Gyasi Mer­rique

Two-time Ca­lyp­so Monarch Lin­da Mc­Cartha Sandy-Lewis, bet­ter known as Ca­lyp­so Rose, was ho­n­oured in New York as the Caribbean Cul­tur­al Cen­tre African Di­as­po­ra In­sti­tute (CC­CA­DI) cel­e­brat­ed its 50th an­niver­sary on Sat­ur­day.

Rose was recog­nised dur­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s Afri-Car­naval event at Josie Robert­son Plaza at Lin­coln Cen­tre, where she joined so­ca star Machel Mon­tano in cel­e­brat­ing decades of con­tri­bu­tions to Caribbean cul­ture and mu­sic.

The event marked Rose’s third ap­pear­ance at CC­CA­DI’s New York Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions, fol­low­ing ap­pear­ances in 1984 and 1994.

The vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian was cel­e­brat­ed for her long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship with the or­gan­i­sa­tion and her role in car­ry­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mu­si­cal tra­di­tions to in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences.

Afri-Car­naval, held as part of Lin­coln Cen­tre’s Sum­mer for the City se­ries, high­light­ed car­ni­val tra­di­tions from Trinidad and To­ba­go and Brazil.

Brazil­ian dance chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and per­former Sil­vana Mag­da and her Vi­va Brazil band paid trib­ute to the re­gion’s mu­si­cal con­nec­tions with a reimag­ined per­for­mance of the 1984 so­ca clas­sic “Tiny Winey” by By­ron Lee and the Drag­o­naires.

How­ev­er, the night be­longed to Rose, whose ar­rival on stage drew a strong re­sponse from the au­di­ence.

De­spite per­form­ing from a wheel­chair, the 85-year-old’s voice and stage pres­ence re­mained on full dis­play as she en­ter­tained the crowd.

Mon­tano, who shared the stage with Rose, al­so re­flect­ed on the sig­nif­i­cance of the mo­ment. He ap­peared as part of the 1984 cast as a child and cred­it­ed Rose’s in­flu­ence on his own mu­si­cal jour­ney.

The two per­formed to­geth­er for about 15 min­utes be­fore Mon­tano de­liv­ered a so­lo per­for­mance of his 2025 hit “Pardy” fol­low­ing re­quests from the au­di­ence.

Af­ter be­ing crowned Queen of the Road by CC­CA­DI, Rose told Guardian Me­dia she was grate­ful for the recog­ni­tion.

“I feel very great to re­ceive an award,” she said, adding that she re­mained com­mit­ted to us­ing her mu­sic to in­spire and up­lift oth­ers.