Samdeo "Sam" Boodram (14 July 1933 – 30 June 2020) was a Trinidadian Chutney, Bhajan, Indian classical and folk singer, Kabir Panthi mahant, and cocoa farmer.
He used to have seventeen people working on his estate, picking cocoa as well as coffee cherries, bananas, and peewah.
Boodram credits being an independent farmer gave him the flexibility to develop his singing career on his own time and terms.
[2] Boodram started professionally singing Indian classical music in 1947 at the age of fourteen.
[4][2] In a 2013 interview, when asked what advice he would give the younger generation of chutney singers, he said that he believed they should learn Hindi and that singing is not just shouting out songs, it should be from your heart with devotion.
Tributes to Sam Boodram came from Surujdeo Mangroo the public relations officer of the National Council of Indian Culture,[5] anthropologist and writer Kumar Mahabir,[citation needed] Southex and Chutney Soca Monarch founder George Singh,[6] and radio and television presenter Rafi Mohammed.
[9] Singers also paid tribute to Boodram such as Raymond Ramnarine, Nisha Bissambhar, and JMC 3Veni founder Veerendra Persad, who all said that Boodram paved the way for Indo-Caribbean musicians and that his songs have been played at most Indo-Caribbean weddings, birth celebrations, birthdays, pujas, and parties throughout the diaspora and will continue to live on.