SAN­DRA L BLOOD

T&T’s teen gospel sen­sa­tion Alyssa Joseph con­tin­ues to stake her claim as the fu­ture of Caribbean gospel mu­sic, af­ter walk­ing away with two ma­jor ho­n­ours at the 29th Caribbean Gospel Mu­sic Mar­lin (CG­MM) Awards in Nas­sau, Ba­hamas.

The 18-year-old singer-song­writer earned Out­stand­ing Afro Pop Record­ing (Fe­male) for her em­pow­er­ing an­them King­dom Daugh­ter, and was al­so named Out­stand­ing New Artiste at the re­gion­al gospel awards cer­e­mo­ny, held on Ju­ly 27 at the Myles E Munroe Diplo­mat Cen­tre.

“It still hasn’t ful­ly hit me,” Joseph ad­mit­ted. “I re­mem­ber singing along to my favourite gospel songs and dream­ing about one day mak­ing mu­sic that touch­es peo­ple. To ac­tu­al­ly win two Mar­lins at 18 is a bless­ing I’ll nev­er for­get.”

Joseph al­so per­formed at the Mar­lin Awards Youth Fest on Ju­ly 25, and picked up an ad­di­tion­al plaque for her sin­gle No Weapon, which held the No.1 spot for two weeks on Next Lev­el En­ter­tain­ment 868 The Gospel on Tem­po Ba­hamas.

“The Ba­hamas showed me so much love,” she said. “Be­ing sur­round­ed by so many pow­er­ful voic­es in gospel made me feel mo­ti­vat­ed to go even hard­er with my pur­pose.”

Joseph has long been recog­nised as one of T&T’s bright­est young tal­ents. In 2022, she made his­to­ry at the World Cham­pi­onships of Per­form­ing Arts (WCO­PA) in Los An­ge­les, cap­tur­ing both Ju­nior Grand Vo­cal­ist and Ju­nior Grand Cham­pi­on of the World ti­tles. Lat­er that year, she re­ceived the Na­tion­al Youth of the Year and Na­tion­al Youth in Arts and Cul­ture awards from the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice.

Her suc­cess con­tin­ued in April 2023 when she was named Young Artiste of the Year at the Gospel Mu­sic Awards of T&T (GMATT).

From her de­but sin­gle Cry For Peace at just nine years old, to her more re­cent re­leas­es blend­ing so­ca, reg­gae, R&B, dance­hall, parang, and chut­ney, Joseph has penned more than 15 orig­i­nal songs. With the re­gion­al spot­light now shin­ing even brighter, she’s set­ting her sights on big­ger stages and deep­er mes­sages.

“Win­ning is nice,” she re­flect­ed. “But more than that, I want my mu­sic to re­mind peo­ple that God made them with pow­er, pur­pose, and iden­ti­ty.”

In­sta­gram: @alyssajoseph­mu­sic

Email: alyssajoseph­book­ings@gmail.c