Shane Su­perville

​Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter the hus­tle and bus­tle of the Car­ni­val sea­son, rev­ellers are in­vit­ed to groove to a slow­er pace in an evening of afrobeats and reg­gae at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, on Ash Wednes­day.

The event, Mo­men­tum 2024, is in its sec­ond year and will fea­ture Niger­ian-Amer­i­can R&B su­per­star Ro­ti­mi along­side reg­gae croon­er Gypt­ian as the head­line acts.

The Mo­men­tum se­ries of events have gained pop­u­lar­i­ty across the Caribbean and Mi­a­mi over the years but were first in­tro­duced to T&T last Ash Wednes­day, fea­tur­ing a mix of dance­hall and so­ca acts, in­clud­ing Ding Dong Ravers, Trini­boi Joocie, Skin­ny Fab­u­lous and oth­ers.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, pro­mot­er and own­er of Black­star En­ter­tain­ment Den­zil Flan­ders said he was pleased with the over­whelm­ing re­sponse to last year’s con­cert as a “cool down” event.

Flan­ders said this year’s cel­e­bra­tions would be two-fold as Ash Wednes­day is al­so Valen­tine’s Day, not­ing the ro­man­tic theme.

“When I start­ed plan­ning Mo­men­tum for 2024 I didn’t even re­alise it was on Valen­tine’s Day. When I was plan­ning I asked my­self, Why does Feb­ru­ary 14 sound so fa­mil­iar? When I was in school Valen­tine’s Day was a big thing for us, so to bring back the love to Trinidad it would be good to do a love, ro­mance theme to slow down the pace af­ter months of so­ca,” he said.

Not­ing that the con­cert would be Ro­ti­mi’s first vis­it to T&T, Flan­ders said while the tem­po of the con­cert would be more re­laxed than a typ­i­cal Car­ni­val fete, it would still fea­ture some so­ca el­e­ments to close off the fes­tive sea­son.

Flan­ders said, “We’re still in the process of adding more artistes to the ros­ter but the vibes and buzz are def­i­nite­ly there. Af­ter the good re­sponse of last Mo­men­tum we ex­pect this year to be just as big if not big­ger to rounds off the Car­ni­val sea­son.”

Flan­ders said prepa­ra­tion for this year’s con­cert be­gan short­ly af­ter last year’s Mo­men­tum even as the Mo­men­tum brand of events held con­certs in St Lu­cia and Ja­maica.