SAN­DRA L BLOOD

At just 15, J’nai Ed­wards is al­ready jug­gling mul­ti­ple pas­sions. A Form Four stu­dent at Bish­op Anstey High School, she is an avid swim­mer and wa­ter po­lo ath­lete, while al­so pur­su­ing CXC sub­jects in prepa­ra­tion for her dream ca­reer as a chef.

Above all, how­ev­er, J’nai is an ar­dent mas play­er—a role she has em­braced since she was just ten months old.

She first stepped in­to the spot­light as a sec­tion leader and in­di­vid­ual mas­quer­ad­er from the age of four with the cos­tume Ah Vis­it D’ Wild­fowl Trust, and made her de­but in the Car­ni­val Queen cat­e­go­ry at 12.

In 2020, J’nai placed sec­ond in the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion’s Ju­nior Fe­male In­di­vid­ual of the Year com­pe­ti­tion, go­ing on to amass sev­er­al awards and tro­phies from oth­er Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions in the years that fol­lowed.

Her jour­ney con­tin­ued in 2023 when she be­gan com­pet­ing in the Ju­nior Queen cat­e­go­ry, be­com­ing a fi­nal­ist that year and again in 2024. Last year, she surged ahead of the com­pe­ti­tion and was crowned Ju­nior Queen with her por­tray­al, Med­i­cine Woman—D’ Folk Heal­er.

Much of J’nai’s Car­ni­val jour­ney has been in­spired by her el­der sis­ter, Jade Ed­wards—a long-stand­ing mas­quer­ad­er and cur­rent Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona, ge­ol­o­gy stu­dent—who pre­vi­ous­ly held the Queen of the Band ti­tle with Co­co-Lily Pro­duc­tions (CLP).

Now prepar­ing to de­fend her crown, J’nai says she is ex­cit­ed about the chal­lenge, ful­ly aware that past achieve­ments of­fer no ad­van­tage, as judg­ing be­gins anew from the pre­lim­i­nary stage.

“I’m putting some fo­cus on light gym work to strength­en my shoul­ders to car­ry my cos­tume,” J’nai said.

“I en­joy por­tray­ing the cos­tumes de­signed for my queen jour­ney be­cause I like to get in­to the char­ac­ter and im­i­tate the life-like move­ment of what­ev­er I’m por­tray­ing.”

Her moth­er not­ed that much of J’nai’s chore­og­ra­phy is self-taught, al­low­ing her to add her own unique flair to each per­for­mance.

“J’nai is usu­al­ly very re­laxed and calm pri­or to com­pe­ti­tion,” she said.

“She re­al­ly gets in­to mode just min­utes be­fore stage time, when she ex­pends as much en­er­gy as pos­si­ble in her rou­tine.”

J’nai is the daugh­ter of bank­ing pro­fes­sion­als and CLP lead­ers Rox­anne Guy-Ed­wards and Jensen Ed­wards.

She is al­so the younger sis­ter of Chad Ed­wards, a T&TEC es­tate po­lice of­fi­cer and for­mer King-cat­e­go­ry mas­quer­ad­er, from whom she picked up sev­er­al parad­ing dance steps.

This year, J’nai leads CLP’s pre­sen­ta­tion, T&T Yes­ter­year, a por­tray­al de­signed to ed­u­cate au­di­ences about T&T’s his­to­ry.