Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

Shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Ca­lyp­so Rose isn’t get­ting any younger, but she al­so doesn’t seem to be get­ting any old­er.

The 86-year-old Ca­lyp­so and So­ca icon re­turned to Trinidad last week­end to re­ceive the Elite Ca­lyp­so Ho­n­our at the Caribbean Mu­sic Awards, her lat­est ac­co­lade in a globe-trot­ting ca­reer that be­gan in Barataria decades ago.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia Ltd pool­side at the Brix Ho­tel, St Anns, hours be­fore she ac­cept­ed the award on Sep­tem­ber 19, Rose – born Lin­da McArtha Mon­i­ca Lewis – re­flect­ed on her life, achieve­ments and the years spent do­ing what she loves most.

Sport­ing the same mis­chie­vous smirk and sassy an­tics that charmed au­di­ences for gen­er­a­tions, Rose says she’s un­der no il­lu­sions about her age, but has nev­er al­lowed it to de­fine her, as she has no in­ten­tions of slow­ing down, even pitch­ing the idea of re­turn­ing to T&T next year to share the stage with this gen­er­a­tion’s So­ca artistes.

“I am still here and still have the voice, but be­cause of my knees due to the kid­ney prob­lems, I can’t do much stand­ing and walk­ing, but I can still wine on the wheel­chair,” Rose says, laugh­ing, but se­ri­ous enough to demon­strate some waist move­ments.

From To­ba­go to Barataria

Born in To­ba­go on April 27, 1940, the post-World War II era of Rose’s child­hood T&T was very dif­fer­ent from the one we see and recog­nise to­day.

Even­tu­al­ly mov­ing to Barataria with her aunt, she found her pas­sion for sto­ry­telling through mu­sic and melodies, re­call­ing one of her ear­li­est tunes she penned af­ter wit­ness­ing a ban­dit steal­ing a woman’s spec­ta­cles while at the San Juan Mar­ket.

“The la­dy had all of her pro­vi­sions on the ground and was sit­ting on a stool... some guy passed and snatched her glass­es off of her face and ran away.

“I say, ‘Oh God, look this la­dy cry­ing, a man steal her glass­es and gone,’ so when we went back home I start to write... when I think about To­ba­go my birth­place, I nev­er knew about steal­ing and abuse and all these things.”

Re­call­ing her va­ca­tions back to her home­town in To­ba­go when school was on break, Rose cites a chance en­counter with the man who would one day be T&T’s first Prime Min­is­ter as a par­tic­u­lar­ly mem­o­rable in­ter­ac­tion, when she had the chance to show her singing prowess.

“Dr Williams came to To­ba­go at that time and there was a Ca­lyp­so singer from Rox­bor­ough called Woolsey Scott and he told me to sing some­thing for Dr Williams, so I sang ‘Well To­bag­on­ian Boys,’ and he said, “Very good... you should be in the Ca­lyp­so tent.”

More than a ca­lyp­son­ian

And while she still car­ries ‘Ca­lyp­so’ as part of her moniker, Rose says her ac­tu­al mu­si­cal roots in 2026 are some­what more var­ied, as she re­fus­es to be con­fined to a sin­gle, defin­ing genre.

A point she has re­in­forced through her col­lab­o­ra­tions with So­ca star Machel Mon­tano with tracks like ‘Leave Me Alone’ in 2017 and ‘Young Boy’ in 2019.

And while the bass-heavy beats of both songs can keep peo­ple groov­ing, the lyrics, which touch on themes of fe­male in­de­pen­dence for Car­ni­val and find­ing self-con­fi­dence and ro­mance even in one’s se­nior years, are as thought-pro­vok­ing as they are easy to dance to.

“I am not a Ca­lyp­son­ian... I am a mu­si­cal artiste.

“France has giv­en me an award... the doc­tor of mu­sic and that is what I am, some­one who loves and learns the mu­sic.”

This ap­proach to mu­sic and her style of en­ter­tain­ment has trans­lat­ed to an ad­ven­tur­ous spir­it, as Rose says she has writ­ten a song about every coun­try and city she has ever vis­it­ed, from the fa­mil­iar sights and sounds of Bar­ba­dos with ‘Ba­jans Jump­ing’ to lifestyles in Cal­i­for­nia and New York, mak­ing her songs her own per­son­al jour­nal, shar­ing these ex­pe­ri­ences with lis­ten­ers.

This ap­pre­ci­a­tion for mu­sic isn’t lim­it­ed to her own tunes, as Rose says she makes full use of AI pro­gramme Alexa, which she refers to as her “in­stru­ment”, con­nect­ing her to mu­sic from around the world.

Em­brac­ing change

And while she ac­knowl­edges mu­sic has changed since her gen­er­a­tion, the So­ca pi­o­neer says it’s on­ly nat­ur­al for the sounds and styles to change to fit the pe­ri­od.

“In our life there has to be changes be­cause as the days go along, you get a morn­ing, a mid­day, an evening and night.

“You get dif­fer­ent sea­sons like win­ter, sum­mer, spring and fall. So you can­not re­main stand­ing in one way.

“I was born in 1940 and now I am in the 21st Cen­tu­ry, so there has to be changes, so what­ev­er the in­spi­ra­tion gives to these new mu­si­cians and artistes let them fol­low it and I am proud to know they are do­ing a good job! God bless them!”

But even with the in­evitable change in the sound of the genre, Rose al­so takes note of mod­ern artistes sam­pling the style and aes­thet­ic of past tunes, which she says still has some ap­peal due to the qual­i­ty of the pro­duc­tion.

Re­fer­ring to Kes’ 2026 sin­gle ‘Rum and Co­ca Co­la’, a tune which sam­ples a 1943 song from Lord In­vad­er, she says throw­back sin­gles from to­day’s gen­er­a­tion of en­ter­tain­ers keep the mu­sic alive and was heart­ened by the care shown by younger artistes.

“I know Rum and Co­ca Co­la was a song from many years ago that I grew up with.

“These new artistes are re­viv­ing the songs that was played and passed years ago. I am proud of it. Let them do what they want to do.

“When the good Lord tells them in their dream or vi­sion to do some­thing, let them fol­low it.”

In this way, Rose says her own mu­si­cal jour­ney is deeply wo­ven with her faith, with prayer as­sum­ing a big part of her life, as she cred­its her longevi­ty to God.

Re­fer­ring to com­plet­ing can­cer treat­ment, she says it was sim­ply not her time and was grate­ful for the chance to make the most of her life.

But as she re­flects on the count­less per­for­mances, from Africa to Eu­rope and a top spot at the world-fa­mous Coachel­la Mu­sic and Arts Fes­ti­val, Rose says her per­for­mance for the late Queen Eliz­a­beth II was a full-cir­cle mo­ment for a ca­reer be­gin­ning in colo­nial-era T&T.

“I re­ceived an award from the Queen of Eng­land be­cause as you know we were Eng­lish sub­jects be­fore we be­came an in­de­pen­dent na­tion... we be­longed to Eng­land and thank God I have re­ceived an award from the Queen of Eng­land be­fore she passed away and I have per­formed for her and I know I have reached my height and am still re­ceiv­ing awards.”

When asked about her se­cret to a long, healthy life and sharp wit, Rose says plain­ly, “I like my crab and dumpling,” but quick­ly cor­rects her­self, not­ing that her cur­rent di­et doesn’t con­sist of the starch-heavy foods she ate in her younger years.

“As Caribbean peo­ple we love to eat a lot of ground pro­vi­sions like cas­sa­va, ba­nana, yams, tania, dasheen.

“All the food stuff from the Earth that has a lot of starch, you have to keep away from that be­cause those are the ones that will dam­age your kid­neys.

“I have my doc­tor’s name on my wrist and he says get­ting a kid­ney is from the Earth of the food­stuff, so I stopped eat­ing starch foods, I love my ba­nana, but I stopped danc­ing and eat­ing the ba­nana.”

A lega­cy still be­ing writ­ten

For Rose, stay­ing alive is more than just an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue her rou­tine, as she does her best to en­joy life, mak­ing the most of all her ex­pe­ri­ences, as sim­ple as they may be, with the sig­na­ture style and flair of the Ca­lyp­so/So­ca di­va that en­snared au­di­ences years ago.

She says she hopes her lega­cy as a mu­sic-lover and artiste lives on long af­ter she’s gone.

“I want them to re­mem­ber me as the la­dy, the doc­tor of mu­sic as France called me in my de­gree cer­tifi­cate.

“I want to be re­mem­bered as Lin­da McArtha Mon­i­ca Sandy... Ca­lyp­so Rose!”

But as times change, gen­er­a­tions to come may ask who was Ca­lyp­so Rose? How would one ap­proach a ques­tion about such a bold, colour­ful, larg­er-than-life per­son­al­i­ty?

Af­ter a brief pause, she has the an­swer.

“Ca­lyp­so Rose is still alive and Ca­lyp­so Rose is still here in 2026! Not who was!

“Was is the past and I am still here.

“As long as they have the mu­sic I’ll still be here.”

Still singing

Not long af­ter an­swer­ing, she breaks in­to song, one of her more pop­u­lar tracks, ‘Go­ing Down San Fer­nan­do’, her voice car­ry­ing an un­usu­al­ly strong bass, as pool­side pa­trons at the ho­tel be­gin clap­ping and cheer­ing to the tune.

As she ends, hold­ing the note for the lyric ‘Tem­po’ a few sec­onds longer than ex­pect­ed, ap­plause erupts from the once-qui­et loung­ing area, even at­tract­ing a young cou­ple near­by who ask for pho­tos with her be­fore be­ing in­vit­ed to sing an­oth­er song with her.

The spon­ta­neous pool­side con­cert in some ways proves that Rose’s per­son­al­i­ty, much like her mu­sic, isn’t go­ing any­where.