Ramdew Chaitoe

Ramdew Chaitoe a legendary Surinamese artist and a harmonium player, who released a Baithak Gana album called The King Of Suriname a.k.a The Star Melodies of Ramdew Chaitoe in 1976. Rumors exist about how Chaitoe started his career in singing in jail after being arrested in a bar fight.

Ramdew grew up on a farm. His father, songwriter/lyricist and harmonium instrumentalist Pandit Shastrie Sewpersad Chaitoe, was a considerable influence on Ramdew, inaugurating his son early in the musical art form, by having his son perform weekly at Hindu temple ceremonies. This allowed the young Chaitoe to become skilled at his craft, thus allowing him to perform with the top singers and composers in Suriname as he matured. Throughout his travels in the Caribbean, Chaitoe acquired a strong reputation as a skilled harmonium player and singer. Ramdew Chaitoe traveled from the West Indies to Europe, and also had a show in New York.

Chaitoe is regarded as one of the best singers of the Caribbean in the genre of Baithak Gana, which is still seen as the authoritative music genre in the Hindustani community. Though on the evening of June 6, 1994, Ramdew Chaitoe's life was cut short of a massive heart attack during his sleep, he left behind dozens of pieces of music for his thousands of fans throughout the Indo-Caribbean world and now all digital.