COVID-19 might have can­celled Car­ni­val 2021’s pa­rade of the bands’ com­pe­ti­tion, but cul­ture lovers still rev­elled cel­e­brat­ing a huge ho­n­our be­stowed on Dr Leroy “Black Stal­in” Cal­liste yes­ter­day.

Af­ter decades of gift­ing this coun­try with ca­lyp­soes, that pro­voked danc­ing and en­gen­dered na­tion­al pride, Cal­liste’s name was memo­ri­alised on a street. Born on Lord Street, San Fer­nan­do in 1941, Stal­in now has the ho­n­our of hav­ing his for­mer neigh­bour­hood called Dr Leroy Cal­liste Street.

The San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion changed Lord Street, from Cof­fee Street to Par­adise Street, to Dr Leroy Cal­liste Street while the re­main­ing road­way lead­ing to Har­ris Street re­tained its name.

The 79-year-old was not well enough to at­tend the fes­tive oc­ca­sion, which was filled with steel pan mu­sic, drum­ming, tra­di­tion­al mas­quer­aders and some of his col­leagues singing ren­di­tions of his many hits. How­ev­er, his wife Pat­sy en­joyed the cel­e­bra­tion, danc­ing to the Black Stal­in’s “Bun Dem” as ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, Ter­ri Lyons and Bri­an Lon­don sang to the beat of drum­mers at the cor­ner of Leroy Cal­liste Street and Mu­cu­rapo Street.

She said the ho­n­our was long over­due. Shar­ing an in­ti­mate sto­ry of their life, Pat­sy said af­ter meet­ing Cal­liste on Har­ris Prom­e­nade in their youth­ful years, Lord Street was their hide­away to spend time to­geth­er. Back then, Cal­liste was known as the Mighty Stal­in.

“We used to hide here and hold hands. So, this street was marked for a very long time. I am very proud. Our fam­i­lies nev­er knew about our dat­ing days on Lord Street. Our love re­al­ly start­ed on Lord Street,” Pat­sy said.

For San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, Cal­liste’s work is de­serv­ing of ap­pre­ci­a­tion as he said Stal­in drew his ma­te­r­i­al from the var­i­ous ex­pres­sions on the streets. He said, “Cal­liste’s was con­temp­tu­ous of var­i­ous gov­ern­ments for squan­der­ing the pub­lic purse and al­ways ad­vo­cat­ed for the black man and woman.

“The every­day cries and suf­fer­ing of the peo­ple, his com­po­si­tions re­flect­ed the life of the poor and work­ing-class and the fail­ure of the de­liv­ery of jus­tice, which were all ar­tic­u­lat­ed in his songs,” Re­grel­lo said.

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters said, the ho­n­our was not just sig­nif­i­cant to Cal­liste but the steel­pan and ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ties that have un­der­gone stress and de­pri­va­tion. 

Re­call­ing the scorn and con­tempt pan­nists and ca­lyp­so­ni­ans faced in the ear­ly days, Pe­ters said this was still alive to­day.

“To this very day, some peo­ple do not want their sons and daugh­ter to have any­thing to do with peo­ple who play pan. Many years ago, if we were un­veil­ing a plaque; that plaque would have said No ca­lyp­son­ian or dog al­lowed.”

Pe­ters, how­ev­er, praised uni­ver­si­ties for recog­nis­ing their con­tri­bu­tions and award­ing hon­orary doc­tor­ates to cul­tur­al icons like ca­lyp­son­ian Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co, pan­nist Len “Boogsie” Sharpe and, of course, the Black Stal­in.