NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

It’s not every day you get an In­sta­gram DM (di­rect mes­sage) from a FI­FA rep­re­sen­ta­tive say­ing they ad­mire your work. But this is ex­act­ly what hap­pened to T&T’s Al­in­ton “DJ An­ar­chy” Br­ere­ton. The Moru­ga na­tive is now gear­ing up for the op­por­tu­ni­ty of a life­time — play­ing at the 2026 FI­FA World Cup, which kicked off on Thurs­day.

He told WE that he came from a mu­si­cal fam­i­ly, as his fa­ther was part of a band. “He sang ca­lyp­so in com­pe­ti­tions, had a stu­dio and every­thing at home do­ing mu­si­cal pro­duc­tions,” he said. “But for me, the DJ in­flu­ence came when he was ac­tu­al­ly man­ag­ing a sound sys­tem, and that was my first time touch­ing turnta­bles.”

He still re­mem­bers what the very first song he played was — Jerusalem by Ja­maican reg­gae leg­end Siz­zla. “And from that mo­ment, I de­cid­ed this was the vibe and this was what I want­ed to do.” And he did.

Af­ter mi­grat­ing to the US in 2015, he has since opened for sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al acts like Bur­na Boy, Lil Uzi Vert and Gun­na, and has been to the Gram­my Awards as a spe­cial in­vi­tee. He is al­so a DJ for the Hous­ton Tex­ans foot­ball team.

But even with all these ma­jor feats, he still did not see this one com­ing. On April 8, he re­called, “I got a mes­sage on In­sta­gram from a FI­FA rep­re­sen­ta­tive. They said, ‘We’ve been fol­low­ing you for a while; we’ve been watch­ing the stuff you do’… They al­so said they liked the fact that I was an in­ter­na­tion­al DJ and loved my high en­er­gy and fun vibes and be­lieved I’d be a per­fect fit for the World Cup.”

While read­ing the mes­sage for the first time, he was filled with grat­i­tude. But it took a while to re­al­ly sink in. “When I went back af­ter and read the mes­sage again, it hit me,” he said with a smile.

He had to re­main qui­et about it un­til May 5 when he first made the ma­jor an­nounce­ment on his so­cial me­dia pages — posts which even­tu­al­ly be­came flood­ed with com­ments from T&T na­tion­als.

He will play at the Hous­ton Sta­di­um in Texas on June 14 (to­day), 20, 23, 26 and Ju­ly 4, as well as at the Los An­ge­les Sta­di­um in Cal­i­for­nia on Ju­ly 2 and 10. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he will per­form sets at the FI­FA Fan Fes­ti­val in Hous­ton on June 17 (Space Cen­ter Hous­ton Day), June 28 (Glob­al Knock­out) and Ju­ly 7 (Col­lege Game Day).

“It’s one thing get­ting to per­form at the fan events, but al­so at ac­tu­al sta­di­ums? Wow!” he ex­claimed.

Last Tues­day, he had his first sound check at the Hous­ton Sta­di­um and said it was awe­some. “It was great to get a sneak peek in­to a lot of stuff go­ing on with the lay­out and be­hind-the-scenes stuff for the World Cup that I was very priv­i­leged to be able to have ac­cess to,” he said. “They were ac­tu­al­ly danc­ing and turn­ing up to the mu­sic, tak­ing pic­tures and videos. We were hav­ing our own lit­tle mi­ni par­ty.”

While, like the rest of the coun­try, he re­al­ly wish­es T&T qual­i­fied this time around, he re­called the thrill and emo­tions in No­vem­ber 2005 when his­to­ry was made.

“Back when we qual­i­fied, I was in San Fer­nan­do on Lord Street. The whole city was go­ing crazy. We were par­ty­ing and turn­ing up,” he said with a laugh. He de­scribed it as a sur­re­al mo­ment and “an epic and mem­o­rable mo­ment for the coun­try.” He added, “For those days that we cel­e­brat­ed, it felt like noth­ing neg­a­tive ex­ist­ed in the coun­try. The pos­i­tiv­i­ty of us mak­ing it just took over.” It’s a day and feel­ing he be­lieves will even­tu­al­ly come again for T&T. He al­so said that while his first choice will al­ways be his home coun­try when it comes to the World Cup, he al­so sup­ports Brazil.

DJ An­ar­chy said the sup­port from friends, col­leagues and even strangers has been over­whelm­ing since the an­nounce­ment. “It’s just been all love and pos­i­tiv­i­ty and sup­port. Peo­ple keep lik­ing the posts and shar­ing, I’m get­ting calls from peo­ple I had not heard from in a while.”

He said, as a DJ, he takes pride in hav­ing the pow­er to turn some­one’s frown or sad­ness in­to smiles. “... Hav­ing the pow­er to im­pact peo­ple’s lives pos­i­tive­ly, no mat­ter what they’re go­ing through in life, is the most im­por­tant thing to me.” He con­tin­ued, “ I al­ways set out to reach every creed and race, make every­body have a good time and take them on a jour­ney through mu­sic.”

He said he re­mains thank­ful to every­one who has been show­ing sup­port for this achieve­ment, but al­so be­lieves he can be a sym­bol of hope. “... For the young ones, new gen­er­a­tion and even peo­ple who are grown and still have dreams and as­pi­ra­tions. I want you to know any­thing is pos­si­ble, even if the odds are stacked against you,” he em­pha­sised. “Be con­sis­tent, hum­ble, build gen­uine re­la­tion­ships — these are the key things that would make your dreams be­come a re­al­i­ty and help you get ahead in life.”

Since he coined his DJ name based on peo­ple say­ing he was al­ways “mash­ing up the place” with his sets, he hopes to do ex­act­ly that at the World Cup.