Lord Creator, the Trinidad-born singer who gave Jamaica the soundtrack to its Independence and, later, one of the most covered songs in its catalogue, died on Friday, June 30, 2023, at his home in Golden Grove, Hanover. He was 87.

“He died at 11am. He hadn’t been feeling well for some time,” his wife, Neseline Patrick, told the Jamaica Observer. Born Kenrick Patrick in the San Fernando area of Trinidad in 1935, he would have turned 88 on August 21. “He always said that he wanted to die at home; not in any hospital,” she later told the Gleaner.

From San Fernando to Randy’s

Lord Creator arrived in Jamaica in 1962, part of a wave of Eastern Caribbean talent — his compatriots Lord Laro and guitarist Lynn Taitt, and Barbados’s Jackie Opel among them — who settled in Kingston as the recording industry took off. At the east Kingston home of producer Vincent “Randy” Chin, with help from journalist Raymond Sharpe, he wrote “Independent Jamaica.” Alongside Derrick Morgan’s “Forward March,” it became the soundtrack of the new nation’s celebrations, the Observer’s Howard Campbell writes.

“Evening News,” “Don’t Stay Out Late,” “Big Bamboo” and “Little Princess” followed. In 1970 he cut “Kingston Town” for Clancy Eccles, reworking “Babylon,” a song he had written as a teenager in Trinidad and first recorded on a ska beat for Randy’s in 1963. Britain’s UB40 covered it in 1989; their version reached No. 4 on the UK singles chart and No. 1 in France and the Netherlands, and was certified platinum in the UK in 2022 for sales of more than 600,000. The Gleaner recalls that a later dispute with Eccles over a half-share of the song was settled by the publishers in Lord Creator’s favour.

Honoured at last

He moved back to Trinidad in 1984, reluctantly, but Jamaica remained home. In the year of the country’s 60th anniversary of Independence, the Government conferred the Order of Distinction, Officer Class, on him; he collected it at King’s House in a wheelchair. “It’s a blessed feeling; I was not expecting this. I am so proud,” he said then. “Jamaica means so much to me… I’m married to a Jamaican woman, I have Jamaican children. Everything about me is Jamaican. I just love it here.”

His health had been failing for years — two strokes, the last in 2005, back surgery in 2013, and a two-week hospital stay for breathing problems last December, his wife said. He is survived by Neseline, his wife of 31 years, eight children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“We consider it an honour that the Trinidad-born Lord Creator adopted Jamaica where he made what was his biggest hit along with other popular songs such as Evening News and Don’t Stay Out Late,” Culture Minister Olivia Grange said. “His music will live on and Jamaicans will forever thank him for immortalising in song what is our greatest celebration to date, our Independence.” VP Records, the label co-founded by Randy Chin’s family, said he “possessed a unique ability to effortlessly traverse the realms of calypso, ska, rocksteady, and various other genres.” A thanksgiving service was tentatively set for July 23.

Listen and dig deeper

Sources: Jamaica Observer — “Ska, rocksteady artiste Lord Creator has died” (Claude Mills, June 30, 2023); Jamaica Observer — “Lord Creator off to heavenly home” (Howard Campbell, June 30, 2023); Jamaica Gleaner — “Lord Creator died at home, just as he wanted” (Yasmine Peru, July 3, 2023).

Editor’s note: This story is part of an archive backfill covering Jamaican music news from 2022 to 2026. It is dated to the events it reports.