Kristy Ram­nar­ine

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

The Caribbean Mu­sic Awards 2025 lit up the Kings The­atre in Brook­lyn, New York, with an elec­tri­fy­ing night of vi­brant per­for­mances and ground­break­ing wins. At the heart of the cel­e­bra­tion was none oth­er than La­dy La­va (Keisha Har­ris), who claimed the in­au­gur­al Zess/Steam Artiste of the Year award.

Dance­hall artiste Boun­ty Killer re­ceived a Life­time Achieve­ment Award Hon­or, and US hip hop star Bus­ta Rhymes re­ceived an Elite Icon Award at the 2025 awards, which were pre­sent­ed on Au­gust 28. The third an­nu­al cer­e­mo­ny, host­ed by co­me­di­an Ma­jah Hype, aired on BET on Fri­day.

La­dy La­va’s break­out hit Ring Fin­ger, which re­ceived high praise and an en­thu­si­as­tic co-sign from hip hop su­per­star Car­di B, pro­pelled her firm­ly in­to the spot­light and on­to the win­ner’s podi­um.

But this his­toric win is more than just a per­son­al mile­stone for La­dy La­va, it’s a mo­ment of val­i­da­tion for the en­tire zess move­ment.

“I am hap­py and grate­ful,” she shared af­ter ac­cept­ing the award.

“It is im­por­tant for us as Caribbean peo­ple to be cel­e­brat­ed for our ef­forts, and I ap­plaud the or­gan­is­ers of the Caribbean Mu­sic Awards for the work that they are do­ing.”

La­dy La­va’s provoca­tive lyrics have be­come an­thems for women—mes­sages of em­pow­er­ment de­liv­ered through a non-tra­di­tion­al lens, fu­elled by the raw, un­apolo­getic en­er­gy of zess mu­sic.

Orig­i­nat­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, zess is a dance­hall sub-genre that ex­udes a “free-up-your­self” spir­it and is known for its grit­ty sound, swag­ger, and youth­ful vi­brance. The genre, which has faced mixed re­cep­tion both lo­cal­ly and re­gion­al­ly, has nev­er be­fore re­ceived for­mal recog­ni­tion on such a pres­ti­gious plat­form.

La­dy La­va’s win not on­ly le­git­imis­es the genre on the glob­al stage but al­so paves the way for a new wave of artistes emerg­ing from the scene.

“There are tonnes of new eyes on the Caribbean through the ad­vo­ca­cy by the Caribbean Mu­sic Awards,” La­dy La­va not­ed.

“Adding Zess/Steam to the list of cat­e­gories lends va­lid­i­ty to the genre.”

The recog­ni­tion has ig­nit­ed fresh hope for young and emerg­ing tal­ent with­in the Caribbean mu­sic ecosys­tem.

“I be­lieve that all the artistes in the genre will be en­cour­aged and mo­ti­vat­ed to con­tin­ue push­ing the en­ve­lope,” she said. “This is a sign that the world is pay­ing at­ten­tion.”

Fresh off her win, La­dy La­va shows no signs of slow­ing down. With mo­men­tum build­ing and the in­dus­try watch­ing close­ly, she re­mains fo­cused on artis­tic evo­lu­tion.

“It’s al­ways about mu­sic and growth; that’s the fo­cus,” she said.

“My team and I are plan­ning and plot­ting, and hope­ful­ly the projects are em­braced.”

While La­dy La­va shone in the Zess/Steam cat­e­go­ry, fel­low genre-shak­ers al­so had their mo­ment in the spot­light.

Yung Bred­da took home the So­ca Im­pact Award, while Ar­manii re­ceived the Dance­hall Im­pact Award, round­ing out a night that ho­n­oured the rich spec­trum of Caribbean mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence.

As the Caribbean Mu­sic Awards con­tin­ues to cham­pi­on the di­verse sounds of the re­gion, La­dy La­va’s tri­umph marks a turn­ing point where un­der­ground be­comes main­stream, and the fire of zess burns brighter than ever.