Suzanne Shep­pard

Con­tribut­ing Ed­i­tor

Ca­lyp­son­ian Mar­vel­lous Mar­va (Mar­va Joseph) has died, bring­ing to a close a ca­reer that spanned more than four decades and earned her a place among the women who helped shape Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ca­lyp­so tra­di­tion.

Joseph, a na­tive of Rock Road, Pe­nal, was a ver­sa­tile vo­cal­ist whose con­tri­bu­tion to the art form ex­tend­ed from her work as a so­lo per­former to her mem­ber­ship in the cel­e­brat­ed all-fe­male group Unit­ed Sis­ters.

She was one of four women who came to­geth­er to form the group, along­side San­dra “Singing San­dra” Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton, Joanne “Ti­gress” Row­ley and Beu­lah “La­dy B” Bobb.

Unit­ed Sis­ters be­came an im­por­tant force in the lo­cal cul­tur­al land­scape, demon­strat­ing the abil­i­ty of women to com­mand the ca­lyp­so and so­ca stages while chal­leng­ing tra­di­tion­al per­cep­tions of their place in the art form.

The group, which joined forces in 1991, en­joyed con­sid­er­able suc­cess with its reper­toire, par­tic­u­lar­ly the pop­u­lar hit Whoa Don­key.

Its per­for­mances al­so in­clud­ed Am­bat­aila Woman, a cel­e­bra­tion of women’s strength, re­silience and con­tri­bu­tion.

For Joseph, the ex­pe­ri­ence was about more than mu­si­cal suc­cess. She once de­scribed Unit­ed Sis­ters as rep­re­sent­ing el­e­gance, class, dig­ni­ty and pride, qual­i­ties she be­lieved were re­flect­ed in their per­for­mances.

The group trav­elled ex­ten­sive­ly, tak­ing its mu­sic to au­di­ences be­yond T&T. The mem­bers shared a close per­son­al bond, hav­ing spent years per­form­ing, trav­el­ling and liv­ing to­geth­er.

That sis­ter­hood was par­tic­u­lar­ly ev­i­dent fol­low­ing the death of Singing San­dra in Jan­u­ary 2021.

At a cul­tur­al trib­ute to San­dra at Queen’s Hall in Feb­ru­ary of that year, Joseph de­liv­ered an emo­tion­al rec­ol­lec­tion of their years to­geth­er. She spoke of their ex­pe­ri­ences trav­el­ling around the world, liv­ing out of suit­cas­es and shar­ing their lives as mem­bers of the group.

She per­formed San­dra’s Sexy Em­ploy­ers (Die With My Dig­ni­ty) and the Unit­ed Sis­ters’ Am­bat­aila Woman, and called on the Gov­ern­ment to erect a mon­u­ment in ho­n­our of her for­mer col­league.

Her trib­ute re­flect­ed the depth of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the women and the im­por­tance of recog­nis­ing those who had con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the de­vel­op­ment of the na­tion’s cul­tur­al her­itage.

But Mar­vel­lous Mar­va’s con­tri­bu­tion was by no means con­fined to Unit­ed Sis­ters.

Her in­tro­duc­tion to ca­lyp­so came through her in­volve­ment in Best Vil­lage ac­tiv­i­ties. A mem­ber of the choir at St Do­minic’s Ro­man Catholic Church in Pe­nal, she de­vel­oped her vo­cal abil­i­ties be­fore par­tic­i­pat­ing in cul­tur­al com­pe­ti­tions through­out South Trinidad.

Dur­ing one Best Vil­lage com­pe­ti­tion, per­form­ing with a group from Fyz­abad, she was ad­judged Best Ca­lyp­son­ian.

Her tal­ent at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of the leg­endary Mighty Spar­row, who in­vit­ed her to join his Young Brigade ca­lyp­so tent. Af­ter ini­tial­ly de­clin­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty, she even­tu­al­ly ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion in 1980, be­gin­ning a pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney that would span sev­er­al decades.

Her break­through song, Build A Hall of Fame, re­leased in 1980, paid trib­ute to ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and oth­er out­stand­ing in­di­vid­u­als who had served the coun­try with dis­tinc­tion.

Joseph went on to es­tab­lish her­self as a for­mi­da­ble com­peti­tor, plac­ing sec­ond in the Ca­lyp­so Queen com­pe­ti­tion in 1980 and win­ning the San Juan Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle on four oc­ca­sions.

She al­so shared the Caribbean Queen ti­tle with Ti­gress in the ear­ly 1990s and qual­i­fied for the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals in 2013, an achieve­ment that came af­ter ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 years in the mu­sic busi­ness.

Her reper­toire re­flect­ed her ver­sa­til­i­ty and will­ing­ness to tack­le dif­fi­cult so­cial is­sues. Among her songs were Belt Tight­en­ing, Black on Black Killing, Come Back To What, Woman’s Con­tri­bu­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Signs and Heavy Met­al.

In Black on Black Killing, she con­front­ed vi­o­lence with­in the African com­mu­ni­ty, ques­tion­ing the si­lence sur­round­ing the loss of young lives.

Joseph was al­so a mem­ber of the Kaiso House ca­lyp­so tent for many years.

She iden­ti­fied the Mighty Spar­row, Valenti­no and Ex­plain­er among the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who in­flu­enced and men­tored her.

Mar­vel­lous Mar­va’s ca­reer was dis­tin­guished not on­ly by her longevi­ty but by her de­ter­mi­na­tion to use mu­sic as a ve­hi­cle for ex­pres­sion, en­ter­tain­ment and so­cial com­men­tary.

Her pass­ing rep­re­sents a loss to the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty and to the wider cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty.