Echoes of cel­e­bra­tion roared through the streets of Port-of-Spain as many gath­ered to pay their re­spects to ca­lyp­son­ian Win­ston “Ex­plain­er” Hen­ry yes­ter­day.

The ac­tiv­i­ty start­ed at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah’s Grand Stand with a cer­e­mo­ny filled with mu­si­cal trib­utes and artistry.

Scores of at­ten­dees donned red at­tire, a sym­bol of Ex­plain­er’s love and ded­i­ca­tion to the art form.

With an open­ing prayer, Dea­con Lennox Tou­s­saint said that even though “Basil has come,” Ex­plain­er’s lega­cy will be ever­last­ing.

Sev­er­al pub­lic fig­ures paid trib­utes, rem­i­nisc­ing on the gift that Ex­plain­er had, be­ing the ‘Ca­lyp­so-mes­sen­ger’ with his the­mat­ic lyrics.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds said Ex­plain­er’s “Ras­ta Chic” res­onat­ed and lift­ed the spir­its of many.

“Up came Win­ston Hen­ry lift­ing up the ras­ta man in the con­text in a way that did jus­tice to the com­mu­ni­ty and you can un­der­stand why. All of the broth­ers in­clud­ing broth­er [Black] Stal­in, broth­er Valenti­no. All the oth­er ras­ta man and ras­ta woman in Trinidad, the re­gion and the world were thank­ful to him,” Hinds said.

For­mer Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona tapped in­to his ca­lyp­so back­ground and de­liv­ered a dra­mat­ic speech, dub­bing Ex­plain­er as the “peo­ple’s monarch.”

He said Ex­plain­er’s songs were, “punc­tu­at­ed with mes­sages which are glob­al in scope. He in­ter­na­tion­alised Ca­lyp­so. If on­ly we as a peo­ple would em­brace those eter­nal mes­sages of the kaison­ian.”

Ac­cord­ing to Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) pres­i­dent Ains­ley King, Ex­plain­er want­ed to at­tend To­ba­go Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions de­spite his fail­ing health.

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters as­sured the crowd that Ex­plain­er’s lega­cy would shine at all up­com­ing Car­ni­val events.

Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin shared words of en­cour­age­ment to fam­i­ly and fans, dub­bing Ex­plain­er as the ‘am­bas­sador against in­jus­tice.”

“Al­though Ex­plain­er did not claim to be a prophet, he had a prophet­ic voice,” Dot­tin said.

He added, “Ex­plain­er un­der­stood that mu­sic was a mis­sion and not a com­pe­ti­tion…he felt that mis­sion of mu­sic must be the res­cue to those who suf­fered the poi­son and ar­rows of in­jus­tice.”

Mu­si­cal trib­utes then took prece­dence, with ca­lyp­so­ni­ans such as Su­perblue, Kris­son Joseph, Queen Vic­to­ria and oth­ers ho­n­our­ing the ca­lyp­so stal­wart. The pres­ence of moko-jumbies added to the live­li­ness of the fu­ner­al ser­vice.

Ca­lyp­son­ian Karene As­che was list­ed to close the cer­e­mo­ny in song. Over­bur­dened with grief, mem­bers of the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty joined her on stage and end­ed the ser­vice with a dy­nam­ic per­for­mance of the gold­en Ca­lyp­so clas­sic, Lor­raine.

So­cial me­dia users joined the cel­e­bra­tion, leav­ing com­ments show­ing their love for Ex­plain­er. One no­table post was by BBC jour­nal­ist Ros Atkins who, back in Ju­ly, went vi­ral for his love for the ca­lyp­son­ian.

“He had one of all-time tracks from T&T. Hard to over­state how much plea­sure his mu­sic has giv­en me. I’m play­ing Lor­raine one more time this evening. RIP Win­ston Hen­ry,” Atkins said.

The cel­e­bra­tions for Ex­plain­er con­tin­ued in­to the streets of Port-of-Spain, as his hits rang through­out the city dur­ing a pro­ces­sion.

Scores of passers-by joined the grow­ing Car­ni­val-like pro­ces­sion to In­de­pen­dence Square, show­ing their eter­nal grat­i­tude for the life and dy­nam­ic ca­reer of Win­ston ‘Ex­plain­er’ Hen­ry.