PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Feb 12 2017 – Veteran Calypsonian Calypso Rose has won the World Album of the Year award at the Victoire de la Musique award ceremony in France.
The award is considered the French equivalent of a Grammy award.
Rose’s album, Far from Home, competed against rock group Acid Arab with their album “Music of France” and Rokia Traore with her album “Born So.”
Far From home, the platinum-selling album was released on the Because Music label on June 3, 2016.
Rose, 75, began singing at the age of 15.
She was born in Bethel, a small, relatively in-land village in Tobago.
Although she garnered several regional hits throughout the years, including her most famous, “Fire, Fire”, which she wrote in 1966 she did not win any of the major calypso contests until 1977.
That year, she was the first woman ever to win the Trinidad and Tobago Road March Competition with “Tempo.”
A year later, she won the National Calypso King Competition – which prompted a name change (it’s now called the National Calypso Monarch Competition) – with “I Thank Thee” and “Her Majesty.”
That same year, Rose won the Trinidad Road March Competition for the second year successive year, with “Gimme More Tempo”.
Throughout her career, she has headlined at major venues and festivals throughout the US, Europe and Australia.
As of 2011, she is the most decorated calypsonian in Trinidad and Tobago’s history, and was awarded the Trinidad and Tobago Gold Humming Bird Medal, an award given to Trinidadians “for loyal and devoted service beneficial to the state in any field, or acts of gallantry.”
To date, Calypso Rose said she has written “well over 800 songs”.
Accepting her award, the musician thanked the government of Trinidad and Tobago and all her fans.
“They have kept me going with the beautiful music and the vibrations I give them,” she said as the audience applauded.
