2022 marks the year of Calypso Queen’s return to centre stage. Alongside new songs, a new album and the same desire to both celebrate and share her universal messages and views on societies with the world: Calypso Rose - FOREVER.

But Calypso Rose never really went away. Since the release of her last platinum-certified album Far From Home in 2016, the queen of Trinidad and Tobago has continued to spread her music across the world, performing some two hundred concerts in four years at festivals such as Les Vieilles Charrues, We Love Green and WOMAD, or the renowned Olympia hall in Paris.

This love from fans of all generations and respect from her peers led her to receive a Victoire de la Musique award in 2017, followed by an insignia of Chevaliers des Arts et des Lettres presented on 20 February 2020. A testament to France’s consistent recognition and honouring of her artistic and professional achievements over the years.

At 82 years of age, who could claim to have the same zest for life? It is the trademark of a Calypso Rose album: an optimism that shines through the music, a delicate balance between tradition, modernity and universality. For her new album FOREVER, Calypso Rose reunited with Belizean producer –and collaborator for more than 15 years– Ivan Duran. She also teamed up with Garifuna Collective on her track ‘Watina’, which features stellar riffs from none other than guitar legend Carlos Santana. Her friend and producer Manu Chao can be heard singing on ‘Rock the Boat’. So can soca king Machel Montano (‘Young Boy’) and Jamaican dancehall icon Mr. Vegas (‘One by One’). A new generation of artists also joined the party: Toulouse-based rapper Oli got lost with her on a night that never seemed to end in ‘Feeling Nice’, while electro duo Synapson reworked and put their own spin on ‘Watina’.

Over the course of FOREVER’s fourteen tracks, Calypso Rose brings up as many hedonistic subjects like partying or the energy of youth as she does the battles waged throughout her career: feminism, equality between peoples and individuals, her unwavering hope for a better tomorrow.

If she has become one of the most respected artists in the world, it is precisely because of her ability to explore the double entendres so dear to calypso. Through sensuality and smiles, her songs convey strong messages, particularly about the status of women in the various societies she has come to know well: the Jamaica neighbourhood in New York City’s Queens borough, Paris, Trinidad and Tobago and Belize. These are the four places that nourish her music, and the places in which FOREVER was recorded. This is why so many influences make up its fabric, ranging from rocksteady to soca, from ska to mento. The years and musical genres may have passed but her songwriting remains the same.

Born on the small island of Tobago to a religious father working as a fisherman and a stay-at-home mother, Calypso Rose emerged as the epitome of Caribbean music in the 1960s. She enjoyed her first successes in the 1960s with such hits as ‘Fire In Me Wire’ in 1966, played with Bob Marley & The Wailers in New York the following year, and was crowned queen of the Road March –the Trinidad Carnival’s climax– in 1977. She was the first woman ever to win the Calypso Monarch contest in 1978. With FOREVER, Calypso Rose revisits some of her greatest classics while presenting original material with a distinctly modern approach –including her new track with Oli– giving us an album that speaks to everyone and transcends all ages.