Calypso icon Brother Valentino dies at 85

Suzanne Shep­pard

and Soyi­ni Grey

Broth­er Valenti­no, the Grena­da-born ca­lyp­son­ian whose mu­sic cham­pi­oned black con­scious­ness, equal­i­ty and the strug­gles of or­di­nary peo­ple, died on Tues­day at the age of 85.

Born Em­rold An­tho­ny Phillip in Cher­ry Hill, Grena­da, on Ju­ly 7, 1941, he mi­grat­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go as a young boy and be­came one of the coun­try’s most re­spect­ed voic­es in ca­lyp­so.

Valenti­no built a ca­reer on so­cial­ly con­scious mu­sic that chal­lenged in­jus­tice, ques­tioned po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship and ex­plored the dig­ni­ty and as­pi­ra­tions of the dis­en­fran­chised.

His in­ter­est in ca­lyp­so be­gan in child­hood, when 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 be­came his call­ing.

In­spired by Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­ciso, who died on Sep­tem­ber 27, was buried last week­end af­ter a state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al, Valenti­no be­gan per­form­ing in the ear­ly 1960s. At an au­di­tion for Lord Kitch­en­er’s Car­a­van tent, he ar­rived with­out a stage name.

Kitch­en­er gave him the Valenti­no moniker, which would be­come syn­ony­mous with un­com­pro­mis­ing so­cial com­men­tary.

His ca­reer gained mo­men­tum dur­ing the Black Pow­er move­ment of 1970, when ques­tions of racial in­equal­i­ty, iden­ti­ty and eco­nom­ic jus­tice dom­i­nat­ed na­tion­al dis­course.

His 1971 com­po­si­tion No Rev­o­lu­tion es­tab­lished him as a voice for Black con­scious­ness. Oth­er defin­ing songs in­clud­ed Life Is A Stage, Dis Place Nice and Bark­ing Dogs. His 1979 com­po­si­tion Stay Up Zim­bab­we, an an­them sup­port­ing the strug­gle against white-mi­nor­i­ty rule, car­ried his mes­sage be­yond T&T.

Valenti­no’s work ex­tend­ed be­yond tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val per­for­mances. His so­lo pro­duc­tion, Po­et and Prophet, sold out eight shows in 1975, demon­strat­ing ca­lyp­so’s abil­i­ty to com­mand au­di­ences out­side the com­pe­ti­tion cir­cuit.

He toured the Unit­ed States, ap­peared along­side fel­low ca­lyp­son­ian Black Stal­in in Blood Broth­ers and be­came a found­ing mem­ber of Kaiso House.

Al­though he nev­er won T&T’s Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle, his stand­ing among gen­er­a­tions of lis­ten­ers earned him a dis­tinc­tion he val­ued deeply: The Peo­ple’s Ca­lyp­son­ian.

His achieve­ments in­clud­ed the 2005 Vet­er­ans Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle for Where Kaiso Went, recog­ni­tion from the Sun­shine Awards and the Hum­ming­bird Medal (Gold)in 2012 for his con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try’s so­cial and cul­tur­al life.

Oc­to­ber was a month of ho­n­ours for Valenti­no. On Oc­to­ber 2, he host­ed Lega­cy Con­cert: Pass­ing the Ba­ton at Kafe Blue in Port-of-Spain. At the time, he told his au­di­ence it would have been his fi­nal per­for­mance.

Broth­er Valenti­no was to have been con­ferred with an Hon­orary Doc­tor­ate of Hu­mane Let­ters from the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T at its grad­u­a­tion cer­e­monies next month. He had tak­en his of­fi­cial pho­tos at the cam­pus last week­end, be­fore tak­ing ill on Mon­day, re­quir­ing hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, pro­gramme co­or­di­na­tor at UTT’s De­part­ment of Arts, Let­ters and Pub­lic Af­fairs Kris­son “Seraphim” Joseph, a fel­low ca­lyp­son­ian, ex­pressed shock when told of Valenti­no’s death.

Joseph had been tasked with per­form­ing the trib­ute to Valenti­no at the grad­u­a­tion.

As a ca­lyp­son­ian, Joseph said Valenti­no took his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple very se­ri­ous­ly. Which is ev­i­dent in one of his favourite songs from him - True Op­po­si­tion.

“I lit­er­al­ly re­mem­ber cov­er­ing that song at a show,” Joseph said.

“But while I’m singing it, I be­came over­whelmed by his un­der­stand­ing of who we were meant, or called to be as ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, and how it came out in the song.”

The Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, in a state­ment yes­ter­day, de­scribed Valenti­no as “a voice for the voice­less, a con­science for the na­tion and a keep­er of our sto­ries.”

Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin said his mu­sic gave ex­pres­sion to the strug­gles, hopes, dig­ni­ty and as­pi­ra­tions of or­di­nary peo­ple, while chal­leng­ing au­di­ences to re­flect on their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to so­ci­ety.

The min­istry said his con­tri­bu­tion could not be mea­sured sole­ly by awards, but by the last­ing re­la­tion­ship he built with the pub­lic through his mu­sic and fear­less com­men­tary.

The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion de­scribed Valenti­no’s so­cial com­men­tary as an ex­pres­sion of gen­er­a­tions’ strug­gles, hopes and ex­pe­ri­ences.

TU­CO al­so ex­pressed con­do­lences to his wife, Peg­gy Cas­tana­da, a for­mer mem­ber of T&T’s World Net­ball Cham­pi­onship team of 1979, and his fam­i­ly.

Guardian Me­dia was told that Cas­tana­da is cur­rent­ly in Bar­ba­dos sup­port­ing the T&T team at the 2027 Net­ball World Net­ball Amer­i­c­as Qual­i­fiers.