The Trin­ba­go Unit­ed Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans' Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) ex­tend­ed hearti­est con­grat­u­la­tions to the Ho­n­ourable Mc Artha Lewis, Ca­lyp­so Rose, on the world pre­miere of the doc­u­men­tary film Li­oness of the Jun­gle. The full length fea­ture film is an ex­cit­ing and in­for­ma­tive bi­og­ra­phy that ex­plores the life and ca­reer path of Ca­lyp­so Rose, one of ca­lyp­so's liv­ing leg­ends. The film was pro­duced by world renowned African film­mak­er, Pas­cale Obo­lo, as a spe­cial project un­der the Unit­ed Na­tions. It is ex­pect­ed to be dis­trib­uted glob­al­ly and will pro­vide an im­me­di­ate ve­hi­cle po­si­tion­ing Ca­lyp­so Rose to cap­i­talise on her pop­u­lar­i­ty in the world mar­ket.

Ca­lyp­so Rose is a re­cip­i­ent of the Hum­ming Bird Medal Gold from the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of T&T for her con­tri­bu­tion to cul­ture. The Be­lizean Gov­ern­ment has be­stowed hon­orary cit­i­zen­ship up­on her, while the Smith­son­ian In­sti­tute (USA) has named Ca­lyp­so Rose the world's top fe­male ca­lyp­son­ian. Last year she was al­so ho­n­oured by the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of France. Ca­lyp­so Rose en­tered the male dom­i­nat­ed ca­lyp­so are­na in the 1960s and had ear­ly suc­cess with Fire Fire. This song went on to be­come a ma­jor hit span­ning the var­i­ous decades, and carved out a promi­nent space on the hit list of ca­lyp­so and world mu­sic mar­kets. By 1977 Rose cap­tured her first ma­jor na­tion­al ti­tle, the cov­et­ed Road March. She was the first woman to win this com­pe­ti­tion.

One year lat­er Mc Artha Lewis forced the Car­ni­val au­thor­i­ties to change the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so ti­tle from Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so King to Monarch. With two pow­er­ful songs, I Thank Thee and Her Majesty, she con­quered the are­na of men and em­braced the most pres­ti­gious ti­tle in the world of ca­lyp­so. To com­plete her dom­i­nance she re­peat­ed her vic­to­ry in the Road March com­pe­ti­tion that same year.

Mc Artha Lewis stepped out of To­ba­go on­to a foun­da­tion laid by cru­saders like La­dy Trinidad and La­dy Iere. But she was de­ter­mined to carve out her own path in the world. And so it was Ca­lyp­so Rose who cre­at­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties and opened doors for many suc­cess­ful women artiste in the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try as a whole, in T&T and world­wide.

To­day we cel­e­brate a Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch in the per­son­al­i­ty of Karene As­che, while the ho­n­our roll of cham­pi­ons boasts women like Singing San­dra, Denyse Plum­mer, Fay Ann Lyons, San­nel Demp­ster and more. The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) ded­i­cat­ed Car­ni­val 2011 to the pow­er of Ca­lyp­so Rose. Tu­co paid trib­ute to this ma­jes­tic su­per­star of ca­lyp­so by ho­n­our­ing her dur­ing the Kaiso­ra­ma event, with the un­veil­ing of a wood­en sculp­ture of her head and shoul­ders. In­deed as the world gov­ern­ing body for ca­lyp­so, Tu­co ex­pressed ex­treme pride of the achieve­ments and the glob­al sta­tus of Mc Artha Lewis, Ca­lyp­so Rose. "It is the tremen­dous work that artistes like Ca­lyp­so Rose have done in the world of ca­lyp­so that jus­ti­fies the very ex­is­tence of the rep­re­sen­ta­tive body that is Tu­co," a re­lease from the or­gan­i­sa­tion stat­ed. The world pre­miere of the film, Li­oness of the Jun­gle, is sched­uled to take place in To­ba­go on May 6.