Denyse Plummer, who has died aged 69 of cancer, was one of the most prominent female singers in the male-dominated world of calypso. Only the third woman to win the coveted Calypso Monarch crown in Trinidad & Tobago, she was also unusual in being a white artist in a genre that typically reflects the interests and concerns of the black population of the Caribbean.
That garnered her a hostile reception in Trinidad when she first appeared on the scene. But she fought through the prejudice to become a national star, and was eventually awarded the Hummingbird Medal, the country’s highest honour, in 2011.
