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The calypso king has left the stage, but kaiso, and the fight against diabetes, still need us
The Mighty Sparrow gone. For real this time.
Decades ago, when rumour spread across the region that he had died, Sparrow answered the only way a true calypsonian could, with a calypso of his own announcing the news. Those lines became classic and slipped straight into our maco lexicon, because we in the Caribbean share news, true or rumour, far faster than any WhatsApp group chat.
On Sunday, 27 September, the news was real. Slinger Francisco died in New York, aged 91, after a brief illness and with his loved ones around him. Within hours, WhatsApp and Facebook were flooding with tributes, questions, memories and personal playlists. That is only the beginning.
Grenada will reclaim him, for it was in Grand Roy that the little bird first took flight. Trinis will say he is ours, and with good reason, for it was Trinidad that raised him and crowned him Calypso Monarch eight times and Road March king on eight occasions. And the rest of the Caribbean, at home and abroad, will claim him too. That tug of war is itself the tribute. It measures the impact one man had on all of us over seven decades, more than 500 songs and more than 70 albums.
It also tell we something we have been letting slip. Sparrow represents a value that has been diminished over the years, as appreciation for the artform he mastered has waned. Kaiso was our newspaper, our parliament and our confessional set to music, and Sparrow was its editor in chief. He sang about Carnival and cricket, federation and foolishness, love and money, human rights and capitalism gone mad. When the region needed talking about itself, Sparrow told it, and he made us dance while he did it.
I did not inherit my family’s musical talents. The only instrument I ever learned to play was the turntable. But over a career in media I interviewed Sparrow several times and watched him perform on more stages across the Caribbean than I can count. I saw his ups, and I saw his downs too, including his long and persistent fight with diabetes.
When he turned 90, my colleague Lillian Ceasar of St Kitts and Florida insisted that such a landmark should not go unnoticed or uncelebrated. So I chronicled that fight in a song for his birthday. We hoped then that our effort would bring greater attention to the diabetes that has become part of so many lives in our region.
That hope has not changed. I want this subject to get the attention it deserves, not because it had such an impact on the Mighty Sparrow, but because it is a cause we should never abandon. Every family in this region knows the toll. Too many of us know it by name.
With the help of AI tools, I have now composed one more for him. Not a lament, but a final bulletin, telling his life through the titles he gave us, from Jean and Dinah and Carnival Boycott to Federation, Congo Man, Crown Heights Justice and Barack De Magnificent. It imagines the man who kept the region informed for seven decades signing off the way a news anchor would.
Its chorus says what so many of us are feeling at this time:
Sparrow gone,but never forgotten!
The Bird may fly away,
But every word he leave behind
Still singing today!
The full song is published at caribbeanbridges.substack.com.
As we prepare our salutes to The Birdie, Dr Sparrow, Slinger Francisco, as we heap praise on his legacy and play his music loud, remember this. There are many exemplars of the kaiso artform still with us, still writing, still singing, still standing in tents that grow emptier every season. They deserve our support now, while they can hear it.
Leh we us not abandon them. And let us not wait for the rumour, or the real news, to tell them so.
Julian Rogers is the founder and publisher of Caribbean Bridges.
Caribbean Bridges by Julian Rogers . [email protected]
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