2000-Be­stowed the Hum­ming­bird Medal Gold

2005-Main char­ac­ter for the project Ca­lyp­so@ Dirty Jim's in the doc­u­men­tary broad­cast on France 2, BET, etcetera.

Rose Ca­lyp­so Di­va, a film di­rect­ed by Pas­cale Obo­lo is planned to be in­ter­na­tion­al­ly re­leased soon.

Up­com­ing events

De­cem­ber 4th 2010: Screen­ing of the movie in To­ba­go in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the TTFF with a unique free con­cert of Rose, show­ing her ver­sa­til­i­ty. The con­cert will fea­ture oth­er guest artists such as Fay Ann Lyons, Shad­ow, Black Stal­in and some To­ba­go artists. Ne­go­ti­a­tions are in progress with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.