Calypso icon Mighty Sparrow dies at 91 - Jamaica Gleaner

There are voices so deeply woven into the life of a people that their passing unsettles our sense of ourselves. We have heard them through the open windows of our childhood, across the crowded streets of carnival, in the company of friends, and in those private moments when a familiar song brings an entire world back into view. Such was the voice of Slinger Francisco, The Mighty Sparrow, an artiste who gave our experiences the shape of song and our language the authority of public witness. Born in Grenada and raised in Trinidad, Sparrow belonged to that Caribbean whose connections have always exceeded the boundaries drawn around its islands. His journey carried something of our own: the crossing of water in search of opportunity, the making of home in another island and the discovery that belonging can deepen without its first roots being severed. Trinidad nurtured his genius. The wider Caribbean recognised itself in what that genius produced.

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