US congresswoman pays tribute to Mighty Sparrow

US Con­gress­woman Yvette Clarke has paid trib­ute to ca­lyp­so leg­end the Mighty Spar­row, de­scrib­ing him as a cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tion whose mu­sic and in­flu­ence tran­scend­ed the Caribbean and reached au­di­ences world­wide.

In a state­ment post­ed on Face­book, Clarke ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, friends and fans of the late ca­lyp­son­ian, whose re­al name was Slinger Fran­cis­co.

On be­half of the peo­ple of New York’s 9th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict and her fam­i­ly, Clarke ex­pressed sad­ness at the pass­ing of the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned en­ter­tain­er, whom she de­scribed as a “peer­less icon”.

She not­ed that al­though Spar­row was born in Grena­da and raised in Trinidad and To­ba­go, his mu­si­cal tal­ent and artis­tic in­flu­ence ex­tend­ed far be­yond the re­gion.

Clarke said the ca­lyp­son­ian earned his ti­tle as the “Ca­lyp­so King of the World” through his ex­cep­tion­al tal­ent, gen­eros­i­ty and un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to his craft.

She said his lega­cy would en­dure long af­ter his death, with his con­tri­bu­tions to mu­sic and Caribbean cul­ture con­tin­u­ing to in­spire gen­er­a­tions.

Clarke al­so hailed Spar­row as a trail­blaz­er, in­no­va­tor and char­i­ta­ble in­di­vid­ual, de­scrib­ing him as a con­sum­mate en­ter­tain­er whose work had made him a cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tion.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the grief felt by his fam­i­ly, friends and count­less fans, she of­fered a mes­sage of com­fort, imag­in­ing that his ar­rival in heav­en would be ac­com­pa­nied by the sounds of steel­pan and Caribbean mu­sic.

“May we find com­fort in know­ing that tonight, the King­dom of Heav­en will ring alive with sweet steel melodies and the songs and sounds of our peo­ple,” Clarke said.

Her trib­ute adds to the in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pres­sions of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for Spar­row’s con­tri­bu­tion to ca­lyp­so and Caribbean mu­sic fol­low­ing his death.