SAN­DRA L BLOOD

mindup.slblood@gmail.com

Moth­er, wife and au­thor, Terneisha Amun, holds an As­so­ciate de­gree in Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and pre­vi­ous­ly worked as a stu­dent aide at the Pri­ma­ry school lev­el, but her un­wa­ver­ing pas­sion for pro­mot­ing cul­tur­al ed­u­ca­tion, “one book at a time”, re­sult­ed in the launch of her first book, The Ca­lyp­so Ba­by.

The book, she said, is a means of en­abling lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences of any age to learn about Ca­lyp­so at both ca­su­al and aca­d­e­m­ic lev­els.

Amun’s pen name is Te’Amun, and The Ca­lyp­so Ba­by, this, part one—A Vis­it to My Grand­par­ents – fea­tures 100 ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

“I penned this book pri­mar­i­ly based on the ev­i­dent need to cre­ate a fun and in­ter­ac­tive av­enue not on­ly for Trinida­di­an chil­dren, but al­so the world at large to ex­pe­ri­ence and par­take of our sweet kaiso mu­sic, and through their de­sire to pub­lish more cul­tur­al ed­u­ca­tion con­tent, the Brow­er Park Li­brary in Brook­lyn New York de­scribes it as ‘a seed plant­ed to seek out and lis­ten to some of the fa­mous ca­lyp­so­ni­ans that are ref­er­enced in the sto­ry and ac­tiv­i­ties’.”

Amun fur­ther stat­ed that it’s not on­ly her burn­ing de­sire that fu­eled the ul­ti­mate prod­uct but her three-year-old son, Ak­ih­mien Amun, who ad­mirably showed a nat­ur­al propen­si­ty to ca­lyp­so and mu­sic. “I want­ed to in­tro­duce him to ca­lyp­so from a very young age, and he ab­solute­ly loves it. He par­tic­u­lar­ly loves the mu­sic of Ras Shorty I, David Rud­der, Black Stal­in and Dru­patee.”

The Ca­lyp­so Ba­by (Part One) en­tails fun ac­tiv­i­ties for the en­tire fam­i­ly em­brac­ing Word Search, Cross­word, and Com­pre­hen­sion, among oth­er ar­eas.

Te’Amun al­so ex­plained that her grand­moth­er’s up­bring­ing prop­er­ly po­si­tioned her to be a whole­some woman—to be kind, hum­ble, gen­er­ous and have a strong re­la­tion­ship with God. “It was dur­ing my child­hood and see­ing my grand­moth­er’s love for Ca­lyp­so mu­sic that gave me the mo­ti­va­tion to pro­mote cul­tur­al ed­u­ca­tion via the launch of my first book: The Ca­lyp­so Ba­by.”

Prov­ing to be not on­ly brain but al­so beau­ty, Te’Amun is the reign­ing sec­ond run­ner-up Mrs World Trinidad & To­ba­go 2022 and Mrs Pho­to­genic, Mrs El­e­gance and Mrs Fit­ness.

The Ca­lyp­so Ba­by’s ten top ca­lyp­sos are Roar­ing Li­on, Black Stal­in, Ras Shorty I, Bri­an Lon­don, Dru­patee, Broth­er Valenti­no, David Rud­der, Mis­tah Shak, Ras Kom­man­da, and Ter­ri Lyons.

The book, at $100, can be sourced via: the­ca­lyp­sob­a­by@gmail.com; on Ama­zon, book­stores in San Fer­nan­do, and Brent­wood Mall in Ch­agua­nas.