Carisa Lee

Dex­ter ‘Blaxx’ Stew­art is be­ing re­mem­bered as a leg­end and an icon in the so­ca mu­sic in­dus­try.

“He left us with some an­thems, tons of clas­sics,” one per­son tweet­ed yes­ter­day, while an­oth­er wrote, “You know if is one thing u could bet for the Car­ni­val, is that Blaxx was com­ing with a mon­ster hit.”

The 61-year-old died at the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day af­ter bat­tling COVID-19 for sev­er­al weeks.

Many had prayed for him to re­cov­er, as he did in 2020 af­ter bat­tling lung and kid­ney is­sues.

This sec­ond chance at life Stew­art did not take for grant­ed. Af­ter per­form­ing his 2022 hit song Mash-Up at Vibes with Voicey on Car­ni­val Thurs­day (March 1), Blaxx told Guardian Me­dia that he was grate­ful to be alive.

“I in­tend to use it wise­ly,” he said.

It’s why he was a strong ad­vo­cate for COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tions. In Jan­u­ary, Blaxx, al­so known as “the man of the peo­ple,” was part of a na­tion­al cam­paign en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to take the jab.

“I have a lot of co­mor­bidi­ties, I suf­fer with my heart, lungs, kid­neys…please I’m beg­ging you, I’m beg­ging my fel­low Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, please take the vac­cine,” he said in an ad.

But even with his ill­ness­es, the Dut­ty singer par­tic­i­pat­ed in this year’s Taste of Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties. He was hos­pi­talised on March 4, days af­ter the sea­son end­ed, with the dis­ease.

At a Trinidad & To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA) me­dia con­fer­ence ear­li­er this year, the singer ad­mit­ted that he had strug­gled to sur­vive dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“This thing was dev­as­tat­ing, man. It was re­al­ly, re­al­ly dev­as­tat­ing. Right now I have a Mac­Book—any­body want a lap­top, a com­put­er to buy? I just sell out stuff you know, to make ends meet,” he said then.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the TTPA sent con­do­lences to both his home and mu­sic fam­i­lies.

“We are sin­gu­lar­ly grate­ful to Blaxx for shar­ing the TTPA plat­form in Jan­u­ary of this year to speak up for the in­dus­try, as we ad­vo­cat­ed for the re­open­ing of our sec­tor, he was one of us,” it wrote.

The TTPA said Blaxx was one of the ‘BIG MEN in the busi­ness’, who left an in­deli­ble mark on the so­ca genre. It said he men­tored many young artists and in­dus­try pro­fes­sion­als, who will now be­come his lega­cy.

Aaron ‘Voice’ St Louis agreed and in a post to In­sta­gram, the singer wrote that he is for­ev­er in­debt­ed to Blaxx.

“You gave me a chance when no­body else did, you men­tored me and gave me a plat­form to have my voice heard,” St Louis said.

St Louis said the on­ly way he can re­pay his debt to Blaxx was to pay it for­ward.

“You were a fight­er, you are a war­rior, you are a leg­end, you are an icon, you are Hulk, love you for­ev­er un­cle,” he said.

Oth­er so­ca artistes al­so re­mem­bered the singer’s lega­cy.

“We love you Blaxx Thank you for your mu­sic, spir­it, and love,” Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller wrote.

“I am ho­n­oured to have known you and work along­side you,” Shal Mar­shall wrote.

“My heart is sad­dened to say RIP to a so­ca leg­end,” Nailah Black­man said.

The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) said it was grate­ful for the singer’s love for the art­form and men­tor­ship of the youth. It said Blaxx’s sweet melod­ic vo­cals, charis­ma and ca­ma­raderie among his col­leagues would be deeply missed.

In a 2013 in­ter­view with the Guardian, Blaxx said his moth­er wrote his first ca­lyp­so. He said both his par­ents were mu­si­cians and af­ter he placed high in a South Vo­cal com­pe­ti­tion, he called him­self the Mighty Hot Choco­late.

Blaxx, who grew up in South Trinidad, ad­mit­ted that he was not fo­cused when he was younger and got his break when he joined Roy Cape All-Stars, which was led then by vet­er­an mu­si­cian Roy Cape.

But he per­formed with sev­er­al bands such as Suc­ces­sion Brass, Up­stream, At­lantik and Blue Ven­tures be­fore join­ing All-Stars.

In his ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30-year ca­reer, Blaxx pro­duced sev­er­al hits such as Leh go, Breath­less, Tusty, Dut­ty and Can­boulay.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, he was nev­er able to win a So­ca Monarch ti­tle de­spite hav­ing pop­u­lar hits. How­ev­er, in 2013 he said it was not on­ly about win­ning for him and ex­plained how his tired­ness would some­times af­fect his per­for­mances. Still, he said would have it no oth­er way.

“If I could be tired every day of the year thanks to so­ca mu­sic I would be grate­ful,” Blaxx said then.

PM: Tal­ent­ed ex­po­nent of T&T’s hap­py mu­si­cal cul­ture

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was one of the many peo­ple who praised Blaxx for his con­tri­bu­tion to the art­form.

“He has been a reg­u­lar tal­ent­ed ex­po­nent of the hap­py mu­si­cal cul­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Row­ley said.

“His con­tri­bu­tions were ea­ger­ly await­ed each year and ap­pre­ci­at­ed by hordes of ador­ing fans. He will be sore­ly missed.”

Cul­ture and Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell al­so added his con­do­lences on be­half of the min­istry.

“The Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts is of­fer­ing deep­est con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and friends of Mr Dex­ter ‘Blaxx’ Stew­art,” Mitchell said.

“We are sad­dened to lose one of Trinidad & To­ba­go’s finest so­ca artistes and cul­tur­al icons.”

Mitchell said that Blaxx’ was “tru­ly a lover of his cul­ture and his coun­try and was proud to fly the flag of Trinidad and To­ba­go wher­ev­er he per­formed.”

“His dy­nam­ic stage pres­ence, in­fec­tious mu­sic and his ded­i­ca­tion to the so­ca art­form will cer­tain­ly not be for­got­ten,” Mitchell said.