Sidney Pernett Trujillo (1925âÂÂ2014), known as Carmencita Pernett, was a Colombian singer. Pernett sang with several orchestras in Colombia, and helped to popularise the Colombian musical genres of cumbia and porro in North America. Her 1952 recording of "Me Voy a Plato" with Los Alegres Vallenatos was the first recorded vallenato sung by a woman. She lived much of her life in Mexico, where she was known as the "Queen of the Tropics" (Spanish: ).
Pernett was born in Cartagena, in the Colombian department of BolÃÂvar, on 11 October 1925.
Around 1939 Pernett joined the orchestra of as a singer. This made her the first woman in Cartagena to sing porros with an orchestra, at a time when women singing Colombian music styles in public was frowned upon. She also sang with the Emisora Atlántico Jazz Band, led by trombonist Guido Perla, and the Orquesta Emisoras Fuentes, and around the same time she started calling herself Carmencita Pernett. She was later invited by Lucho Bermúdez to join his orchestra.
In 1952, Pernett recorded the son vallenato "Me Voy a Plato" (written by Armando Abello) for the Bogotá-based record label Vergara, backed by Los Alegres Vallenatos, the band founded by Julio Torres Mayorga. According to , the song was the first recorded vallenato sung by a woman. Pernett later recorded other vallenatos including Alejo Durán's "039" and TobÃÂas Enrique Pumarejo's "Callate Corazón".
Pernett lived in Cuba in 1954, and then moved to Mexico after marrying a Mexican, where she spent the rest of her life and became known as the "Queen of the Tropics" (Spanish: ). In Mexico she sang with the orchestras of Rafael de Paz and Dámaso Pérez Prado, and she helped to popularise the Colombian genres of cumbia and porro in North America. Music critic Jaime Monsalve wrote that her Mexican recordings "reveal a different and unique understanding of Colombian Caribbean styles. With closer adherence to the score, and a special emphasis on the wind instruments and solo piano sections, the creations of Pacho Galán, Daniel Lemaitre, and José Barros seem...closer to the cha-cha-chá, mambo, or Cuban guaracha than to cumbia itself, porro, or gaita."
In Mexico, Pernett also sang on film soundtracks, including for the Italian film Anna accompanied by .
In later life, Pernett had Alzheimer's disease. She died in Mexico City on 22 December 2014.