Sama­ki Fe­li­cian

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

The rhythm of so­ca, the tow­er­ing moko jumbies, and the sea of flags wav­ing proud­ly in the air–this is the heart­beat of Carib­ana week­end in Toron­to. At the cen­tre of it all, en­sur­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence feels as au­then­tic as Trinidad Car­ni­val it­self, is An­drew Shaylen­dra Lal­la.

This year, the 40-year-old event plan­ner and co-founder of Sum­mer of Sound Fes­ti­vals Inc (SOS Fest Inc) was ho­n­oured with the Cul­tur­al Im­pact Award for his role in pro­mot­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mu­sic and cul­ture on one of North Amer­i­ca’s largest stages. It’s a recog­ni­tion that re­flects more than a decade of ded­i­ca­tion, re­silience, and vi­sion.

Lal­la, who lives in Mis­sis­sauga with his wife, Shiv­on Timaul, didn’t start out plan­ning con­certs. Born in Toron­to to a Trinida­di­an fa­ther, Ish­war Lal­la, and a Guyanese moth­er, An­ja­nee Lal­la, he grew up sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly, sports, and Caribbean tra­di­tions. He played base­ball through­out his youth be­fore study­ing bi­o­log­i­cal an­thro­pol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to’s Mis­sis­sauga cam­pus, where he al­so be­came a stu­dent leader, serv­ing as pres­i­dent of the ath­let­ic as­so­ci­a­tion and lat­er di­rec­tor of spe­cial events.

It was dur­ing those years that he honed the skills of or­gan­i­sa­tion, lead­er­ship, and cre­ativ­i­ty that would lat­er fu­el his ca­reer. How­ev­er, it was his grow­ing love for so­ca mu­sic that led him down a dif­fer­ent path. What be­gan as help­ing his cousin pro­mote night­club events turned in­to a pas­sion for cu­rat­ing spaces where Caribbean cul­ture could shine.

With no am­bi­tion to get in­to the con­cert busi­ness, the big leap came when he saw the gaps in Toron­to’s Carib­ana con­certs.

“I would wake up the next day and just see com­ments or mes­sages or get­ting phone calls about who­ev­er might be throw­ing a big con­cert; there were al­ways prob­lems. Those prob­lems could be that it took two hours to get in, it took one hour to get a drink, they said this artiste was com­ing, and the artiste was nev­er com­ing at all. It was nev­er a com­plete­ly good event, with peo­ple walk­ing away and say­ing yes, they had a good time.

“It then came to the point where one time, I was like, ‘Okay, let’s see what I can do,’ and I start­ed to look at why there are prob­lems, and I think on a per­son­al lev­el, the sim­plest an­swer just goes down to or­gan­i­sa­tion. Ob­vi­ous­ly, with me, I am a very or­gan­ised per­son, so then I was like, ‘Let’s go and try to do a con­cert our­selves,’” Lal­la ex­plained.

Con­fi­dent he could de­liv­er bet­ter, Lal­la reached out to none oth­er than so­ca su­per­star Machel Mon­tano. To his sur­prise, Mon­tano’s team agreed, and just like that, the foun­da­tion of SOS Fest Inc was laid.

From the very be­gin­ning, Lal­la was not alone. He turned to his close friend and now busi­ness part­ner, Naveen Shar­ma, with whom he im­me­di­ate­ly shared his vi­sion. To­geth­er, they built SOS Fest from the ground up, trans­form­ing what start­ed as a sin­gle-day event in­to a three-day fes­ti­val that mir­rors the spir­it of T&T Car­ni­val. From live per­for­mances by the re­gion’s top artistes to moko jumbies and im­mer­sive cul­tur­al dis­plays.

The jour­ney, how­ev­er, hasn’t been with­out chal­lenges. In 2018, an SOS Fest event was shut down just hours be­fore show­time due to a venue dis­pute, spark­ing law­suits and sig­nif­i­cant loss­es. But Lal­la and Shar­ma re­bound­ed, re­fund­ing pa­trons and re­turn­ing the next year un­der the slo­gan “Back like we nev­er left.” It was a mo­ment that de­fined their re­silience and com­mit­ment to their au­di­ence.

Look­ing back on the past 11 years, Lal­la said what he trea­sures most was the growth–growth in au­di­ences, in re­la­tion­ships with artistes, and in the qual­i­ty of pro­duc­tions. And yet, he knows there is more work ahead.

“Toron­to is cul­tur­al­ly for­ward, but there are still ob­sta­cles that we face. Racism does ex­ist; let’s be re­al about that, and I just want to be able to put up a good fight,” he said.

Still, his mis­sion is clear: to push Caribbean cul­ture fur­ther in­to the glob­al spot­light.

“There will come a time when we are go­ing to be re­tired from throw­ing this type of con­cert, but if we leave a path where peo­ple can say that Team SOS was able to do that, why can’t I do it?” he shared.

For now, An­drew Lal­la con­tin­ues to build, dream, and ex­pand. And with the Cul­tur­al Im­pact Award in hand, he stands as proof that vi­sion, root­ed in her­itage, can keep so­ca’s heart­beat echo­ing far be­yond the is­lands.