SAN­DRA L BLOOD

In a ges­ture that blend­ed com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing with cul­tur­al rev­er­ence, of­fi­cers of the East­ern Di­vi­sion Com­mu­ni­ty Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Sec­tion (ED­COPS) paid trib­ute to two of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­dur­ing ca­lyp­so stal­warts ear­li­er this month, pre­sent­ing them with their “flow­ers” while they can still en­joy their fra­grance.

On Feb­ru­ary 12, ED­COPS of­fi­cers vis­it­ed the home of vet­er­an mul­ti-Monarch Broth­er Valenti­no (An­tho­ny Em­rold Phillip), ho­n­our­ing the 84-year-old icon for his decades of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice to ca­lyp­so and coun­try. The ini­tia­tive, spear­head­ed by WPC Ryan and over­seen by ED­COPS head Corp Al­fred, forms part of on­go­ing com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ments with­in the East­ern Di­vi­sion.

The idea was part­ly in­spired by ace Panora­ma arranger Du­vone Stew­art, who dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, cham­pi­oned the call to ho­n­our artistes while they are alive. ED­COPS took that mes­sage to heart.

Valenti­no, dig­ni­fied and re­flec­tive as ever, re­ceived the recog­ni­tion with qui­et grace. At his side stood his wife and staunchest sup­port­er, for­mer na­tion­al net­baller Peg­gy Cas­tana­da-Phillip, shar­ing in the aus­pi­cious oc­ca­sion.

Few ca­lyp­so­ni­ans have shaped the na­tion’s con­scious­ness as pro­found­ly as Broth­er Valenti­no. Emerg­ing in the late 1960s and ear­ly 1970s, he be­came a defin­ing voice of a trans­for­ma­tive era in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry. As the coun­try wres­tled with iden­ti­ty, in­equal­i­ty and post-in­de­pen­dence na­tion-build­ing, his mu­sic gave lyri­cal ex­pres­sion to the spir­it of the Black Pow­er move­ment and the as­pi­ra­tions of the mar­gin­alised.

Clas­sics such as Stay Up Zim­bab­we, Life Is a Stage, Dis Place Nice, Re­ces­sion and A Man and His Mu­sic re­main time­less for their po­et­ic depth and fear­less so­cial com­men­tary.

Un­like many of his con­tem­po­raries, Valenti­no’s de­liv­ery is slow­er, med­i­ta­tive and spir­i­tu­al­ly ground­ed, blend­ing ca­lyp­so with folk and African con­scious­ness. His work ex­plores jus­tice, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and cul­tur­al pride, af­firm­ing ca­lyp­so as both con­science and class­room.

Even at 84, he con­tin­ued to com­mand au­di­ences at D’Kaiso Dy­nasty tent at the Radis­son Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain, where he was hailed as roy­al­ty.

ED­COPS al­so cel­e­brat­ed San­gre Grande na­tive and cul­tur­al ac­tivist Er­ic Tay­lor, bet­ter known to the ca­lyp­so world as Pink Pan­ther. At 65, Pan­ther re­mains an ac­tive and com­mand­ing pres­ence, per­form­ing up to this year’s Car­ni­val at the Re­vue Ca­lyp­so Tent in Port-of-Spain.

He has been ho­n­oured for his un­wa­ver­ing ser­vice to the com­mu­ni­ty of San­gre Grande and en­vi­rons, as well as his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to ca­lyp­so, and his cat­a­logue in­cludes en­dur­ing hits such as The Apol­o­gy, Trav­el Woes, Laugh­ing in the Ghet­to, Mis­print, Chalkie Say and The Con­sti­tu­tion.

Tay­lor’s jour­ney be­gan at North East­ern Col­lege dur­ing the height of the Pink Pan­ther car­toon’s pop­u­lar­i­ty. Class­mates, not­ing his pen­chant for writ­ing po­ems to girls, nom­i­nat­ed him to rep­re­sent the class as a ca­lyp­son­ian. When urged by a teacher to adopt a more tra­di­tion­al so­bri­quet like Mighty or Lord, he opt­ed to keep the name his peers had al­ready giv­en him. Ca­lyp­son­ian Pink Pan­ther was born.

His ear­ly com­pe­ti­tions with the San­gre Grande Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee at As­cot Cin­e­ma placed him along­side re­spect­ed names such as Scrunter, Pos­er, Mat­a­pal, Soft Touch and Pup­pet Mas­ter. In a maid­en com­pe­ti­tion, he even de­feat­ed Scrunter—a vic­to­ry that forged, rather than frac­tured, ca­ma­raderie. Scrunter lat­er in­tro­duced him to Lord Kitch­en­er, paving the way for Pan­ther’s jour­ney with Kitch­en­er’s Ka­lyp­so Re­vue tent.

Pan­ther went on to cap­ture the Na­tion­al Young King ti­tle in 1992 with Ah Cyar See and the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle in 2013 with Trav­el Woes/Cry­ing in the Chapel, com­posed by Chalk­dust. A con­sis­tent Monarch fi­nal­ist in the late 1990s, he has bal­anced his cul­tur­al life with aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment, grad­u­at­ing from the Arthur Lok Jack School of Busi­ness and The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, while serv­ing in sev­er­al high-pro­file pub­lic ser­vice roles.

He is al­so founder and pres­i­dent of the San­gre Grande De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion and its youth arm, and played a piv­otal ad­vo­ca­cy role in bring­ing the San­gre Grande Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in­to be­ing in 2012.

ED­COPS ex­pressed grat­i­tude to com­mu­ni­ty part­ners in­clud­ing Zo­zo’s Sewing Shoppe, KD’s Fruits & Veg­eta­bles and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Stan­ley Bark­er for sup­port­ing the ini­tia­tive.

For Valenti­no and Pink Pan­ther—two voic­es who have chron­i­cled the na­tion’s tri­umphs and tri­als—the trib­ute was more than cer­e­mo­ni­al. It was a re­minder that the guardians of cul­ture, like the guardians of com­mu­ni­ty, stand strongest when ap­pre­ci­a­tion is giv­en not posthu­mous­ly, but dur­ing their life­time.