“The mo­ment be­tween ‘and the Gram­my goes to’ and hear­ing the name of your team is lit­er­al­ly breath­tak­ing. My heart skipped two beats, at least. And then when I heard ‘In­tel­li­gence’, there was this rush of adren­a­line. The first feel­ing is dis­be­lief and then in­cred­i­ble ex­cite­ment, ela­tion,” re­called 56-year-old Trinida­di­an-Cana­di­an mu­sic con­duc­tor Kwamé Ryan.

Looks can be de­ceiv­ing. You might ap­pear healthy, ca­pa­ble and in con­trol, yet heart dis­ease can de­vel­op qui­et­ly. Many women jug­gle ca­reers, fam­i­ly re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and the men­tal load of keep­ing life on track. Over time, this con­stant pres­sure drains en­er­gy and places the heart un­der strain.

Long be­fore the stage lights, the tours, and the chart place­ments, there was a lit­tle girl in To­co singing at the top of her lungs dur­ing fam­i­ly praise and wor­ship.

One year ago, Kristo­pher Mo­hamed’s life changed in a way no teenag­er ex­pects. The for­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege stu­dent, on the cusp of med­ical school and adult­hood, was di­ag­nosed with Stage IV Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma, a di­ag­no­sis that forced him to con­front the fear of mor­tal­i­ty far ear­li­er than most of his peers.

So­ca and steel­pan came to­geth­er to en­ter­tain and en­gage thou­sands gath­ered at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on Sun­day Feb­ru­ary 1, as BH En­ter­tain­ment host­ed the an­nu­al “Pan On The Greens” ex­pe­ri­ence.

Af­ter dom­i­nat­ing Spice­mas in 2025, sev­er­al Grena­di­an so­ca hits are tak­ing over Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions. So it’s no sur­prise the artistes flew over to give au­di­ences a di­rect taste of their coun­try’s Jab en­er­gy.

There’s a huge chance your favourite pow­er so­ca tunes for 2026 were pro­duced by the same per­son. In fact, many be­lieve he has per­fect­ed the “for­mu­la.” From Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Still A Road Man and Machel Mon­tano’s En­core, to Mi­cal Te­ja and Patrice Roberts’ Cap­i­tal, Xplic­it­Mevon (Mevon Sood­een) is pow­er­ing through the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son.

Car­ni­val Is Fash­ion 2 de­liv­ered an elec­tri­fy­ing show­case of cre­ativ­i­ty, at­tract­ing a larg­er au­di­ence than last year and trans­form­ing the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah Grand Stage in­to a vi­brant cel­e­bra­tion of fash­ion, mu­sic and mas­quer­ade.

Be­fore the book­ings, the ra­dio play and the in­ter­na­tion­al calls, San­dra Em­manuel, pop­u­lar­ly known as Queen Steam, said there were nights filled with tears, hunger and prayer.

These are un­doubt­ed­ly two of the most pop­u­lar lines for the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son, cour­tesy of Full Blown’s hit song Re­spect­ful­ly Yours.

Be­fore he be­came the voice wak­ing up the na­tion on The Boom 94.1, Kwe­si “Su­pahype” Lee was al­ready telling Caribbean sto­ries—qui­et­ly, vi­su­al­ly, de­lib­er­ate­ly—through a cam­era lens.

He would prob­a­bly not ap­prove of the com­par­i­son, but meet­ing pan con­nois­seur and his­to­ri­an Ian Franklin at a pa­n­yard the morn­ing af­ter com­pet­i­tive dra­ma is like mo­men­tar­i­ly oc­cu­py­ing li­brary space—soft, mea­sured tones, po­lite re­straint, and a vast­ness of read­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble knowl­edge and wis­dom.