Fay­ola K J Fras­er

In the vi­brant port city of Casablan­ca, Mo­roc­co, flung many miles away from home, I stum­bled up­on a group of French tourists, whose eyes lit up, up­on hear­ing I was from T&T, while know­ing al­most no Eng­lish, clapped their hands and sang “fire fire, in meh wire!”

The undis­put­ed Ca­lyp­so Queen, one of the moth­ers of the art form, Ca­lyp­so Rose, has found a cadre of diehard fans across the Caribbean, North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope, who have dis­cov­ered and felt the joy of ca­lyp­so mu­sic be­cause of her in­nate, ir­refutable tal­ent. This is the lega­cy of Ca­lyp­so Rose, who will turn 84 this month, and whose in­cred­i­ble ca­reer will be bi­ographised in “Queen of The Road”, a pro­duc­tion which will pre­miere in T&T in May, un­der the pa­tron­age of Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

Born McArtha Lin­da Mon­i­ca Lewis, in the vil­lage of Bethel, To­ba­go, she was one of 13 chil­dren. When she was eight years old, she was cho­sen by a rel­a­tive who want­ed to adopt a child as her own, and Rose moved to Barataria. From an ear­ly age, her tal­ent for mu­sic, writ­ing and com­pos­ing songs was ap­par­ent, and Rose would write songs in school and for birth­days.

Dur­ing one va­ca­tion pe­ri­od when she was back in To­ba­go, she re­called be­ing in­vit­ed to sing a song for Dr Er­ic Williams, who was at the time on a vis­it to the is­land. Draw­ing on in­spi­ra­tion from her en­vi­ron­ment start­ed very ear­ly for Rose, as the foun­da­tion for the song she sang for Dr Williams, en­ti­tled “Glass Thief” came from an ear­ly morn­ing at the mar­ket, when “tief! tief!” echoed through the air as a man went dart­ing away with the glass­es snatched from a mar­ket ven­dor.

Up­on hear­ing her com­po­si­tion, Dr Williams en­cour­aged Rose’s tal­ent and told her she should be in the ca­lyp­so tents in Trinidad. At 14 years old, Rose was in­stalled as the youngest ca­lyp­son­ian in the Orig­i­nal Young Brigade Ca­lyp­so Tent, and her un­mis­tak­able tal­ent gar­nered re­spect and ad­mi­ra­tion from her fel­low ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. “They all took good care of me,” she re­mem­bers fond­ly, “and even Spoil­er, who was the head of the tent at that time, told me I was re­al­ly good.”

Just shy of 20 years old, she wrote and re­leased what was to be not on­ly one of her great­est hits but one of the most icon­ic ca­lyp­so an­thems ever. “Fire in Meh Wire” tells the sto­ry of an old la­dy, whose house is on fire, and she begs her neigh­bour to help her put it out. One of the most spir­it­ed ca­lyp­soes of all time, to which no one can help but shake a leg, “Fire in Meh Wire” has now been sung in nine dif­fer­ent lan­guages and has cat­a­pult­ed Rose to ca­lyp­so star­dom. In a field dom­i­nat­ed by men, Rose has not let any chal­lenges prove a hin­drance to her ca­reer. “This road that I have walked was rough at first,” she says, “but it be­came smooth in the end.” Al­though she did not cred­it her­self, the smoothen­ing of the road has been no doubt due to her tal­ent. The first woman to win the elu­sive Road March, she won the ti­tle two years in a row, first with the catchy “Gimme More Tem­po” (Go­ing Down San Fer­nan­do) in 1977 and “Come Leh We Jam” in 1978.

Re­mem­ber­ing gar­ner­ing some crit­i­cism of her up­beat par­ty songs, she says, “Lord Kitch­en­er told me that Gimme More Tem­po isn’t ca­lyp­so.” When asked what her re­sponse to these crit­i­cisms was, she said sim­ply, “If that isn’t ca­lyp­so, then what is? I knew then that I had the new beat for the Car­ni­val.” In 1978, her win­ning Ca­lyp­so Monarch song “I Thank Thee” led to the com­pe­ti­tion be­ing re­named Ca­lyp­so Monarch from Ca­lyp­so King.

The ac­co­lades and high­lights of her ca­reer are al­most too many for her to name. In 1967, she was in­vit­ed to per­form with Bob Mar­ley & the Wail­ers in New York City, in 1986 she re­ceived the ti­tle of Am­bas­sador at Large of Liberia with her song “Pep­per Soup”, in 2017 she re­ceived an award for Best Al­bum in the World in the Vic­toires de la Musique (French Gram­my Awards) for her al­bum “Far From Home”, and in 2019 she be­came the old­est artist to grace the stage in the leg­endary mu­sic fes­ti­val, Coachel­la.

She has al­so re­ceived hon­orary res­i­den­cy in Ja­maica and Be­lize for her con­tri­bu­tions to rais­ing aware­ness on the cul­tur­al front. In 2017, she re­ceived the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad & To­ba­go, the coun­try’s high­est ho­n­our. At 84 years old, Rose is still pen­ning ca­lyp­soes and her zest for life is con­ta­gious. A two-time can­cer sur­vivor, Rose claims that “God still wants me here,” and she has dis­proved the the­o­ries of sev­er­al med­ical pro­fes­sion­als who spec­u­lat­ed on her life.

In 1996, up­on her breast can­cer di­ag­no­sis, she was told that she had 15 years to live, and wrote the song “Com­ing Home” with im­agery that im­i­tat­ed her be­lief in ac­cor­dance with the doc­tor, that “an­gels were com­ing” and “bells ring­ing.” Her sec­ond di­ag­no­sis of stom­ach can­cer in 2009 led to a near-death ex­pe­ri­ence, where she lost two pints of blood and her lungs col­lapsed.

Sur­viv­ing tri­umphant­ly through both, she says “I am alive for a rea­son, I’m not go­ing home yet.” What is the rea­son? Ca­lyp­so Rose con­tin­ues to leave her in­deli­ble mark not just on mu­sic, but as an ac­tivist and agent for so­cial change. Us­ing mu­sic as her ve­hi­cle, she ad­dress­es press­ing is­sues of racism, sex­ism, and hu­man rights and presents so­lu­tions for so­ci­etal ad­vance­ment to­wards equal­i­ty and jus­tice.

The fem­i­nist an­them, “Leave Me Alone”, which she re­leased in 2019, has be­come sym­bol­ic in the fem­i­nist strug­gle as a melo­di­ous ap­peal for uni­ver­sal re­spect for women. Rose is al­so known wide­ly for her hu­mour, and re­called dur­ing a per­for­mance in Ger­many a young man shout­ed out to her “Grand­ma! I want to mar­ry you!” Draw­ing on his en­thu­si­asm, she came off the stage and be­gan to pen her hit song “Young Boy” (fea­tur­ing Machel Mon­tano), a comedic sto­ry of an old­er woman who re­fus­es to “weep and cry” be­hind her hus­band who is “dead and gone,” and in­stead goes out to find her­self a “young boy.”

Mus­ing on her rea­son for con­tin­ued life, aside from still hav­ing songs in­side of her to write, she in­sists with her in­fec­tious charm, “Well I still look­ing for a young boy, you know.”

Like any oth­er Trinida­di­an liv­ing out­side of the coun­try, she has al­ready be­gun sali­vat­ing at the thought of crack­ing open a crab gundy along with dumplings smoth­ered in cur­ry. More than any­thing, she looks for­ward to re­turn­ing to her “heal­ing” place, the ocean. Hav­ing grown up in To­ba­go, she still holds a deep spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion to the wa­ter, es­pe­cial­ly as her fa­ther was a fish­er­man, with two boats in Mount Irvine.

As a can­cer sur­vivor, she re­spects and craves the heal­ing prop­er­ties of the wa­ter, and can’t wait to sim­ply lie at the beach. “I can’t wait for the day for me to ar­rive in Trinidad,” Rose says, with bud­ding ex­cite­ment not on­ly for her favourite food and beach but for the pre­miere of Queen of the Road on May 10. She is al­most in dis­be­lief that a play is be­ing made about her, think­ing in­cred­u­lous­ly, that “they have made a life his­to­ry of me, of Lin­da.”

Giv­ing thanks to God for her strength, her life thus far and her abil­i­ty, Rose re­mains a pi­o­neer of ca­lyp­so mu­sic, a de­vot­ed daugh­ter of the soil, and a pil­lar of T&T.

Thank you for the mu­sic, Queen Ca­lyp­so Rose.

The Ca­lyp­so Rose Mu­si­cal

“Queen Of The Road–The Ca­lyp­so Rose Mu­si­cal” (QOTR)–a pro­duc­tion cel­e­brat­ing the life and lega­cy of Ca­lyp­so Rose launch­es with a gala open­ing on May 10 at the Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um at 7:30 pm, un­der the pa­tron­age of Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo. Re­peat shows will take place on May 11 and 12 at 6:30 pm.