PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CANA:
Calypsonian Ras Shorty 1, whose real name was Garfield Blackman, died Wednesday night after battling a mysterious disease over recent months, music industry sources have said.
The 59-year-old singer, credited with developing soca music and who also developed a spiritual type of music known here as Jamoo, died in Belmont, on the eastern outskirts of the capital after leaving a private medical institution.
Public relations officer of the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Association (TUCO), Michael Legerton said the calypso world was grief-stricken over Blackman's death.
Ras Shorty 1 was first diagnosed as having multiple myeloma - a rare cancer of the blood disease which caused the death of Aldwyn Roberts, 'The Grandmaster Kitchener' earlier this year.
But further tests on him to confirm the disease proved inconclusive.
Blackman whose sobriquet in the sixties and seventies was 'Lord Shorty' became very ill shortly after breaking an arm when he picked up a lightweight chair cushion and continued thereafter to experience mobility problems.
Among some of Blackman's famous hits are Money Eh No Problem and the controversial Om Shanti which raised the ire of the Hindu community here over its chorus line.
In 1997, he also released Watch Out My Children an anti-drug song which continues to be popular in the country and in the Caribbean.
