Artistes and cul­tur­al stake­hold­ers have ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of Kay Al­leyne-Mel­oney, as news of her death emerged yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Al­leyne-Mel­oney, 44, died of can­cer.

Her skill as a singer and song­writer gained na­tion­al promi­nence in 2007 when she was a fi­nal­ist on the tal­ent com­pe­ti­tion, Dig­i­cel Ris­ing Stars, win­ning the com­pe­ti­tion that year.

Al­leyne-Mel­oney, who was orig­i­nal­ly from To­ba­go, was al­so the CEO of the KPAA Pro­duc­tion Com­pa­ny.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, one of Al­leyne-Mel­oney’s long-time friends and fel­low gospel artiste Genisa St Hillaire alias ‘Nisa’ said she was deeply sad­dened by her death and re­mem­bered her as a friend­ly face with a good sense of hu­mour in the lo­cal en­ter­tain­ment scene.

St Hillaire re­called her last in­ter­ac­tion with Al­leyne-Mel­oney at a con­cert a month ago, where she saw first­hand the ef­fect of the ill­ness on her friend.

“When I walked back­stage and saw her, she looked re­al­ly frail and I was scared.

“I said, ‘Can I sit here?’ next to her and she said “of course. I then asked if she was okay and she said ‘Girl I just tired... but I good,’ and those were lit­er­al­ly the last words that I had with her in per­son.

“I texted her that night, but I didn’t get a re­sponse.”

De­spite this, St Hi­laire main­tained that Al­leyne-Mel­oney was a pow­er­house who took her tal­ent out­side the re­gion to an in­ter­na­tion­al scale and kept her warm, com­pas­sion­ate de­meanour even as she dealt with her health prob­lems.

“Up to weeks be­fore she died, she would al­ways have a good word of en­cour­age­ment for me and she was the sick one.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to singer and song­writer Isaac Black­man, who al­so of­fered con­do­lences to Al­leyne-Mel­oney’s fam­i­ly.

Com­ment­ing on her mu­si­cal lega­cy, Black­man said it was a sad day for the lo­cal mu­sic scene, but im­plored oth­ers to ho­n­our her life and achieve­ments.

“To the art­form, we lost a light and let’s keep her mem­o­ry alive and ho­n­our her life by cel­e­brat­ing her suc­cess­es.

“So we cher­ish her life and all she’s giv­en. She will sure­ly be missed and this is tru­ly dev­as­tat­ing.”

In a me­dia re­lease, Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin al­so com­mend­ed Al­leyne-Mel­oney’s con­tri­bu­tions to lo­cal en­ter­tain­ment and the gospel genre of mu­sic, de­scrib­ing her voice and style as “one of a kind.”

Ben­jamin al­so lament­ed that the achieve­ments of lo­cal stal­warts were of­ten recog­nised af­ter their deaths and urged the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate their ac­co­lades while they were still alive.

“Too of­ten we fail to ful­ly recog­nise the val­ue of our cul­tur­al gems un­til they are gone.

“It is our hope that her lega­cy will con­tin­ue to serve as a pow­er­ful re­minder of the ex­cep­tion­al tal­ent and cre­ative po­ten­tial that ex­ists with­in our peo­ple.”

Dig­i­cel al­so is­sued a me­dia re­lease, laud­ing Al­leyne-Mel­oney for her tal­ent and self­less­ness in striv­ing to use mu­sic to bridge gaps and form bonds.

Re­fer­ring to her work with the com­pa­ny, even af­ter her rise to star­dom with Dig­i­cel Ris­ing Stars, the or­gan­i­sa­tion thanked Al­leyne-Mel­oney for her ded­i­ca­tion to her craft.

“Kay tru­ly be­lieved in the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of mu­sic and con­sis­tent­ly used her ex­tra­or­di­nary vo­cal gift to touch the hearts of every­one who wit­nessed her per­for­mances.

“Her re­mark­able voice and vo­cal dex­ter­i­ty were a hall­mark of en­ter­tain­ment ex­cel­lence in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Dur­ing the height of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in 2020, Dig­i­cel was priv­i­leged to once again part­ner with Kay when she head­lined a full-length per­for­mance as part of Dig­i­cel’s Safe and Sound On­line Con­cert Se­ries.

“In stay­ing true to her per­son­al brand, her song was wide­ly cred­it­ed with lift­ing spir­its and of­fer­ing a bea­con of hope to many.”

Cur­rent hold­er of Mrs Uni­verse 2025, An­cil­la Kir­by-Scott, in a state­ment, al­so joined the en­ter­tain­ment com­mu­ni­ty in mourn­ing Al­leyne-Mel­oney’s death, de­scrib­ing her as an “un­par­al­leled gift to all.”