Tobago mourns passing of legendary Oscar B

To­bag­o­ni­ans are mourn­ing the pass­ing of renowned singer Os­car Ben­jamin, aka Os­car B, who died on Sun­day morn­ing af­ter ail­ing for some time.

The for­mer lead singer of the leg­endary By­ron Lee and the Drag­o­naires died on the very day a ben­e­fit con­cert was sched­uled to be held at Shaw Park Com­plex.

Dur­ing the bud­get de­bate on Thurs­day, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine an­nounced the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) had ap­proved funds to as­sist the singer’s med­ical ex­pens­es. Au­gus­tine had hailed the lega­cy of Os­car B, re­veal­ing he was in Ja­maica re­cent­ly and the singer was still a top­ic of dis­cus­sion.

“We have Os­car B or­di­nar­i­ly singing at our func­tions and not re­al­is­ing his mark on the re­gion and the globe. We do­ing the but­ter­fly and the shad­ow and not re­al­is­ing his mark on the globe,” he said.

Mean­while, Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary paid trib­ute to the leg­endary singer in a Face­book post fol­low­ing his pass­ing, say­ing he was more than a gift­ed singer.

“To­day, the mu­sic is a lit­tle qui­eter, the stage a lit­tle dim­mer, and our hearts heav­ier,” it said.

While not­ing his ac­com­plish­ments on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, it said Os­car B re­mained ground­ed and friend­ly.

“Yet, de­spite his re­mark­able achieve­ments and ac­claim, he re­mained the very de­f­i­n­i­tion of hu­mil­i­ty. His warm smile, gen­tle spir­it, and gen­uine kind­ness made every­one feel seen, wel­comed, and val­ued.”