Emorold Anthony Phillip was born on the 7th of July 1941 in a little place called Cherry Hill in Grenada. He came to Trinidad at the age of five, on a Carnival Monday. Philip lived at Long Circular Road, Bel Vue in the capital city of Port of Spain. He attend the Mucurapo Boys RC primary school and later spent one term / semester at a private secondary school before his father died and he was unable to continue paying the tuition.Phillip would pass through a number of odd jobs before settling on a career as a calypsonian. From a short stint at a Printery on Marine Square, to an electrician, then a mechanic and most telling a tailor, for it is here he was exposed once more to the calypso music his father had weaned him on, the tailors always having their radios on in the background while they worked on their profession.He started his illustrious career in a Calypso tent by the name of the 'Big Bamboo', which was on Park Street in Port of Spain. The Calypso tent was for guys who couldn't get into the big tents The Calypsonians who performed then, were 'Skipper', 'Creator' ,'Lord Inventor', 'Conqueror', and 'Young Creole', some of the top Calypsonians. This was in 1961 and his name then, was not 'Valentino' but 'Robin'.The Robin would get his new name in December of 1965 when after an audition at Kitchener’s Revue Calypso tent, he announced to the gathering that he had no name, another calypsoninan having appropriated the name Robin earlier that year. Thus it was the great Lord Kitchener who bestowed the name Lord Valentino on Phillip. Later in the 1970’s during the revolutionary days of the Black Power movement, he would change his name to Brother Valentino. It was during this period too that fellow calypso stalwart, five time national monarch, the Black Stalin would give him the title ‘the People’s Calypsonian’.Though only three times a national monarch finalist (and never winning the coveted crown) he would become the true spokesman for the people , the true opposition, the voice of conscience. His hits over the years include the immortal Life is a stage (1972), Barking Dogs (1974), Dis place Nice (1975), the best selling ‘Stay up Zimbabwe’ (1979), Birds that fly high (1982, Time and Space (1986),) Calypso in Trouble (1992) Time to love again (1996), The Radio (2001) and Where Kaiso went (2004)Valentino, now a veteran among calypso bards, is enjoying his second marriage, this time to former national netball played Peggy Castanada. He continues to be a role model for the new generation of younger singers who see him as the epitome of social consciousness, a direct descendant of the great chantwells of yesteryear – Executor, Atilla, Tiger and the beat goes on & on & on.
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