Ca­lyp­so artiste Singing Francine (Francine Ed­wards), has died.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) Singing Francine passed away ear­ly this morn­ing

Born in Bar­ba­dos on Feb­ru­ary 13, 1943 Ed­wards came to T&T at a young age.

"When asked how she be­gan singing ca­lyp­so, she re­spond­ed, 'I nev­er be­came in­volved in the ca­lyp­so art form. I was born in­to the ca­lyp­so art form'," the TU­CO re­lease stat­ed.

"Through­out her ca­reer, she has used her mu­si­cal tal­ent to ad­dress so­cial is­sues, par­tic­u­lar­ly those di­rect­ly af­fect­ing women. In 1975, she sang 'A Call to Women,' en­cour­ag­ing more women to use ca­lyp­so mu­sic as a ve­hi­cle of self-ex­pres­sion. In her 1978 ca­lyp­so 'Run­away,' she ad­dressed the top­ic of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, urg­ing women in abu­sive liv­ing sit­u­a­tions to seek help," it stat­ed.

Singing Francine was one of the most suc­cess­ful ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in T&T win­ning the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen com­pe­ti­tion in 1972, 1973, 1981 and 1983.

"Over the course of her ca­reer, she has be­come an im­por­tant fig­ure in the de­vel­op­ment of not on­ly ca­lyp­so, but al­so parang. In 1981, Singing Francine re­leased the parang al­bum 'Christ­mas is Love,' which fea­tured a blend of ca­lyp­so, so­ca and parang sounds. Francine’s al­bum came on­ly three years af­ter the ca­lyp­son­ian Crazy, re­leased 'Parang So­ca'—one of the first songs to fea­ture what we now call 'parang so­ca' or 'so­ca parang,' mak­ing him a pi­o­neer in this genre," it stat­ed.

"Since then, many mu­si­cians such as Baron, Scrunter, Chalk­dust, Kitch­en­er, Sun­dar Popo, Dru­patee Ram­goon­ai, Rik­ki Jai and Singing Francine have al­so made their mark by blend­ing the dy­nam­ic sounds of ca­lyp­so, so­ca, chut­ney and parang," it stat­ed.

"Over the years, Singing Francine has re­leased a num­ber of Christ­mas hits, earn­ing her the rep­u­ta­tion as one of the best par­ran­deros in Trinidad. Some of her clas­sic parang songs in­clude “Hooray, Hur­rah,” “Parang Parang,” I Love Christ­mas,” “Christ­mas is Love,” “Caribbean Christ­mas,” and “Ay Ay Maria,”TU­CO stat­ed.

TU­CO pres­i­dent, Ains­ley King and the Gen­er­al Coun­cil of TU­CO, ex­tend­ed their con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, loved ones, friends and col­leagues of the late Singing Francine.