Tourism Min­is­ter, Ran­dall Mitchell is sad­dened by the sud­den death of Lu­ta­lo “Broth­er Re­sis­tance” Masim­ba who passed away last night.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts on his death:

The Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Ran­dall Mitchell, is sad­dened by the sud­den pass­ing of the Pres­i­dent of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO), Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba, al­so known as Broth­er Re­sis­tance.

Broth­er Re­sis­tance pi­o­neered Rap­so mu­sic, a hy­brid of so­ca and rap, in the 1970s and was a found­ing mem­ber of the Net­work Rid­dim Band.

He was an au­thor, a po­et, an en­tre­pre­neur, an aca­d­e­m­ic and a cul­tur­al and so­cial ac­tivist.

“We ex­tend our deep­est sym­pa­thies to his fam­i­ly and mem­bers of the cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty.

We are grate­ful for his im­mea­sur­able con­tri­bu­tion to the Ca­lyp­so art­for­mand to the de­vel­op­ment of Rap­so.

In his lead­er­ship of TU­CO, his un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion to our cul­ture shone through. The cul­tur­al fra­ter­ni­ty has lost a pa­tri­ot, ad­vo­cate and friend,” said Min­is­ter Mitchell.

Broth­er Re­sis­tance’s icon­ic song, “Ring the Bell,” tran­scend­ed Rap­so au­di­ences, and the bell that ac­com­pa­nied him to most of his en­gage­ments, be­came a sym­bol of his work both in­side and out­side of the cul­tur­al sphere.

He men­tored many young artists and is cred­it­ed with in­tro­duc­ing Lord Pre­tender to a younger gen­er­a­tion through his col­lab­o­ra­tion on the remix of “Nev­er ever wor­ry.” 

“He rep­re­sent­ed our Trin­ba­go cul­ture well, and his sud­den pass­ing comes as quite a shock as we have been com­mu­ni­cat­ing more fre­quent­ly over the last few months on artiste vac­ci­na­tions and trav­el, and gen­er­al ideas of re­cov­ery in the arts and en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor,” said Min­is­ter Mitchell. 

“Even as we mourn his death, we cel­e­brate his in­no­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty to­day. We thank his fam­i­ly for al­low­ing him to share his time and tal­ents with us, as well as for his nu­mer­ous con­tri­bu­tions to our na­tion’s cul­tur­al her­itage.