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| Keina Calliste |
By Lincoln Depradine
St. George’s, June 5, 2011 – Trinidadian Keina
Calliste is the daughter of one of the Caribbean’s greatest calypsonians and
she has familial ties to Grenada.
Calliste has just completed her first visit to Grenada and felt
right at home.
“I like it. It’s not that much different from Trinidad. We have a
lot of similarities,’’ said Calliste, daughter of Leroy Calliste who is
popularly known as Black Stalin.
A five-time winner of the Calypso Monarch competition of Trinidad
& Tobago, as well as the I999 Calypso King of the World, Black Stalin was born
1941 in San Fernando to George and Elcina Calliste. His father was Grenadian.
Black Stalin became
Dr. Leroy Calliste in 2008 after the University of the West Indies, St.
Augustine Campus, recognized his contribution to calypso music and culture by
awarding him an honourary doctorate.
Among his well known
hits are “Black Man Feeling to Party,’’ “The Caribbean Man,’’ “Wait Dorothy
Wait,’’ and “Bun Dem.’’
Black Stalin was a limbo dancer before turning his attention and
energy to calypso singing. His daughter chose to pursue neither singing nor
dancing the limbo.
She became a pannist almost accidently, and now performs with her
hometown steel orchestra, TCL Skiffle Bunch of San Fernando.
It started 19 years
when Keina Calliste was still a young school student. Initially, Calliste admitted, she “really
didn’t like pan much.’’ However, all that was soon to change.
“We had a school band so I decided to just fool around after
school and I liked it and I stuck with it,’’ she said in an interview. “I was
still going to school when I joined Skiffle Bunch and I never left since
then.’’
Skiffle Bunch, who gave two public performances in Grenada on the
weekend, visited under an arrangement involving the Grenada Carnival Committee,
the Grenada Steelbands’ Association and George F. Huggins Grenada Ltd.
Calliste, who holds a degree in business management from the
School of Business and Computer Science in Trinidad, has toured places such as
Antigua and Barbados with Skiffle Bunch.
She is impressed with the performance of Grenadian pannists, as
well as their knowledge of the pan movement in T&T.
“The standard here and the passion are very high,’’ Calliste said.
“It was really amazing also that people here know so much about pan in
Trinidad. People in Grenada really keep up to date on the pan movement.’’
Skiffle Bunch has never won a national panorama championship in
Trinidad. But Calliste believes it’s only a matter of time.
“We have everything that it takes. Every year we just seem to the
missing one element. I think we’re going to get it,’’ a confident Calliste
said.
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