Born in Bethel, Tobago, in 1940, McArtha Linda Sandy-Lewis is the woman, whose golden voice still sparkles 67 years after she wrote her first calypso and took that first step to becoming the undisputed Calypso Queen of the World.
Calypso Rose is the name you’ll see on your smartphone if you have “Young Boy,” “Fire in Your Wire,” or any of her other tracks on your playlist.
That first calypso to get the ball rolling was “Glass Thief,” inspired by Rose witnessing a man stealing glasses from a woman in a market, leading her to pen the song in 1955.
Rose says it was Trinidad and Tobago’s first prime Minister Dr. Eric Williams, who encouraged her to sing in a calypso tent, after he heard her sing as a youngster.
But, before that happened, Rose battled with a speech impediment as a young child. It was during this period of her life that she discovered calypso, while living with her aunt in Trinidad
“My aunt had a whole set of albums, records, those big plates, with the gramophone, that you have to grind the gramophone and grind it,” Rose said to a MusicTT workshop in 2017, as she held a microphone in her left hand and gestured her right arm in a circular motion to demonstrate the action she was describing. “And that’s how I learned calypso.”
Initially her stage name was Crusoe Kid, but after successfully auditioning for the Young Brigade Calypso Tent, the tent’s managers changed her name to Calypso Rose.
Rose became the first woman to win Trinidad and Tobago’s Road March title, with “Give More Tempo” in 1977. Rose actually forced the organizers of T&T’s Calypso King competition to change the name to Calypso Monarch, after she won the title in 1978 with “I Thank Thee.”
She performed with the legendary Bob Marley and the Wailers in New York City in 1976, and in 2019 she became the oldest performer to ever hit the stage at Coachella.
Calypso Rose won the Victoires de la musique (French “Grammys”) award for Best Album, in the world category, in 2017, and the following year she was honored with the Grand Prize for World Music at France’s SACEM Grand Prix annual music awards.
Rose continues to release new music to the delight of her legions of fans.
