Calypso

Calypso is the song tradition of Trinidad and Tobago, developed from nineteenth-century Afro-Creole carnival culture into a vehicle for wit, social commentary and topical news delivered in rhymed, rhythmically agile verses over guitar, banjo and later full dance bands. Singers known by sobriquets — *Roaring Lion*, *Attila the Hun*, *Lord Kitchener* and *Mighty Sparrow* — competed in carnival tents and, from the 1910s, on recordings that made calypso the Caribbean's first international popular music. *Harry Belafonte*'s 1956 album "Calypso" triggered a North American craze, while at home the form remained the island's musical newspaper.