Lord Kitchener

Lord Kitchener, born Aldwyn Roberts, earned alongside Mighty Sparrow the distinction of the globe’s most celebrated Calypso performer. His professional start occurred in Trinidad, where he captured his inaugural Road March award in 1946. Two years later he departed for England alongside fellow vocalist Lord Beginner; contemporary newsreel footage captured him performing the number “London Is the Place for Me.” Within twenty-four months the pair had secured recording sessions for EMI. Kitchener quickly amassed enormous popularity across England, gaining both the patronage and personal regard of Princess Margaret. During the 1950s he undertook an extensive tour of West Africa, where the single “Nora” became a major success. Along with numerous other calypsonians he gradually embraced soca, reaching the charts in 1978 with “Sugar Bum Bum.” He is further remembered for the hit “Give Me the Ting.” Kitchener died on February 12, 2000, at the age of seventy-seven.