Slinger Francisco — Grenada’s son, Trinidad’s king and the Caribbean’s conscience in calypso — has died in New York at 91. He leaves behind a region that learned to laugh at itself, argue with itself and see itself through his songs.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, September 28, 2026 - Calvin G. Brown | For seventy years, the Caribbean kept alive a rumour it could never quite retire. Sparrow dead, somebody would whisper, and in 1970 Sparrow himself turned the gossip into a hit, mocking the busybodies who had him buried before his time. On Sunday, September 27, the rumour finally caught up with the man. Slinger Francisco, the Mighty Sparrow, died peacefully in New York after a brief illness, surrounded by his family. He was 91.
