Nigel Teles­ford

Mes­sages of peace, love, uni­ty, and cel­e­bra­tion echoed through the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty last Fri­day night as Yung Bred­da (Akhen­aton Lewis) cel­e­brat­ed his 26th birth­day with a free con­cert in his home­town.

The sea­side vil­lage on the out­skirts of Port-of-Spain came alive to the sounds of a stel­lar line­up of reg­gae, so­ca, and dance­hall artistes who gath­ered to ho­n­our the young per­former. The crowd’s en­er­gy was elec­tric as the show un­fold­ed—a vi­brant re­flec­tion of mu­sic’s pow­er to unite.

The live per­for­mances be­gan just be­fore mid­night and con­tin­ued in­to the ear­ly morn­ing hours, with host Sun­ny Bling (Ker­ron Sealy) skil­ful­ly bal­anc­ing com­ic re­lief and heart­felt re­flec­tion to keep the pos­i­tive vibes flow­ing.

For Lewis, the cel­e­bra­tion was a deeply emo­tion­al mo­ment of grat­i­tude and re­flec­tion on his jour­ney so far.

“I give thanks to all the peo­ple who came out—my friends, my sup­port­ers, all the reg­gae artistes whose mu­sic I grew up lis­ten­ing to and be­ing in­spired by,” he said. “All the artistes who showed love, I want to give thanks es­pe­cial­ly to La­dy La­va and Mi­cal Te­ja. Al­lyuh wouldn’t even know how much it means, not just to me, but to the com­mu­ni­ty, for al­lyuh to come here and bless up the place.”

He con­tin­ued, “I just keep thank­ing God for bless­ing me so I could be able to do these things. Al­lyuh, I felt so good—I near­ly break down and cry last night, but the Fa­ther gave me strength to hold up. Even though peo­ple say my face does be too se­ri­ous, I have a lot of love in­side and I ap­pre­ci­ate al­lyuh.

“Sun­ny Bling, my broth­er, what you did for me last night—words can’t ex­plain and mon­ey can’t buy. Thank you! You are now an of­fi­cial mem­ber of the Sea Lots fam­i­ly, be­cause you didn’t just play a role on the stage—you went down in the crowd and min­gled with the peo­ple, and they love you more for that.”

Through­out the night, the Rude­boy-brand­ed stage came alive with per­for­mances from Black Roy­al­ty, Daniel Bless, Zig­gy Rank­ing, Prophet Ben­jamin, Goungz Man and Ze­bul­lun, Mi­cal Te­ja, Isas­ha, Ja Melody, Mul­ti Symp­tom, La­dy La­va, and Flaw­less. DJ Hot­ty al­so pre­sent­ed Yung Bred­da with a birth­day gift live on stage, while man­ag­er Jesse “Op­ti­mus” John looked on proud­ly.

“This was a great way to cap off the year and to recharge and pre­pare for more bless­ings to come,” said John. “Hap­py Birth­day, Akhen­aton. May God con­tin­ue to bless you and guide us all with pro­tec­tion and pur­pose. If you loved what we did in 2025, wait till you see what’s com­ing next!”

Pop­u­lar body­guard Kevin “John­ny Bra­vo” Da Cos­ta pro­vid­ed se­cu­ri­ty for all artistes and guests, while Geron Woodruffe served as stage man­ag­er and pro­duc­tion co­or­di­na­tor, en­sur­ing a smooth, pro­fes­sion­al pro­duc­tion from start to fin­ish.

By the night’s end, Yung Bred­da was filled with grat­i­tude.

“My good­ness, it was blessed! All who missed it, al­lyuh re­al­ly missed an amaz­ing night,” he said. “I feel ready now for the next phase—the next sea­son, the next year of growth and op­por­tu­ni­ties. Thank you John­ny Bra­vo, Geron, and Op­ti­mus—al­lyuh han­dle it like pros. Jesse, I’ll al­ways thank you for be­liev­ing in me and my tal­ent. Look how far we’ve come—and imag­ine how much fur­ther we can go!”

Hav­ing evolved from a so­cial me­dia sen­sa­tion in­to a bona fide force in the glob­al mu­sic and en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try, Yung Bred­da’s star con­tin­ues to rise. This year he made his Car­ni­val de­but, be­com­ing a Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal­ist and the run­ner-up in the Ul­ti­mate So­ca Cham­pi­on com­pe­ti­tion.

Al­ready a chart-top­ping, trend-set­ting role mod­el for youth in Sea Lots and be­yond, he re­turned home not just to cel­e­brate an­oth­er year of life, but to ho­n­our his roots—giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty that raised him, in­spired him, and con­tin­ues to be­lieve in him.