Chalkdust

The story so far.

Written and edited by Smokiller

Chalkdust is the calypso name of Dr Hollis Urban Lester Liverpool, also called the Mighty Chalkdust or Chalkie. He wrote his first calypsoes in 1954 while still a schoolboy at St Mary's College in Port of Spain, and he became a professional calypsonian in the late 1960s. He won his first Calypso Monarch title in 1976, repeated in 1977, added two more in the 1980s and another in 1993, and a Caribbean Beat profile written when he was 63 recorded a sixth crown. A YouTube upload of "Learn From Arithmetic" is labelled as his winning Dimanche Gras performance of 2017. Outside music he taught in schools for 35 years, earned a PhD from the University of Michigan, served as Director of Culture and wrote books on Carnival and calypso history. He told the Trinidad Guardian he was once dismissed as a primary school teacher for teaching calypso, and in 2019 he received the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Known songs include "I In Town Too Long" and "Misconceptions".