Car­ol Quash

When it comes to her craft, Karene As­che knows where her strengths lie, and she leaves no room for weak­ness­es.

“Weak­ness? What weak­ness?... I don’t al­low neg­a­tives to in­vade my mind when it comes to ex­e­cut­ing my art,” she told WE.

The 2011 Ca­lyp­so Monarch and daugh­ter of mu­si­cian, the late Er­rol As­che, is fond­ly known as the gold­en child of ca­lyp­so – a fit­ting ti­tle for a woman who has, from a young age, graced many a stage with her hard-hit­ting songs and strong, poised ex­e­cu­tions.

“As Singing San­dra (San­dra Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton) al­ways said, ‘God cre­at­ed writ­ers and prophets, singers and po­ets,’ so I stay in my lane -” singing, with pas­sion and emo­tion.

For the past 15 years, she has de­pend­ed on com­pos­er Christophe Grant to write the songs she has been per­form­ing. Their an­nu­al rou­tine in­volves pick­ing a top­ic and dis­cussing how it will evolve.

“He knows that my forte is pas­sion and emo­tion, and thus he com­pos­es songs like Every Knee Shall Bow to al­low me to do what I do best.”

She ex­plained that their aim is al­ways to com­pose songs that go deep and tug at heart­strings; songs that cause souls to soar.

“I am a singer. I un­der­stand the craft of singing,” and es­pe­cial­ly the im­por­tance of dy­nam­ics, ar­tic­u­la­tion and dic­tion.

“It’s a craft that re­quires ren­di­tion skills of the high­est qual­i­ty and good com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills as well. I un­der­stand that nat­u­ral­ly, and ra­di­ate that once I hit the stage. It has be­come sec­ond na­ture now.”

This year she and Grant have come up with No­body Wins Un­til, a na­tion-build­ing po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary that As­che de­scribes as a time­ly re­minder to politi­cians that if every­one is to tru­ly win, it can­not be through pol­i­tics of spite and di­vi­sion. She be­lieves the foun­da­tion of true uni­ty is sin­cere con­sul­ta­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion and mu­tu­al re­spect.

“Not through con­de­scen­sion and is­su­ing di­rec­tives and in­struc­tions to grown folks as though they are lit­tle chil­dren.”

She has al­so col­lab­o­rat­ed with Mi­cal Te­ja on a so­ca song en­ti­tled We Ca­lyp­so, which is the tune of choice for Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra for Panora­ma.

“So you might just see me wav­ing a flag for Des­pers on the Panora­ma stage. Who knows? Tell them Karene in every­thing, like salt for 2026.”

As­che said she nat­u­ral­ly took to the ca­lyp­so art­form from the mo­ment she was ex­posed to it, es­pe­cial­ly as she views it as one of the fas­ci­nat­ing ways through which the sto­ries of Trinidad and To­ba­go are told.

“It’s in my DNA…From the time I was in­tro­duced to it around eight or nine years old, I ex­celled, win­ning show af­ter show, like Twelve and Un­der with Aun­ty Hazel in 1996.”

Now, many years lat­er, as a vet­er­an in ca­lyp­so, she be­lieves her time has come to make sure those sto­ries con­tin­ue to be told through the young male and fe­male ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in T&T and the wider Caribbean.

“I don’t want to name names, but any­one who knows my in­ner cir­cle will know the ones who I have been men­tor­ing since they were in Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so, as I al­so once was. Some have al­ready reached Monarch fi­nals here and abroad…might even have won ti­tles here and in the is­lands. I will leave it there.”

Their per­for­mances are rem­i­nis­cent of her years as a young ca­lyp­son­ian, learn­ing the art­form at the feet of the late Singing San­dra and Leroy “Black Stal­in” Cal­liste, as well as Tim­o­thy “Baron” Watkins and Michael “Sug­ar Aloes” Os­ouna.

“Every­one knows by now that my chief men­tor was Singing San­dra. We came from the same com­mu­ni­ty, and she was a born chantuelle. She saw abil­i­ty in me from ear­ly and nour­ished it.”

As­che ad­mired and al­ways tries to em­u­late Singing San­dra’s pas­sion­ate and emo­tive de­liv­ery of her deep and time­less songs.

“She al­ways sang with heart and soul, giv­ing 100 per cent once she hit that stage. I don’t want to be a judge in my own case, so I will leave it up to the pub­lic to say whether I have fol­lowed her ex­am­ple well, whether I have been a good stu­dent.”

Stal­in’s grass­roots ground­ing and his deep so­cial mes­sages were what drew As­che in­to his mu­sic, while Baron’s and Sug­ar Aloes’ clear dic­tion and sweet melodies at­tract­ed her to their style.

“Di­a­betes mu­sic, as the late Ex­plain­er (Win­ston Hen­ry) used to say.”

As a re­sult of their com­bined guid­ance, As­che said she tries to be as con­sis­tent as they were, com­ing out with hard-hit­ting sto­ries every year.

“Con­nect­ing with the ground, re-telling the sto­ry of their strug­gles, as­pi­ra­tions, joys and pains. On stage, I try to in­cor­po­rate one of the man­dates of Sug­ar Aloes – This Stage Is Mine.”

As­che be­lieves that, al­though it was once a male-dom­i­nat­ed in­dus­try, the grow­ing num­ber of women in the art­form is ev­i­dence that there is no lim­it for women in ca­lyp­so.

“In the se­mi-fi­nals, 40 con­tes­tants, of late, have been al­most equal­ly di­vid­ed be­tween males and fe­males. The Di­manche Gras Fi­nals as well. Gone are the days when Ca­lyp­so Rose and Singing Francine were the on­ly fe­male war­riors in a male-dom­i­nat­ed Di­manche Gras Ca­lyp­so Monarch Fi­nals.”

As­che won that ti­tle with Care­ful What Yuh Ask For and Un­cle Jack. She was 27 at the time, mak­ing her the youngest ever and the fourth woman to hold that pres­ti­gious spot, af­ter Denyse Plum­mer in 2001. She went on to top the re­gion­al Caribbean King of Kings of Ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion in St Kitts in 2012, and won the re­gion­al Queen of Queens Monarch in 2017 and 2019. Among her oth­er ac­com­plish­ments are the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch and the 2006 NWAC Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen ti­tle.