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.

Related coverageCalypso Icon Mighty Sparrow Dies In New York At 9178 reports

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.