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Activists Around the World: Calypso Rose · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: And Samantha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And we are back with another episode of Activists Around
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: the World. And today, we are celebrating the works and
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: activism of award-winning singer-songwriter Linda MacArthur Monica Sandy Lewis. or
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: stage name Calypso Rose, which is what we'll be calling
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: her for this episode. So she goes by that stage name.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: That's what we're going to use. Also, I want to
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  Speaker 2: take a quick pause. Before we get into this, if
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: you want to take a minute and go listen to
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  Speaker 2: her music, you really should. Because I made Annie do
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  Speaker 2: this too. I was like, it is such a fun song.
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  Speaker 2: Like Calypso music in itself is just vibrant and bright.
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  Speaker 2: But the storytelling she has and the way she kind
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  Speaker 2: of uses it as a way of activism and standing
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  Speaker 2: for a community is amazing. So you should take the
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  Speaker 2: time Go look up Calypso Rose if you haven't already,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: if you're not already a big fan. And I am
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  Speaker 2: now a big fan. And you should go and listen
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  Speaker 2: to some of her music. It's all available on YouTube. Now,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: come back then after that. So, I'm assuming you're back.
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  Speaker 2: So many consider Calypso Rose as the mother of Calypso.
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  Speaker 2: And in fact, she might be even considered one of
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  Speaker 2: the first women to really break the ceiling of Calypso genre. Now,
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  Speaker 2: there are plenty of women who have been singing Calypso,
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  Speaker 2: but no one has been recognized before her, really, really
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  Speaker 2: brought into the community. She has, she's really broken down
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  Speaker 2: some barriers for more women to be a part of
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  Speaker 2: this genre. In 1978, she became the first woman to
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  Speaker 2: win Trinidad's Calypso competition in But before all of that,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: let's dig into her past and her background, okay? So
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: she began her songwriting at the young age of 13
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  Speaker 2: and has written more than a thousand songs and has
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  Speaker 2: at least 20 albums under her belt. And before becoming
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  Speaker 2: Calypso Rose, she first used the name Caruso Kid, paying
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: tribute to her origins in Tobago and to the book
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  Speaker 2: Robinson Caruso. But with the help of the people she
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  Speaker 2: had auditioned for, they decided on Calypso Rose. And this
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: is from an interview on standardhotels.com. They have a whole
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  Speaker 2: genre for music and award-winning music. She says this, My
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: first stage name was Caruso Kid. I started to sing
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  Speaker 2: at 15 when I was sent from my family in
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  Speaker 2: Tobago to my aunt in Trinidad. There I came in
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  Speaker 2: contact with Calypso artists such as Young Brigade. After the
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  Speaker 2: late Eric Williams saw me singing in a reception, he
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  Speaker 2: gave me the name Calypso Rose as he felt that
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  Speaker 2: I would bloom like a rose, which is the mother
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  Speaker 2: of all flowers. Right. So I love that whole story.
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  Speaker 2: She talks about how meeting them and them encouraging her
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  Speaker 2: to continue in this field was obviously a big influence.
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  Speaker 2: And her reign as the mother of flowers and the
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  Speaker 2: mother of Calypso would only be highlighted by her many accomplishments,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: including her 1978 win, which we mentioned earlier. So this
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  Speaker 2: is from womenrockproject.com. In 1978, she became the first woman
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: to win Trinidad's Calypso competition. In fact, Rose went on
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  Speaker 2: to win so many of the prestigious Calypso King competition
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  Speaker 2: titles that they renamed it the gender neutral Calypso Monarch
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  Speaker 2: in her honor. So because they didn't have any women
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  Speaker 2: as a part of the competition and especially didn't win,
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  Speaker 2: it was always called Calypso King. And after her win,
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  Speaker 2: they were originally trying to call her Calypso Queen. But
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  Speaker 2: after so many times of winning, they're like, yeah, we
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  Speaker 2: just need to make this gender neutral at this point.
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  Speaker 1: And I love that.
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  Speaker 2: And though her father, a spiritual Baptist minister, didn't approve
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  Speaker 2: of the music, she knew it was something she had
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  Speaker 2: to do that would allow her to tell her story,
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  Speaker 2: her talents, and the stories of those who were marginalized.
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  Speaker 2: So she told fader.com this. When I first started, my father,
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  Speaker 2: who was a spiritual Baptist minister, told me that calypso
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  Speaker 2: music belonged to the devil. She laughs. A lot of
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  Speaker 2: church organizations used to call me into meeting after meeting,
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  Speaker 2: asking me why I was singing calypso and saying that
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  Speaker 2: calypso doesn't belong to women. that it's a man's domain.
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  Speaker 2: I got so tired and fed up of hearing the
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  Speaker 2: same thing because the good Lord had given me the
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  Speaker 2: inspiration to create and write. And I wrote over 800 calypsos.
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  Speaker 2: I wrote two gospel albums also. I was the first
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  Speaker 2: calypsonian to write gospel in the calypso beat. When I
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  Speaker 2: gave it to the radio stations, they said that they
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  Speaker 2: couldn't play the gospel songs because there's a calypso beat.
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  Speaker 2: One day I said, look, I will not be like
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  Speaker 2: the foolish virgin that buried their talents in the soil.
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  Speaker 2: I said, God gave me this talent. He has blessed me,
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  Speaker 2: so I'm going to deliver it to the world, which
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  Speaker 2: I did. Yes. Yes, she did, obviously. She did in
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  Speaker 2: her albums, and she told her stories, stories to empower
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  Speaker 2: women and stories of her own family. So this is
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  Speaker 2: from djfunshine.com. They write, According to her sister, Calypso is
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  Speaker 2: one of the foremost elements of African culture, as well
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  Speaker 2: as storytelling device, making it the perfect instrument for Rose,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: who has so much to say. She describes how Rose's
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  Speaker 2: music relays the stories of their great-grandmother and father back
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  Speaker 2: to Africa in particular. Calypso Rose dedicated the song to
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  Speaker 2: her great-grandmother, who sits at the center of her earliest memory.
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  Speaker 2: My great-grandmother was kidnapped, bought and sold, and ended up
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  Speaker 2: in Tobago. She never went back to the home of
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  Speaker 2: French Guinea. Every evening, she would sit by the seaside
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  Speaker 2: and would always shake her head and say, no man
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  Speaker 2: knows their burial ground. And yeah, and the article goes
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  Speaker 2: on to talk about Rose's own stories. They say, Calypso
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  Speaker 2: Rose's songs tell her own story. She grew up in
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  Speaker 2: Trinidad as a young middle-class woman, became independent from a
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  Speaker 2: very young age, and made sense of life. She was
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  Speaker 2: also sexually abused as a teenager as she bravely confessed
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  Speaker 2: in Calypso Rose's Lioness of the Jungle, the 2009 documentary
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  Speaker 2: about her. In her songs, she encourages women to resist,
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  Speaker 2: to persevere, to say no, and to tell their stories
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  Speaker 2: and recount their experiences. In 1963, one year after Trinidad
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  Speaker 2: and Tobago declared independency, Calypso Rose released her first record.
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  Speaker 2: Rose was the first female Calypso star in the male-dominated
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  Speaker 2: music industry, and her lyrics frequently address the societal inequality, racism,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: and sexism experienced by many women. And I think that
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  Speaker 2: she has also been kind of deemed as one of
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  Speaker 2: the first people in the Calypso world as a Me Too,
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  Speaker 2: for being a part of the beginning of the Me
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  Speaker 2: Too era for them. So, you know, we love to
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  Speaker 2: hear survivors talking about how they pushed beyond and really
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: became an advocate in their field. And her songs and
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: stories have influenced more than just the music industry. It
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: actually influenced policies. So going back to that standardhotels.com interview,
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  Speaker 2: she says, My song, No Madam, was written to show
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  Speaker 2: the world the terrible life of the house servant at
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  Speaker 2: the time. After an Italian journalist wrote about the song
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  Speaker 2: in her paper, the cabinet of the government of Trinidad
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  Speaker 2: and Tobago passed a law to bring a minimum wage
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  Speaker 2: to any workers, including houseworkers. And I just wanted to
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  Speaker 2: kind of give you some of the lyrics from No Madam.
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  Speaker 2: So this is what she writes. No Madam. No Madam.
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  Speaker 2: No Madam. So this was kind of in stance of
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  Speaker 2: what was happening at the time. And we've talked about
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  Speaker 2: domestic labor and how they have been oftentimes been left
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: out in this conversation of being paid fair wages and
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  Speaker 2: given equal rights and opportunities and all of that. And
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: she was one of the big proponents in Trinidad and
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  Speaker 2: Tobago to really bring that up. And even though she
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  Speaker 2: technically retired in 2017 at the age of 77, she
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  Speaker 2: made her comeback collaborative album, Far From Home. where her song,
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  Speaker 2: Leave Me Alone, became the hit for the carnival season.
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  Speaker 2: And here's what she told TheFader.com about coming out of retirement.
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  Speaker 2: I feel great to know that I've been writing songs
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  Speaker 2: for years and the determination that I had in mind
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  Speaker 2: to make sure that I stay on top as the
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  Speaker 2: first woman of Calypso. I feel great about it. To
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  Speaker 2: achieve something in life, you have to work very hard
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  Speaker 2: and have determination. That was my motive. And the motive
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  Speaker 2: drove me now to receive the Victoire de la Musique
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  Speaker 2: in France, which is their form of Grammy. So she's
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  Speaker 2: winning all the awards still. And with her song, Leave
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  Speaker 2: Me Alone, she actually just wrote an anthem. So back
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  Speaker 2: to the womenrockproject.com. Calypso Rose has been a longtime champion
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  Speaker 2: of women's rights to let loose, party, and most importantly,
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  Speaker 2: do so free from the leering gaze and pawing hands
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  Speaker 2: of men. Her witty lyrics speak to the plight of
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  Speaker 2: Caribbean women living in the male-dominated society. Her hit song,
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  Speaker 2: Leave Me Alone, became the breakaway hit of Trinidad's 2017
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  Speaker 2: carnival season. All the women went wild, but more than
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  Speaker 2: just a party anthem, the song's message of female empowerment
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  Speaker 2: spawned a grassroots activist campaign speaking out against violence towards
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  Speaker 2: women in the Caribbean and beyond. And it really is.
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  Speaker 2: Y'all need to go and listen to that song specifically.
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  Speaker 2: I made Annie listen to this song because I was like,
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  Speaker 2: it is so good. First of all, it's a bop.
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  Speaker 2: So like the whole time you're kind of dancing. And secondly,
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  Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, leave me alone. I feel like this
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  Speaker 2: might just be our generation's theme song.
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  Speaker 1: It should be. to everyone, just leave us alone.
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  Speaker 2: Trans women, just like, yeah, just leave me alone.
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  Speaker 1: Let us be.
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  Speaker 2: If only it was so simple. But yes, it's a
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  Speaker 2: great song with a great message. It's simple, but very profound,
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  Speaker 2: I think, in the way it goes. But yes, of course,
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  Speaker 2: she has won many, many, many awards. As in fact,
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  Speaker 2: the Wikipedia article on her does a great job in
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  Speaker 2: giving a lot of details about her life. So I
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  Speaker 2: think you should definitely go and check that out. It
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  Speaker 2: lists out so many of her honors. By the way,
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  Speaker 2: she released an album in 2018 as well.
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  Speaker 1: So Calypso.
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  Speaker 2: So this woman will not stop working. She's currently living
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  Speaker 2: in New York and still doing her thing, traveling about,
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  Speaker 2: doing tours all around the world, getting the awards all
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: around the world. Yes, you heard right. She has documentaries.
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  Speaker 2: I feel like we have to add those to our list.
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  Speaker 2: But I loved her music. I love her songs. And
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  Speaker 2: I love her determination and fight for women's rights. So
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: this one made me feel nice and gave me good music. Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Definitely go check out. I was watching the music video
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  Speaker 1: and I was like, yes.
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  Speaker 3: The vibe is great because it's like such a party vibe.
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  Speaker 1: But she's saying, leave me alone. I'm just going home.
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  Speaker 1: Let me be. Yeah, let me be.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Well, listeners, we would love to hear from you. You
• 10:37
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• 10:40
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• 10:42
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• 10:44
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• 10:45
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• 10:46
  Speaker 3: a book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: as always, to our super producer, Rima, and our executive producer, Maya.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Thank you. And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Never Told You is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 10:55
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