UWI, COTT, Birdsong pay tribute to Bro Resistance

More tributes have flowed in for the late Lutalo “Brother Resistance” Masimba.

Brother Resistance died on July 13 at 67. He was president of the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation (TUCO).

In a release UWI St Augustine campus’s principal and pro-vice chancellor Prof Brian Copeland

said TT had lost a great son of the soil and a great son of the university.

The release added that in 2011 he was one of the university’s 50 distinguished alumni celebrated by the St Augustine campus.

It said, “The awardees selected were symbolic of the quality of graduates that the UWI’s St Augustine campus has produced- individuals who have led the greater Caribbean region in the post-independence era.”

Brother Resistance graduated with a BSc in social sciences with history in 1980 from UWI, St Augustine.

Copeland thanked Brother Resistance for his contribution to the development of arts and culture and added that he will continue to be a source of inspiration to the UWI community and the region.

"Those of us who were on the campus in the late 70s would well remember Resistance and his colleagues singing his chants outside the ‘I-room’ echoing his mantra, ‘Is wot! Wuk and dead?’,” Copeland added.

The release said Resistance's recent association with the campus included his participation in the Faculty of Humanities and Education’s Panchayat: The Mas(s) in We: (Re)claiming de People’s Festival in February 2021 as part of a roundtable on calypso. It added that he was a close friend of the Carnival Studies Unit at the faculty’s Department of Creative and Festival Arts.

Similarly, Tunapuna-based steelband and academy also celebrated Brother Resistance’s contribution to TT’s cultural development in a media release.

It said its partnership with Brother Resistance dated back to his days as a student at UWI.

“He immediately became a playing member of birdsong steel orchestra and found common cause with our organisation at every stage of our organisational journey,” the release said.

Brother Resistance was always ready and willing to share its burdens, celebrate its successes and defend its values and principles, it added.

The release said he will be remembered for his regular appearances with the Network Riddim Band at its blockoramas, pan concerts and, in particular, its Pan for the People series of community concerts which, it said, in the mid-70s took birdsong’s music and rapso to remote communities throughout TT.

The Copyright Music Organisation (COTT) – of which Brother Resistance was a longstanding director and former president – said he joined the organisation in 1985.

In its Facebook post, COTT said he was among its early members and sat as a director for approximately two decades, from 1995-2015.

“As a member he amassed a repertoire of over 80 registered songs including such hit as Ring De Bell, Mother Earth, The Earth, Come Let Us Build A Nation Together (sung by Merchant), Never Ever Worry (sung by Pretender) and The Rapso Master.”

It added that he also owned the publishing company Masimba Publishing Network, which has 101 songs registered to date.

The organisation sent condolences to his family and friends.