18 GILLESPIE / DE BEAUVOIR

 CG- Do you have fans?
 DA- We have fans and regulars. A lot of kids like me. They chase me around
 the hotels. The men here like tall women and women with big butts.
 It's not a West Indian thing to be tall, but when they see one they think
 it's something else.
 Y'all didn't come to see my tent? [calypso tent during Barbados' annual
 carnival. Cropover] This is my fourth season. I was the biggest secret
 in the whole tent. People kept it hush hush. People came to see who
 this Diva was. Was it a man or was it a woman? That was the thing and
 I brought so many people to the tent that year. I did Whitney Houston.
 The next year, 2000, Isang two Calypsos. So I've been doing that since.
 CG- You wrote them yourself?
 DA- Yeah. I write all my songs. Say if you give me a song andIsing it. I don't
 feel it and I don't know what you want me to say. So I write from here
 [indicating her heart]. I've started writing songs for next year. God
 spare my life next year.
 CG- Where did you go to school?
 DA- I went to Combermere [one of the best preparatory schools on the
 island]. I had a good time at Combermere. At college I had a good
 time. I was supposed to go to Queen's College, but my uncle did
 something wrong and Combermere was my third choice. Igot the marks
 for Queen's College, but I did not go. He went to Combermere so he
 said, "no you are going to Combermere. "It doesn't matter though where
 you go. It's who you are when you come out. So I don't bother about
 school. Like Morehouse and Harvard and Princeton.
 CG- What was your calypso about this year [2002]?
 DA- It's called, "Taking Too Long to Come." It is a double entendre. People
 thought it was something nasty. It was about politics and the country.
 Things are so slow in this country to happen and people promising to
 do things and can't get it done. The opening was like, I was in my
 nighty sleeping and my husband or boyfriend call and I was asking
 where was he and saying, "I was waiting on you so long to come. "And
 then I tell him don't bother coming. 'Cause that's how the women do it.
 You know they wait for their boyfriends. And most of the guys go and
 then drink drink with their friends and then they come home two, three
 o'clock and then have sex. So that's what I was trying to portray. Hey,
 I know what y'all do too. And it was funny for a lot of people. I had on
 this duster. And when the band strikes up, I have on this glamorous
 gown. And everybody said, "Wow. Oh my God." Everybody thought
 that was something different, but I didn't do justice there 'cause it was
 only one song. Next year I'm going to put my all in to it. 'Cause there