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Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Rose taps into global nostalgia

by

20161128

Ca­lyp­so Rose is a fig­ure of his­toric di­men­sions in ca­lyp­so. A se­ries of firsts fol­lows her name as a woman in ca­lyp­so with a more than 50-year ca­reer that shows no sign of stop­ping. In 2016, she has gone be­yond the nor­mal con­fines of the glob-al ca­lyp­so spread–in­side the Amer­i­c­as, North and South–by be­ing the re­cip­i­ent of the Wom­ex 2016 Award, and a gold record­ing artiste in France.

The cat­a­lyst for the re­new­al of her glob­al pop­u­lar­i­ty and her ex­cit­ing com­mer­cial en­tr�e in­to mu­sic mar­kets in Eu­rope is her new al­bum Far From Home, re-leased re­gion­al­ly by Ma­tu­ri­ty Mu-sic (Jean Michel Gib­ert/Trinidad) and Stone­tree Mu­sic (Ivan Du­ran/Be­lize) and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly by Be-cause Mu­sic out of France/UK.

The mu­sic on Rose's al­bum harkens back to the melodies of ear­ly ca­lyp­so with cov­ers of songs by Roar­ing Li­on, La­dy Iere and Lord Pre­tender, and new songs that re­flect and in­te­grate the zeit­geist of the fa­bled gold­en era of ca­lyp­so of the ear­ly to mid-20th cen­tu­ry with the au­r­al mi­lieu of a mod­ern era.

Pro­duc­er Ivan Du­ran re­cruits Drew Gon­salves, chief ar­chi­tect of Toron­to-based pro­to-ca­lyp­so band Kobo Town, to shape the songs and sound of this record. ca­lyp­so with a more than 50-year ca­reer that shows no sign of stop­ping. In 2016, she has gone be­yond the nor­mal con­fines of the glob-al ca­lyp­so spread–in­side the Amer­i­c­as, North and South–by be­ing the re­cip­i­ent of the Wom­ex 2016 Award, and a gold record­ing artiste in France.

The cat­a­lyst for the re­new­al of her glob­al pop­u­lar­i­ty and her ex­cit­ing com­mer­cial en­tr�e in­to mu­sic mar­kets in Eu­rope is her new al­bum Far From Home, re-leased re­gion­al­ly by Ma­tu­ri­ty Mu-sic (Jean Michel Gib­ert/Trinidad) and Stone­tree Mu­sic (Ivan Du­ran/Be­lize) and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly by Be-cause Mu­sic out of France/UK.

The mu­sic on Rose's al­bum harkens back to the melodies of ear­ly ca­lyp­so with cov­ers of songs by Roar­ing Li­on, La­dy Iere and Lord Pre­tender, and new songs that re­flect and in­te­grate the zeit­geist of the fa­bled gold­en era of ca­lyp­so of the ear­ly to mid-20th cen­tu­ry with the au­r­al mi­lieu of a mod­ern era.

Pro­duc­er Ivan Du­ran re­cruits Drew Gon­salves, chief ar­chi­tect of Toron­to-based pro­to-ca­lyp­so band Kobo Town, to shape the songs and sound of this record.

Fixed beats in the tem­po and rhyming cou­plets in the lyrics make for pleas­ant lis­ten­ing, singing along and danc­ing.

The melodies on songs like Abati­na, Ca­lyp­so Queen and pop­u­lar sin­gle Leave Me Alone spring from the sim­ple re-mi­nor (pro­nounced "ray mi­nor," which is D mi­nor) har­monies ev­i­dent in the ca­lyp­so style of the ear­li­est record­ings, and hang on Rose's sep­tu­a­ge­nar­i­an voice, a mix of pow­er and fragili­ty.

These ca­lyp­soes fit the singer with­out at­tempt­ing to cre­ate any rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent frame­work for the Ca­lyp­so Queen of the World.

This re­view, by its na­ture, is from the per­spec­tive of the is­land na­tive ac­cus­tomed to and knowl­edge­able about ca­lyp­so and Rose's place with­in the genre.

An ob­jec­tive analy­sis of this al­bum, how­ev­er, would con­sid­er the mer­its that serve the func­tion of any com­mer­cial record­ing: to sell copies more than to dis­play the art of ca­lyp­so.

The la­bels' "aes­thet­ic for­mu­la was di­rect­ly shaped by the com­mer­cial im­per­a­tives of achiev­ing air­play by de­vel­op­ing a crossover sound," to quote pro­fes­sor of pop­u­lar mu­sic, Mike Al­leyne. One can't fault that.

A lynch­pin for the out­ward vi­sion of the pro­duc­tion and mar­ket­ing of this new al­bum is the pres­ence of French-Span­ish an­ti-es­tab­lish­ment ag­it-rock­er and mu­sic rebel, Manu Chao.

He is glob­al pop's most im­por­tant star, a Bob Mar­ley-like fig­ure, and he stamps his "third world trou­ba­dour" per­sona on these songs, which all have his name on as co-writer, ad­di­tion­al pro­duc­er or arranger, the perquisite of a mod­ern mu­sic busi­ness.

Chao's name lends a kind of hoped-for cer­tain­ty that this mu­sic finds a lis­ten­er base in mar­kets out-side the norm for ca­lyp­so, name­ly Eu­rope and Latin Amer­i­ca. We hear on some of Rose's com­po­si­tions–

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, I Am African and Wah Fuh Dance!–the urge to break free and jam in that old so­ca way, but this is not so­ca.

This is World Mu­sic: ex­ot­ic and he­do­nis­tic to the for­eign ear. The spir­its of Ed Wat­son and Art De­Coteau are hemmed in son­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Au­then­tic­i­ty gives way to com­mod­i­ty.

World Mu­sic, that la­bel that bun­dles the "oth­er" mu­sic in­to a cat­e­go­ry for sales and unique mar­ket­ing, is both a god­send for and a mock­ery of ca­lyp­so. It is said that the "World Mu­sic" genre has al­lowed artistes to gain in­ter­na­tion­al record sales, tour in­come, boosts to their self-es­teem and lo­cal economies and of­ten their very cul­ture, in or­gan­ised com­mer­cial in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

The com­mer­cial stream­lin­ing of the mu­sic which sani­tis­es its "emo­tion­al dy­nam­ics" to ren­der it ho­mo­ge­neous and for­mu­la­ic is al­so not­ed.

Both self-styled "trop­i­cal gang­ster" Kid Cre­ole & the Co­conuts (An­nie, I'm Not Your Dad­dy) and neo-swing band Squir­rel Nut Zip­pers (Hell) were im­i­tat­ing Cab Cal­loway and bring­ing ear­ly ca­lyp­so melodies in­to pop mu­sic in the 1980s and 1990s, and were sell­ing plen­ty records.

Far From Home brings the son­ic au­ra of those acts in­to the 21st cen­tu­ry.

This mu­sic is the re­vival of the cult of nos­tal­gia, not sole­ly of the style of the ca­lyp­so mu­sic, but of the vet­er­an artist mak­ing new waves in the glob­al mu­sic in­dus­try al­most as an anec­dote to a sto­ried ca­reer.

Age­ing "Third World" mu­sic stars are res­ur­rect­ed late in their ca­reers, are scrubbed, repack­aged and dis­cov­ered by a new au­di­ence.

In the 1990s, Ce­saria Evo­ra, The Jol­ly Boys, and Bue­na Vista So­cial Club en­joyed late ca­reer in­ter­na­tion­al ac­claim and per­for­mance op­por­tu­ni­ties out­side their home-lands. (Paul Mc­Cart­ney, Bob Dy­lan and the Rolling Stones, iron­i­cal­ly, don't get bun­dled in­to this cat­e­go­ry.)

In 2016, Ca­lyp­so Rose has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to join this il­lus­tri­ous com­pa­ny of glob­al stars whose light has nev­er di­min­ished de­spite be­ing un­seen by the world for decades.

A se­cret no more, an ador­ing pub­lic awaits as she steps on the world stage far from home.

REPACK­AG­ING CA­LYP­SO

The im­age of Rose on the al­bum cov­er is a car­toonised ver­sion of an orig­i­nal Richard Hold­er pho­to-graph ob­scur­ing the true im­age of the artist.

Vin­tage ca­lyp­so records imag­ined ca­lyp­so mu­sic as un-peo­pled where the singer was in the back-ground and the idea of he­do­nism, the hint of sex­u­al­i­ty, the thrill of the ex­ot­ic, and the car­i­ca­ture of the trop­ics were giv­en promi­nence.

Sinewy dancers, puff-sleeved na­tives in straw hats and come-hith­er women graced al­bum cov­ers, in the main.

Miles Davis and James Brown have had their faces re­moved from al­bum cov­ers and re­placed with white mod­els to sell their prod­uct in the US.

Rose was re­moved from a cov­er of her 1968 al­bum Queen of the World, not to be re­placed by an inan­i­mate ob­ject, but reimag­ined as a dougla siren.

We hear on some of Rose's com­po­si­tions– Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, I Am Africanand Wah Fuh Dance!–the urge to break free and jam in that old so­ca way, but this is not so­ca.

This is World Mu­sic: ex­ot­ic and he­do­nis­tic to the for­eign ear. The spir­its of Ed Wat­son and Art De­Coteau are hemmed in son­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Au­then­tic­i­ty gives way to com­mod­i­ty.

World Mu­sic, that la­bel that bun­dles the "oth­er" mu­sic in­to a cat­e­go­ry for sales and unique mar­ket­ing, is both a god­send for and a mock­ery of ca­lyp­so.


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