Michelle Loubon

Adon­ai, Days of Eli­jah, Swing Low Sweet Char­i­ot; on Sun­days, con­gre­ga­tions sing such songs which pay homage to the Almighty-via the genre of gospel mu­sic.For­mer 1994 ca­lyp­so monarch Franz Lam­bkin (De­lamo) cum gospel artiste has lent his voice and tal­ent to the cho­rus of voic­es pay­ing rev­er­ence to the Cre­ator.Lam­bkin will launch his Gospel CD, De­lamo Sings For The Lord on Good Fri­day.On Wednes­day, Lam­bkin stressed he had clung stead­fast­ly to the in­dige­nous ca­lyp­so art form. But he de­scribed his of­fer­ings as "anoint­ed ca­lyp­soes."He said: "I am now singing anoint­ed ca­lyp­soes for the ho­n­our and glo­ry of God. It is not about en­ter­tain­ment any­more and self-glo­ri­fi­ca­tion. It's about min­istry."He added: "I have been giv­en a man­date by the Holy Spir­it.The words were, "There are not enough in­dige­nous songs of praise and wor­ship. Reach up to me in the high heav­ens."I am not a God of con­fu­sion. If I want­ed reg­gae, I would have raised you up in Ja­maica."If I want­ed R&B, I would have raised you up in Amer­i­ca. I am not at­tack­ing any form of mu­sic. It's just my man­date is singing anoint­ed ca­lyp­soes. The cry of man is the cry of God."Lam­bkin made it abun­dant­ly clear he was not at­tack­ing ca­lyp­so mu­sic or his peers in the en­ter­tain­ment fra­ter­ni­ty.

Called to mu­sic min­istry

La­belling him­self a "force ripe Chris­t­ian," Lam­bkin said: "This is my fifth year. I didn't know when I was called from the es­tab­lished mu­sic fra­ter­ni­ty, it would have been a mu­sic min­istry."I kept silent in church for two years; un­til I was called spir­i­tu­al­ly."Lam­bkin could not re­sist the call of the Lord to take the gospel to the na­tions. He not­ed there was a dearth where he had once been pro­lif­ic.He had writ­ten for fel­low en­ter­tain­ers in­clud­ing Baron, Ex­plain­er, Mar­cia Mi­ran­da and Rik­ki Jai.Lam­bkin said: "My cre­ative tal­ent had dried up in the car­nal world. I used to write about 50 com­po­si­tions a year. It whit­tled to about two."

When he com­posed Chris­t­ian mu­sic, he pro­duced an avalanche."When I got called in the Spir­it, ideas were com­ing in­to my head. Be­fore, I didn't have the ca­pac­i­ty. I would start writ­ing a song and by morn­ing I would have writ­ten five songs."Lam­bkin ad­mit­ted to en­joy­ing carous­ing and rev­el­ry dur­ing Car­ni­va­lesque cel­e­bra­tions."The Car­ni­val sea­son en­cour­aged or cre­at­ed the per­fect cli­mate for me to get in­volved in sin­ful ac­tiv­i­ty. It is writ­ten if your eye of­fend thee; pluck it out. And, so I did."But he nev­er den­i­grates the art form.

Lam­bkin feels ca­lyp­so mu­sic could be fu­tur­is­tic in mu­si­cal ex­pres­sions di­rect­ed to­ward the throne of God.He said: "I'm con­vinced in the fu­ture the mu­sic which would be used to of­fer praise in Jerusalem. When Je­sus comes again it is go­ing to be ca­lyp­so mu­sic."With that man­date, I am a gospe­lyp­so artiste. I am singing ca­lyp­so for God's ho­n­our and glo­ry. Ca­lyp­so Big Truck would be go­ing to Jerusalem to wor­ship. It's the on­ly mu­sic that in­clines a per­son to raise their hands sky­wards in praise."

Sodom and Go­mor­rah

Dur­ing his ca­reer, Lamkin was renowned for spir­i­tu­al songs like Sodom and Go­mor­rah-which took a "lagge" against some in­di­vid­ual's sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion.In 1979, the com­men­tary earned him Most Promis­ing Ca­lyp­son­ian.The Bib­li­cal sto­ry says God de­stroyed the twin cities renowned for sex­u­al ex­cess­es. As they fled, Lot's ma­te­ri­al­is­tic wife was turned to a pil­lar of salt.Lam­bkin said: "I had spir­i­tu­al songs like Ar­maged­don and Prophets."A shard of light hit him. "It was well in­ten­tioned. But not anoint­ed. As a Chris­t­ian, I dis­cov­ered good works are as filthy rags."His le­gions of ador­ing fans of­ten give him fa­tigue. "Peo­ple say: 'De­lamo, why you stop singing? You nev­er sang smut.'"I re­ply, 'It wasn't anoint­ed.'"He re­tained the De­lamo so­bri­quet-which is an ab­bre­vi­a­tion of Lam­bkin. "The name was giv­en to me by the late Art De Couteaux."I was pre­pared for my Min­istry... as De­lamo. It's like Moses when he for­sook Egypt's trea­sures and fled to the land of Mid­i­an. The en­counter with the burn­ing bush was meant to pre­pare him for min­istry. It was meant to pre­pare him to stand be­fore the great Pharoah."