Calypso Rose wows them at Coachella

Calypso Rose performs in the Gobi tent last weekend, one of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio last Friday. © Chanice Gibbs

With the ‘fire in her wire’ still ablaze, Ca­lyp­so Rose’s per­for­mance at the Coachel­la Mu­sic Fes­ti­val has gen­er­at­ed a pub­lic­i­ty whirl­wind on Amer­i­can news me­dia out­lets.

The 78-year-old ca­lyp­son­ian made her de­but at the Cal­i­for­nia mu­sic ex­po last week, and has been fea­tured on tele­vi­sion pro­grammes and dig­i­tal news pub­li­ca­tions for her his­to­ry-mak­ing set.

Rose, whose re­al name is McArtha Lin­da Sandy-Lewis, is the old­est singer to ever play at Coachel­la. She is al­so the first ca­lyp­son­ian to per­form a full 45-minute stage set.

The fes­ti­val is one of the largest and most well-known in the Unit­ed States, with Gram­my award-win­ning R&B artiste and Amer­i­can pop su­per­star Ar­i­ana Grande head­lin­ing this year’s edi­tion.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view on en­ter­tain­ment news pro­gramme, TMZ Live, host Charles Lat­i­beaudiere jok­ing­ly asked Rose about the tum­ble she took on stage last Fri­day as she wined on a con­cert go­er while singing her hit col­lab­o­ra­tion with Machel Mon­tano, ‘Young Boy.’

“That wasn’t part of the song, right?” Lat­i­beaudiere teased. “The ‘young boy’ isn’t sup­posed to, uh, well, I mean he is sup­posed to get you on the ground, but not that way, right?”

“Not that way,” laughed Rose with her il­lu­mi­nat­ing smile.

“You’ve been in mu­sic longer than Paul Mc­Cart­ney, you’re aware of that right?” Lat­i­beaudiere mused.

“I start­ed at age 13!” said Rose, who is set to turn 79 on April 27.

TMZ Live co-host Har­vey Levin mar­velled at Rose’s en­er­gy on stage.

“Why do you think you’re con­nect­ing?...There used to be a joke about (Las) Ve­gas that, a lot of peo­ple—once they get ‘up there’ in years—they end up in Las Ve­gas...Why do you think at 78 you’re per­form­ing in Coachel­la where it’s a very young crowd?”

She cred­it­ed her mu­sic la­bel in France for se­cur­ing a spot in Coachel­la, which she en­dear­ing­ly pro­nounces like the Trinida­di­an word for the spicy man­go rel­ish, kuchela.

News and en­ter­tain­ment web­site, Buz­zfeed, her­ald­ed her achieve­ments at the fes­ti­val in an ar­ti­cle pub­lished on Tues­day.

Buz­zfeed staff writer, Patrice Peck, praised Rose for rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­ture at her Coachel­la de­but, and for be­ing an ar­dent ad­vo­cate for women’s equal­i­ty.

That ad­vo­ca­cy was al­so the fo­cus of a video pro­file piece post­ed by dig­i­tal news out­let, Brut, which asked Rose to talk about her fem­i­nism and her ca­reer.

“All the men all over the world who ate lis­ten­ing to me here to­day: nev­er in your life raise your hand against a woman,” she de­clared.

The video has been viewed more than 640 thou­sand times.

“Ladies, I am still stand­ing up for you and I will stand up for you un­til the good Lord say ‘come home,’ and I know the Lord ain’t call­ing me home now,” Rose de­clared in the video. “I am here for a pur­pose.”

Rose is set to grace the Coachel­la stage for a sec­ond time to­mor­row. She has book­ings in Ger­many, Switzer­land and Eng­land in the com­ing months, and ap­pear­ances in Japan sched­uled for the end of the year.