NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

Ter­ri Lyons has al­ways be­lieved in her­self—even when oth­ers doubt­ed or did not share her vi­sion. The dec­o­rat­ed singer, song­writer and ac­tress cred­its her achieve­ments and con­tin­ued con­fi­dence to faith, re­silience and sac­ri­fice.

The 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son was a fruit­ful one for the singer. In ad­di­tion to see­ing her movie, Queen of So­ca, sell out at cin­e­mas, she made his­to­ry by be­com­ing the sec­ond woman to claim the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch crown twice. She al­so won the Queens of Queens Re­gion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion in Montser­rat for the fourth year in a row.

She said she is ex­treme­ly proud of these achieve­ments, but ex­plained that her cel­e­bra­tions tend to be on the qui­et side. She re­called the night of Di­manche Gras. Cheers erupt­ed from fans, friends and fam­i­ly when she was an­nounced as the 2026 Ca­lyp­so Monarch, but she cel­e­brat­ed through still­ness and prayer.

“I am not the type to jump up and scream… I just want­ed to put on a good per­for­mance,” she told WE. “(I knew) if I got it, I would be okay, and if I didn’t get it, I would still be okay. I just start­ed to thank God.” This aligned with the ti­tle of her win­ning tune Bless­ings. She sings, “I tired, and I wor­ried, and I feel­ing the pain. My faith’s been test­ed time and time again. But my spir­it is de­ter­mined to be­lieve and to over­come life’s tri­als.” She’s fed up with blood­shed, youths go­ing astray, among oth­er things, and prays for the coun­try, as it is in need of a bless­ing.

She said the song was ac­tu­al­ly writ­ten back in 2023. So what made 2026 the right year? “Every year I kept say­ing I would do it… I need time to com­plete my songs. I take my time. And I just said I need­ed to get it done.” With “every­thing and all the arrange­ments” in her head, she said she went to the stu­dio with a clear mis­sion. Laugh­ing, she ex­plained, “You need to have pa­tience with me when I go to stu­dio be­cause every­thing in my head needs to go on the track. I know how I want the gui­tar, the bass, the drums…”

While many be­lieve the song was cho­sen be­cause of on­go­ing eco­nom­ic and crime woes, she said, “It’s not for a par­tic­u­lar year or par­tic­u­lar time.”

“There are al­ways mo­ments like this in T&T,” she added. “It’s not for a par­tic­u­lar year or par­tic­u­lar time.”

She re­ceived heaps of praise on­line for what view­ers and lis­ten­ers called a pow­er­ful per­for­mance. But with­in the vic­to­ry was what she de­scribed as one of her biggest chal­lenges of her mu­si­cal ca­reer—mak­ing peo­ple be­lieve she could have ac­tu­al­ly done it. She said that as a woman in en­ter­tain­ment, she faced doubt from sev­er­al cor­ners over the years. “Every year, I used to feel like I had to au­di­tion. Peo­ple would al­ways say I need to ‘pay dues. But right now, dues ow­ing me.”

She re­called hear­ing and see­ing many say she “fi­nal­ly found it,” re­fer­ring to her abil­i­ty to de­liv­er such a stel­lar per­for­mance. “Peo­ple are say­ing, ‘Yuh come out for them this year,’ but I came out for them every year. What I did on stage this year was some­thing I could have done all the time.” She con­tin­ued, “I’ve al­ways had it in me. That eh now come. Peo­ple just weren’t pay­ing at­ten­tion.”

‘I would just drink peanut punch alone for the day’

She said the mu­sic in­dus­try of­ten waits too long to recog­nise artistes’ “re­al po­ten­tial.” And she has nev­er let her lack of “links” or un­will­ing­ness to be in­volved in dra­ma stop her from be­liev­ing in her­self. So she per­sist­ed. And she said that re­silience was in­stilled in her by her late moth­er, singer Dionne An­drews, and fa­ther, vet­er­an singer Austin “Su­perBlue” Lyons.

“It re­al­ly has every­thing to do with my up­bring­ing and my fam­i­ly,” she said.

She al­so briefly re­flect­ed on the sac­ri­fices she made through­out her ca­reer, which she be­lieves led to this mo­ment. “There is so much you have to do to be recog­nised. You know how many free per­for­mances I’ve had to do? And shows that say they will pay, but when it’s time, no­body wants to pay?”

And bal­anc­ing moth­er­hood with every­thing else, she said, the sac­ri­fices con­tin­ue. Her son Matthias is now 12 years old. “There were times I would just drink a peanut punch alone for the day. 
I can’t even drink peanut punch again be­cause of that,” she said with a laugh. “My pri­or­i­ty was mak­ing sure my son al­ways had some­thing to eat and could go to school.” He is set to write the SEA ex­am soon, so af­ter such a hec­tic sea­son, she is able to spend more time with him do­ing re­vi­sion.“I worked hard so I could en­sure he gets all his lessons, for dri­vers to get him to school some­times be­cause I wasn’t al­ways able to. Now I can get back on that train.”

She has no plans of slow­ing down, though, as she aims to con­tin­ue mak­ing good mu­sic. But she lament­ed that it’s com­mon in the mu­sic in­dus­try for peo­ple to say artistes need to “wrap it up now” af­ter they have made what the pub­lic con­sid­ers “enough” sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ments. But she is not of that be­lief. “Why I have to re­tire for you to tri­umph?” she chal­lenged. “I have to dim my light for you to shine?”

She urged the pub­lic to cel­e­brate these vic­to­ries with them, and to un­der­stand that mul­ti­ple “lights” can shine at the same time.

Plans are al­ready un­der­way for more mu­sic, as well as mu­sic videos, which she can’t wait to share with the world.