Jesse Ramdeo

A call is be­ing made for the work and lega­cy of Dr Leroy “Black Stal­in” Cal­liste to be pre­served and passed on to fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

The ap­peal was made by Jus­tice of Ap­peal Gillian Lucky, who was among the many who led trib­utes dur­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice of the ca­lyp­so icon at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day.

While de­liv­er­ing an an­i­mat­ed speech re­count­ing her for­ay in ca­lyp­so un­der Black Stal­in’s tute­lage, Lucky stressed that the artiste’s life les­son in lyrics and knowl­edge can­not be buried be­neath the sands of time.

“In or­der to pay true homage to Black Stal­in, I re­spect­ful­ly sug­gest that ref­er­ence to his com­po­si­tions be made part of the cur­ricu­lum in our na­tion’s schools. We need the gen­er­a­tions to un­der­stand what our her­itage is and that is why I again say that we have many great peo­ple amongst us, alive and dead, Black Stal­in is one of them and the way we give them a true lega­cy, where gen­er­a­tions come will re­mem­ber the name Black Stal­in, and gen­er­a­tions will as­pire to achieve the laud­able goals that Black Stal­in so ex­press­ly de­tailed in his ca­lyp­soes.”

Lucky said Black Stal­in al­ways made a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt to en­gage the au­di­ence to be­come con­scious of the coun­try’s so­ci­etal ills and in­equities.

“Black Stal­in mas­tered the art of mak­ing his lis­ten­ers a part of him, so nat­u­ral­ly his mes­sages res­onat­ed with all of us.”

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, so­ca gi­ant Machel Mon­tano la­belled Black Stal­in an icon, guardian, friend and fa­ther-like.

In 2005, Black Stal­in was fea­tured on Mon­tano’s remixed track “Love Fire.”

Mon­tano cred­it­ed Black Stal­in for his pi­o­neer­ing role in cre­at­ing a space in the cul­tur­al are­na for afro-Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“Stal­in was the one who made us stand up and be proud to be black, to un­der­stand the role of ca­lyp­so in the so­ci­ety, like many of the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, but he was unique, he did it in his own spe­cial way. The most im­por­tant thing I gained from him is the love of fam­i­ly.”

Asked what was his favourite song from the ca­lyp­so leg­end, Mon­tano replied, “The one that touch meh when I was a child, the one that re­al­ly make a dif­fer­ence, I did not know who Stal­in was in them days, I was so young, I thought he was a su­per­hero be­cause it is the first time I heard a vocoder and the song Bet­ter Days Are Com­ing.”

Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, de­liv­er­ing re­marks on be­half of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, said Back Stal­in’s pro­found mes­sages and mas­ter­ful com­po­si­tions will tran­scend gen­er­a­tions to come.

“We are poor­er with­out you but you have left us in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean in a more re­flec­tive place, with the pos­si­bil­i­ties in­spired by your be­lief in our strength and with a vi­sion of a brighter to­mor­row. You have left us a stronger, more re­silient peo­ple and for that we will be eter­nal­ly grate­ful.”

Robin­son-Reg­is said Row­ley was un­able to at­tend the five-time Ca­lyp­so Monarch’s fu­ner­al as he had to at­tend the fu­ner­al of a rel­a­tive in To­ba­go.

In his trib­ute, Row­ley recog­nised Black Stal­in’s his­tor­i­cal sto­ries, not­ing none of them prompt­ed racial ha­tred, bit­ter­ness or re­venge.

“He, how­ev­er de­spised and scorned those who al­ter­na­tive­ly pro­mot­ed “racial pol­i­tics”; his mes­sages were di­rect­ed in­stead at the eco­nom­ic ills cre­at­ed out of that same pol­i­tics. He was against the down­side of cap­i­tal­ism and im­pe­ri­al­ism, the op­pres­sion, pain and suf­fer­ing it caused among peo­ple world­wide,” the PM wrote.

Echo­ing sen­ti­ments of Black Stal­in’s dis­dain to­wards those seek­ing to di­vide and con­quer along racial lines was for­mer Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona.

Dur­ing his trib­ute, Car­mona ref­er­enced the uni­fy­ing and broth­er­ly love be­tween Black Stal­in and chut­ney leg­end Sun­dar Popo.

Car­mona said, “Sun­dar Popo and Black Stal­in, through a medi­um of mu­sic, were show­ing us how we are sup­posed to live in this na­tion, we can make it if we try, just a lit­tle hard­er. To­day, with the ash­es of colo­nial­ism still burn­ing and peo­ple still con­form­ing to the di­vide and rule men­tal­i­ty, these two men, by their gen­uine broth­er­ly love, strove to unite the two ma­jor eth­nic groups and even re­li­gious groups in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Al­so pay­ing trib­ute on be­half of Bar­ba­dos, was cul­tur­al am­bas­sador and ca­lyp­son­ian An­tho­ny “Mighty Gab­by” Carter, who said he and Stal­in’s friend­ship spanned years. He said there was no hid­ing from the man who be­came known as the “Caribbean Man” across the re­gion.

Mighty Gab­by re­count­ed his first ex­pe­ri­ence with Black Stal­in at a ca­lyp­so show in Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, not­ing that they al­ways shared a won­der­ful time to­geth­er.

Al­so among those pay­ing trib­ute to Black Stal­in and recog­nis­ing his con­tri­bu­tions to the art form were Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds; Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell; Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning.