So­ca artiste Ben­jai has apol­o­gised for a so­cial me­dia post which sparked crit­i­cism and of­fend­ed mem­bers of the pub­lic amid height­ened racial ten­sions in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In a video post­ed on­line yes­ter­day, Ben­jai said he recog­nised that a post he made the pre­vi­ous day had of­fend­ed “a lot of peo­ple” and said that was not his in­ten­tion.

He said he was us­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to apol­o­gise and move for­ward with love, re­it­er­at­ing his com­mit­ment to pro­mot­ing uni­ty.

“I, Ben­jai, have pro­mot­ed love and uni­ty and I will con­tin­ue to do so. It is not my in­ten­tion to of­fend any­one. I am sor­ry,” he said in the video.

The apol­o­gy fol­lows a post in which the so­ca artiste sug­gest­ed that African tra­di­tions were be­ing “in­fil­trat­ed” by In­di­ans who be­lieved they had a right to do so.

The post specif­i­cal­ly ref­er­enced so­ca and African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions, be­fore adding that In­di­ans would even­tu­al­ly say they too “was slaves.”

The com­ments gen­er­at­ed heat­ed dis­cus­sion on­line, with the post be­ing viewed in the wider con­text of on­go­ing racial ten­sions and de­bate over cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ben­jai did not elab­o­rate in his apol­o­gy on the spe­cif­ic com­ments that prompt­ed the back­lash, in­stead fo­cus­ing on his in­ten­tion to pro­mote love and uni­ty.

His apol­o­gy comes as pub­lic fig­ures and mem­bers of civ­il so­ci­ety con­tin­ue to urge re­straint and greater sen­si­tiv­i­ty in pub­lic dis­course sur­round­ing race, cul­ture and the coun­try’s shared his­to­ry.

The artiste has now in­di­cat­ed that he in­tends to move for­ward from the con­tro­ver­sy, say­ing his mes­sage should ul­ti­mate­ly be one of love and uni­ty.