RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Beloved pan­nist Joshua Re­grel­lo is con­firm­ing that Guin­ness World Records has ap­proved his record-set­ting feat.

“We can con­firm that Guin­ness has ap­proved the record. That’s all I can say at the mo­ment,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

This comes amid con­grat­u­la­tions from var­i­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of Cul­ture, fol­low­ing Re­grel­lo's achieve­ment of play­ing the steel­pan con­tin­u­ous­ly for 31 hours.

Guin­ness recog­nised Re­grel­lo’s achieve­ment of play­ing the steel­pan con­tin­u­ous­ly for 31 hours on its web­site on Wednes­day.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin de­scribed Re­grel­lo’s 31-hour per­for­mance as a col­lec­tive suc­cess. The min­istry re­leased a state­ment fol­low­ing re­ports of the achieve­ment across mul­ti­ple plat­forms.

“It shows what is pos­si­ble when tal­ent, hard work, and love for cul­ture uni­fy. He played his heart out for Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the whole world watched on with awe and ex­cite­ment. The steel­pan start­ed right here, and to­day, thanks to Joshua’s amaz­ing feat, it con­tin­ues to make his­to­ry. The min­istry is proud to stand with him and all our cre­atives who are push­ing bound­aries and rep­re­sent­ing us with pur­pose and pride,” Ben­jamin said.

Pan Trin­ba­go al­so ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Re­grel­lo, call­ing it a vic­to­ry for the steel­pan in­dus­try.

In a Face­book post on Thurs­day, the or­gan­i­sa­tion stat­ed, “Pan Trin­ba­go con­grat­u­lates Joshua Re­grel­lo on the of­fi­cial con­fir­ma­tion of his Guin­ness World Record. This his­toric mile­stone is a win for Joshua, a win for the steel­pan, and a win for Trinidad and To­ba­go—the mec­ca of steel­pan.”

Guin­ness World Records’ web­site con­firmed that Re­grel­lo holds the of­fi­cial record for the longest marathon play­ing steel drums, not­ing that the event took place in San Fer­nan­do on De­cem­ber 27, 2024.

Dur­ing his per­for­mance, Re­grel­lo per­formed var­i­ous gen­res of mu­sic, stop­ping on­ly for a bath­room break. He played re­quests from the hun­dreds of peo­ple who ral­lied around him to ac­com­plish the feat, which saw love and uni­ty across all di­vides.