CALYPSO ROSE: after the French Grammy and the collaboration with MANU CHAO, the Queen of Calypso in Italy!

Forget the thorns, because she has thorns, and without hesitation pick this rose. Calypso Rosewho, at 77, is as fresh as ever and will soon be in Italy for two unique shows: Tuesday 18 July at Carroponte in Sesto San Giovanni (MI) e Wednesday 19 July at Villa Ada in Rome. I tickets will be available on the official circuit Ticketone (online and points of sale) from from 10 a.m. on Monday 20 March.

Far From Home (Because Music, 2016) is his twentieth studio album in a crowded discography and is also the last chapter in his career that began in 1964. You won't hear a tired sound in the slightest; on the contrary, it's punchy, energetic, intense, jovial, affable... There are not enough words to describe the performance of these twelve tracks in which Calypso Rose generously professes her energy to live with the voice of a young girl.

However, life has not been a bed of roses for the McCartha Linda Lewiswas born in 1940 in Bethel, a small village on the island of Tobago, which together with Trinidad is one of several island republics in the Caribbean and the land of the world's most popular music, Calypso. Born at the end of the 19th century from a mix of African and European musical ingredients, Calypso really developed in the first half of the 20th century as a refined musical genre and a megaphone through which both everyday problems and important social issues of its people were told. A genre that became universally known by everyone in the 1950s thanks to Harry BelafonteIt was exclusively performed by male artists until a 'troublemaker' burst onto the scene and subverted the established order. In 1972, Calypso Rose was the first artist to be nominated with the title of Queen of Calypso (Calypso Queen) and six years later was named with the title without gender identification, Calypso Monarch. In one of the songs from the album, entitled Calypso Queenshe recalls that she still feels proud to have been a person capable of subverting the established order. In this song she proudly defends her regal position as an artist who has received the most honours and recognition in her country and who is celebrated by the Trinidadian community all over the world. This should give us an idea of the character that characterises this character, irresistible, irreducible, affectionate and unconventional.

Calypso Rose has always been a warrior and first had to overcome the hostility of her father, a Baptist church preacher who was strongly opposed to her musical career. Calypso was also sexually abused during her teenage years, as she bravely confessed in Calypso Rose, Lioness of the Junglethe 2009 documentary on her story. A tireless worker, she wrote more than 800 songs from the age of thirteen and spent 17 years singing on the cruise ships of the New York shipping company. Celebration At Seabefore he was able to play on legendary stages such as theApollo or the Madison Square Garden with two of the greatest Calypso artists ever, Lord Kitchener e Mighty Sparrow. Calypso Rose is also a fighter: you don't survive cancer and two heart attacks without a good dose of grit. Only those who have overcome such difficulties throughout their lives can sing about life with such strength but at the same time with such pleasure as in the album Far From Home demonstrates.

This vitality stands out immediately to the listener through this incredible album that conquers you after the first notes and erases any bad mood and bad feeling. We are invited to a parade of Caribbean music, happy, with changes of rhythm, colours, moods, in the pure style of Carnival which, more than a festival, is the most important cultural event in Trinidad and Tobago and best represents the soul and the ethnic and Scottish diversity of its people. From calypso classics such as Woman Smarter o No Madam to the chin of Troublefrom the ska-led track Far From Home at the soca of Zoom Zoom ZoomNothing is ever sufficiently energetic, suffocating or feverish to tire out this warrior who fascinates everyone who knows her. Like Jean-Michel Gibert who has been her manager since the anthology album Calypso At Dirty Jim's of 2006. Like Ivan Duran, who produced Far From Home between Montreal and Belize with the utmost devotion. Like Drew Gonsalves of the band Kobo TownHe co-wrote some of the songs on the album and also arranged them. And how Manu Chao who joined the project by chance following a holiday in Port of Spain, and who left his indelible mark on three tracks (Leave Me Alone, Far From Home e Human Race). When it comes to choosing projects to work on Manu follows only his heart, and he not only recognised in this little woman a unique artist but also a heroic figure whose whole life is an example to follow. In fact if Far From Home and filled to the brim with joy, actually also reveals the facets of a woman whose conscience is always on the alert and who still fights for the right cause, denouncing domestic violence in 'Abatinaor social injustice in No Madama song that Calypso Rose wrote in the 1970s and who helped bring about a change in the laws on the treatment of servants in Trinidad. A woman whose memory extends beyond her own existence in I'm African embracing the fate of the entire black diaspora, in the same spirit as artists such as Bob Marleywhich she knew well. Finally, in these times of global discord and violence, who but she, with her courage, strength and humanity could sing a song like Human Race on universal love and fraternity.