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Friday, July 11, 2025

Calypso fraternity mourns death of ‘Mother Sandra’

by

Bobie-Lee Dixon & Peter Christopher
1625 days ago
20210129

Tears were shed yes­ter­day by many in the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty while oth­ers strug­gled to come to terms with the news of the pass­ing of ca­lyp­so icon San­dra “Singing San­dra” Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton.

The 64-year-old who had been ail­ing for some time passed away at Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ence Com­plex, Mount Hope in the ear­ly hours of yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Her death came as a shock to the coun­try es­pe­cial­ly artistes and mu­si­cians who all de­scribed the “No­body Wins A War” singer’s pass­ing as the ‘loss of a great moth­er.’

Though not a moth­er to any bi­o­log­i­cal chil­dren, they say she of­ten men­tored and nur­tured young fe­male ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

In his trib­ute to her mem­o­ry, Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­son­ian Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba, said Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton, who was a found­ing mem­ber of the Kaiso House Ca­lyp­so Tent’s head­line act, was con­sid­ered by many of the younger singers as the moth­er of the tent.

He said they would have all ben­e­fit­ed from her com­fort and spir­it and her pass­ing would sure­ly leave a void in the cul­ture of the Kaiso House ex­pe­ri­ence.

So­ca ‘roy­al­ty,’ Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez dit­toed, Masim­ba’s sen­ti­ments, adding, Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton was the em­bod­i­ment of a pow­er­ful fe­male artiste who stood up for the cul­ture and its con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment.

“She took on the moth­er role through her years, sup­port­ing and en­cour­ag­ing and even col­lab­o­rat­ing and ap­pear­ing on shows and events, etc. San­dra is Queen—Moth­er of Ca­lyp­so,” Lyons-Al­varez said.

But not on­ly was Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton re­gard­ed as a moth­er in the are­na, the East Dry Riv­er na­tive who ex­pe­ri­enced so­cial strug­gles as a youth, was al­so con­sid­ered an ‘in­ter­ces­sor’ on be­half of the voice­less and the mar­gin­alised, which was demon­strat­ed in ca­lyp­so so­cial com­men­tary chart-top­pers like “Voic­es From the Ghet­to,” which gained her the 1999 Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle, mak­ing her the sec­ond fe­male in the art form to ever win the ti­tle, af­ter Ca­lyp­so Rose in 1978.

She re­peat­ed this vic­to­ry in 2003 with the com­po­si­tions “An­cient Rhythms” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” this time mak­ing his­to­ry as the on­ly fe­male to date, to cop the ti­tle twice.

She is al­so re­mem­bered as the woman who, ear­ly on, high­light­ed gen­der-based is­sues in song with her of­fer­ing, “Die With My Dig­ni­ty,”—a com­pre­hen­sive lyri­cal dis­sec­tion of preda­to­ry prac­tices by men in the work­place.

Singing San­dra bridged the gap be­tween Ca­lyp­so and So­ca

Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton who made her for­ay in­to ca­lyp­so land straight out of her Best Vil­lage days al­so proved her sup­port to the evolve­ment of the T&T found­ed art form, en­dors­ing ful­ly the younger gen­er­a­tion of so­ca—a genre born of ca­lyp­so. This was most not­ed in her 2014 col­lab­o­ra­tion with a then young Ian “Bun­ji Gar­lin” Al­varez on the so­ca knock­out—“Coofy Lie Lie.”

Al­varez told Guardian Me­dia in a What­App in­ter­view; Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton was the strong hand that could skil­ful­ly guide, some­thing the in­dus­try need­ed.

He praised her for clos­ing the gap that once was, be­tween ca­lyp­so el­ders and the youth of so­ca say­ing his col­lab­o­ra­tion with her was the start of the peace treaty be­tween the art form’s gen­er­a­tion gap.

“She nev­er feared com­ing to all those youth events of all sorts and shin­ing bright as an ex­am­ple that tal­ent trumps gaps of any type. We were blessed to have such an icon be­long­ing to T&T,” said Al­varez.

So­ca artiste Olatun­ji, who had plans to col­lab­o­rate with Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton this year, sim­i­lar­ly agreed that her men­tor­ship would be her last­ing im­pact.

“Well def­i­nite­ly that’s how singing San­dra was to every artiste, young artiste com­ing up in the game, she al­ways give that ex­tra ef­fort to give ad­vice nah, give fruit­ful ad­vice as pos­si­ble even with a tough-love styling and al­so a lovey-dovey styling as well. She is re­al­ly mag­i­cal in that kind of way,” he said, “The last­ing im­pact is def­i­nite­ly a men­tor. She al­ways men­tor young peo­ple, young ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, any­time you in the art form and you’re do­ing it and you love it she is go­ing to try her best and come out of her way to try to men­tor you and give you good ad­vice. So I will al­ways re­mem­ber her as the moth­er.”

Mu­si­cal tal­ents knew no bounds

As would a true leg­end, not on­ly did the Unit­ed Sis­ters founder, con­tribute to ca­lyp­so but Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton delved in­to var­ied as­pects of T&T’s mu­si­cal cul­tur­al land­scape, dab­bling ef­fort­less­ly in the sea­son­al genre of so­ca-parang. Her song “Paramin” is still con­sid­ered a sta­ple among so­ca-parang se­lec­tions.

In an in­ter­view with Ali­cia Ja­gas­sar, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Parang As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NPATT), she said Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton brought life to parang and NPATT recog­nised the stal­wart for her con­tri­bu­tion to the preser­va­tion of the art form through her sto­ry in song.

“On a per­son­al note ‘moth­er’ (Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton) was part of my for­ma­tive years as my per­form­ing ca­reer start­ed as a ca­lyp­son­ian. ‘Daugh­ter’ she calls her chil­dren and I was one of her daugh­ters who she would have blessed with words of wis­dom and sup­port,” Ja­gas­sar shared.

A last­ing lega­cy be­yond mu­sic

Trib­utes al­so came from vet­er­an pro­duc­er Le­ston Paul who lament­ed that Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton’s pass­ing was an­oth­er blow and an­oth­er great loss to the frag­ile ca­lyp­so in­dus­try. He said her voice of pas­sion, emo­tion and lyri­cal mes­sages she con­veyed through her songs, would for­ev­er live on.

For­mer Guardian Me­dia ed­i­tor Pe­ter Ray Blood, who knew Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton per­son­al­ly said be­sides cre­at­ing his­to­ry in the ca­lyp­so are­na, Des Vi­gnes-Milling­ton was re­gard­ed as a moth­er to sev­er­al young and up­com­ing fe­male ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, es­pe­cial­ly Karene As­che, al­so a past na­tion­al monarch.

He said what im­pressed him most of his old friend was her ea­ger­ness to be al­ways will­ing to ad­vise and help a sis­ter ca­lyp­son­ian.


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