As Trinidad and To­ba­go moved from colony to in­de­pen­dent na­tion, women were not mere­ly on the side­lines. Through po­lit­i­cal or­gan­is­ing, civic ed­u­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty work and elec­toral pol­i­tics, they helped lay the ground­work for the coun­try that emerged in 1962. Long be­fore 1962, women in po­lit­i­cal spaces such as Au­drey Jef­fers and El­ma Fran­cois, among oth­ers, laid the cru­cial ground­work for fe­male or­gan­is­ing, cam­paign­ing and vo­cal­is­ing what coun­try they want­ed to in­her­it.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s rep­u­ta­tion as a home for tal­ent­ed or­chid breed­ers con­tin­ues to grow, with lo­cal breed­er Cur­tis Lutch­man and his team re­turn­ing from Flori­da with an im­pres­sive haul of awards.

As the red, white and black flag was raised at mid­night on Au­gust 31, 1962, Trinidad and To­ba­go had al­ready de­cid­ed on a na­tion­al flag, coat of arms, na­tion­al an­them and na­tion­al flower. But there was one cru­cial el­e­ment not yet es­tab­lished: a cur­ren­cy of its own.

High fash­ion took cen­tre stage at South Park Plaza in May dur­ing its Moth­er’s Day Fash­ion Show, bold­ly ti­tled “A Trib­ute to the Time­less Woman.”

When you are recog­nised as one of the greats who have pro­duced abun­dant­ly for the cul­tur­al land­scape of Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­ing no­ticed speaks vol­umes.

The stage at NCIC Na­gar came alive with colour, rhythm and move­ment as dancers from dif­fer­ent tra­di­tions came to­geth­er for the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture’s (NCIC) In­de­pen­dence Rain­bow Dance Fes­ti­val.

Machel Mon­tano has per­formed be­fore mas­sive crowds around the world, col­lect­ed tro­phies and ti­tles across four decades and car­ried so­ca on­to some of mu­sic’s biggest stages. But walk­ing through a Brook­lyn ex­hi­bi­tion last week filled with the phys­i­cal ev­i­dence of that jour­ney ap­par­ent­ly man­aged to sur­prise even the Road March record hold­er.

When thou­sands of Caribbean peo­ple and their de­scen­dants take to the streets of Brook­lyn, New York, on Labour Day, Sep­tem­ber 7, the sounds of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ja­maica will share the spot­light.

As Spice­mas cel­e­bra­tions conclud­ed in Grena­da, pro­duc­ers from T&T have stamped their names on the 2026 So­ca Monarch stage. Michael “Stemz” Ram­roop S’obri­an is the man be­hind the win­ning groovy song, while Mevon “Xplic­it­Mevon” Sood­een pro­duced the sec­ond-place pow­er track.

Ja­maican dance­hall star Tee­jay (Tim­oy Jones) is ap­plaud­ing the in­creas­ing­ly vis­i­ble peace move­ment among Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Trini­bad artistes, say­ing the pub­lic dis­play of uni­ty he wit­nessed dur­ing his re­cent vis­it rep­re­sents pre­cise­ly the kind of evo­lu­tion he has been ad­vo­cat­ing for with­in the cul­ture.

When you hear “Big Man Ting” (BMT) in col­lo­qui­al lan­guage, it means se­ri­ous busi­ness that on­ly an adult can han­dle.

The aro­ma of wood smoke drifts along the SS Erin Road at Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, draw­ing the at­ten­tion of mo­torists and passers-by.