Filbert Smart – author of The Pride of Belize
by William Ysaguirre (Freelance Writer)
BELIZE CITY, Tues. July 22, 2025
Dell and the Sensations’ music permeated the Belizean air waves in the 1970’s and 80’s, and their path to stardom to become one of the most popular new Caribbean bands on the Chicago music scene in the 1980’s is documented by founding member Filbert Smart in his autobiographical new book, The Pride of Belize. Smart is home on vacation to promote his book, and AMANDALA caught up with him at the Princess Hotel in Belize City on Tuesday afternoon, July 22.
Born in Gales Point, Manatee, Filbert was the eldest of 7 sons born to Osborne and Emeline Smart. He studied mathematics on a scholarship in the UK, but when he returned to British Honduras in 1972, the Belize education system seemingly had no real place for him. He taught for a time with Anglican schools in Pomona and Corozal, but his love of music inspired him to start playing keyboards.
Meanwhile, his brothers, Dell and Keith, had formed a singing group, The Miracles, and they performed at the Belize Teachers College when Filbert was away studying, and they also sang at the Eden Cinema, but these were not paying gigs!
The family emigrated to the USA in 1972, where Dell began singing vocals for the Lem Vaughn Combo, and Keith joined the Astros band. Filbert emigrated to Los Angeles in 1973, and the brothers came together to form their own band, with Keith on drums, and Kenrick also became a percussionist. The other brothers, Jerome, Anthony, and Floyd, joined in on other instruments. They soon became the number one Caribbean band in the Los Angeles area.
In a time before the internet, the real money in the music industry was in recording, and Filbert began writing original compositions for the band to record. They did covers of other songs, such as “Tears on My Pillow” (a cover for “I Can’t Take It”), and “Freedom Fighter”—a cover for the song, “Warrior”, which Filbert says the then Governor General, Dame Minita Gordon, particularly liked.
Smart also worked with Chico Ramos in producing the famous “Conch Soup”, which the Honduran band, Banda Blanca liked from the first time they heard it, and they did a cover in Spanish: “Sopa de Caracol”.
Readers curious to know more can read The Pride of Belize, available on Amazon.com.
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