Brother Valentino, ‘People’s Calypsonian,’ dies at 85

Broth­er Valenti­no, whose songs made a force­ful case for equal­i­ty, Black iden­ti­ty and the con­cerns of or­di­nary peo­ple, died yes­ter­day. He was 85.

Born Em­rold An­tho­ny Phillip in Cher­ry Hill, Grena­da, on Ju­ly 7, 1941, he moved to Trinidad as a young per­son and made the is­land his home. Ca­lyp­so was part of his child­hood: his par­ents lis­tened to the mu­sic and col­lect­ed records by artistes in­clud­ing Lord Kitch­en­er and Lord Cristo. Af­ter his fa­ther’s death in­ter­rupt­ed his ed­u­ca­tion, Phillip tried sev­er­al trades be­fore mu­sic took hold. He lat­er re­called that lis­ten­ing to ca­lyp­so on the ra­dio while work­ing in a tai­lor shop helped turn his in­ter­est in­to a call­ing.

In­spired by Mighty Spar­row, Phillip be­gan per­form­ing in the ear­ly 1960s. At an au­di­tion for Lord Kitch­en­er’s Car­a­van tent, he ar­rived with­out a stage name. Kitch­en­er sup­plied one: Valenti­no. The name be­came as­so­ci­at­ed with a dis­tinc­tive kind of ca­lyp­so—thought­ful, so­cial­ly en­gaged, and un­will­ing to look away from in­jus­tice.

The po­lit­i­cal up­heaval of the 1970 Black Pow­er move­ment deep­ened that com­mit­ment. Valenti­no wrote about racial in­equal­i­ty, pover­ty, po­lit­i­cal au­thor­i­ty and the search for dig­ni­ty and self-knowl­edge. His 1971 song “No Rev­o­lu­tion” brought him wider no­tice as a voice for Black con­scious­ness. “Life Is a Stage,” “Bark­ing Dogs” and “Dis Place Nice” be­came defin­ing works, while “Stay Up Zim­bab­we,” his 1979 an­ti-apartheid an­them, car­ried his mes­sage across the Caribbean. He fol­lowed it with “Ah Wo (Brand New Rev­o­lu­tion)” in 1980.

His mu­sic was root­ed in po­lit­i­cal con­vic­tion, but al­so in a per­former’s in­stinct for melody and a com­pos­er’s craft. In 1975, his so­lo pro­duc­tion “Po­et and Prophet” sold out eight shows. He toured and per­formed in the Unit­ed States, and ap­peared along­side fel­low ca­lyp­son­ian Black Stal­in in “Blood Broth­ers.” He al­so be­came a found­ing mem­ber of Kaiso House, help­ing sus­tain the ca­lyp­so tent tra­di­tion and the art form’s role as a fo­rum for pub­lic com­men­tary.

Valenti­no’s achieve­ments in­clud­ed the 2005 Vet­er­ans Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle for “Where Kaiso Went,” a Sun­shine Award, recog­ni­tion for 50 years as a per­form­ing artist and the Hum­ming­bird Medal, Gold. He nev­er won Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch crown, but he re­gard­ed his en­dur­ing ti­tle, “The Peo­ple’s Ca­lyp­son­ian,” as a greater ho­n­our.

He con­tin­ued to speak up for ca­lyp­so as a liv­ing cul­tur­al tra­di­tion, call­ing for young peo­ple to learn its his­to­ry and for the mu­sic to re­tain its pow­er to tell peo­ple’s sto­ries. His songs and ex­am­ple leave a lega­cy of ca­lyp­so as both art and civic voice: a mu­sic ca­pa­ble of en­ter­tain­ing, ques­tion­ing au­thor­i­ty and in­sist­ing that the lives of or­di­nary peo­ple be heard.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) said the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty mourned Valenti­no’s pass­ing and de­scribed his fear­less voice and pow­er­ful so­cial com­men­tary as an ex­pres­sion of gen­er­a­tions’ strug­gles, hopes and ex­pe­ri­ences. The or­gan­i­sa­tion ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly, loved ones, fel­low artistes and all who were touched by his mu­sic, say­ing his con­tri­bu­tion would re­main part of T&T’s cul­tur­al lega­cy.