There is grow­ing hope that the up­com­ing Caribbean Mu­sic Awards, set to be held in Trinidad on Sat­ur­day (Sep­tem­ber 19) will bring much need­ed at­ten­tion not just to award re­cip­i­ents, but al­so to the large­ly un­tapped po­ten­tial of the or­ange econ­o­my across the re­gion.

In an in­ter­view with Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian on Thurs­day, spokesper­son for the awards Paige De Leon out­lined the many eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits that could be de­rived from the awards be­ing held in the coun­try.

It is the first time in the CMA’s four-year his­to­ry that it has been host­ed in the Caribbean. It had pre­vi­ous­ly been host­ed at the Kings The­atre in Brook­lyn, New York.

“So from the stand­point of the eco­nom­ic im­por­tance of mu­sic and cul­ture as a frame for how we look at di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and how we look at the Caribbean es­tab­lish­ing mar­kets that it can gain from, these awards are quite an in­ter­est­ing and crit­i­cal piece of how that looks. We haven’t re­al­ly con­sid­ered the Caribbean mu­sic in­dus­try as an in­dus­try,” said De Leon,.

She said there are re­gion-wide con­ver­sa­tions sur­round­ing the or­ange econ­o­my, but there has not been pub­lic work or push that is Caribbean in its mak­ings and na­ture that looks at how to de­vel­op the mu­sic prod­uct.

“The mu­sic prod­uct is im­por­tant be­cause it in­cen­tivis­es peo­ple to come to the is­lands; that’s tourism. When peo­ple come, they spend mon­ey. That im­pacts re­tail. It im­pacts ser­vice providers. It im­pacts taxi com­pa­nies, and every­body knows what that mul­ti­pli­er ef­fect looks like,” De Leon said.

CMA DJ of the Year 2025 and 2026 nom­i­nee DJ Pri­vate Ryan and so­ca artiste Mela Caribe al­so agreed there could be sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits for con­nect­ed in­dus­tries.

Mela Caribe, re­al name Shereece Ed­mund, said, “I al­so think about what it can be­come with­in the wider mu­si­cal econ­o­my. Artistes com­ing in­to Trinidad, the me­dia, styl­ists, de­sign­ers, dancers-you know, even the ho­tels and the whole tourism ecosys­tem. We all ben­e­fit from this, and if we con­tin­ue to build this type of in­fra­struc­ture around events like this, T&T can be­come an even big­ger hub for Caribbean en­ter­tain­ment. “

Ryan stat­ed, “I see it as a good thing for Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause, as well, it will in­tro­duce peo­ple who may nev­er have been here to our coun­try be­cause, of course, it’s a week­ender.”

Al­though the awards are rel­a­tive­ly new, it has grown a sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­na­tion­al fol­low­ing over the four years, with last year’s event streamed live on African mu­sic chan­nel Trace TV and broad­cast on Amer­i­can ca­ble Black En­ter­tain­ment Tele­vi­sion, both com­mand­ing large in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences.

De Leon said it was ex­treme­ly im­por­tant to bring that type of vis­i­bil­i­ty to the Caribbean, while stress­ing it cre­at­ed a ma­jor op­por­tu­ni­ty to gen­er­ate tourism and for­eign ex­change.

“Now this is the first time we’re hav­ing it here, so we are not in a po­si­tion to cal­cu­late what and how much of that is al­ready on the ta­ble. But to be sure, any­body who doesn’t live in T&T and they’re fly­ing in for the awards, that’s al­ready a gen­er­a­tor of for­eign ex­change. The quan­tum of that I can­not say. But if one sim­ply con­sid­ers a con­cert of any kind that is held here, where peo­ple will fly in, or a fete, which is prob­a­bly a bit more of a ground­ed ex­am­ple when peo­ple jump on a plane and come to Trinidad to go to a Fete week­end. Yes, there is for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion. So, in gen­er­al, we ab­solute­ly yes, this is some­thing that could re­al­ly, re­al­ly, re­al­ly, re­al­ly ben­e­fit Trinidad and To­ba­go at its apex.”

She added that there were sev­er­al no­table names nom­i­nat­ed for this year’s awards, in­clud­ing Vy­bz Kar­tel, Shaki­ra, Bad Bun­ny and Shenseea.

De Leon said that should some of these names ar­rive in T&T, they could al­so pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant pro­mo­tion of this coun­try, point­ing to the vis­i­bil­i­ty of IShowSpeed’s vis­it here in April.

De Leon said she es­pe­cial­ly felt the awards cer­e­mo­ny could give the in­dus­try much need­ed le­git­i­ma­cy in the eyes of wider so­ci­ety, as she not­ed while some may see awards shows as su­per­fi­cial, she ex­plained that in­ter­na­tion­al awards shows had helped pro­mote oth­er­wise un­known names.

“This is a way to iden­ti­fy ex­cel­lence. It’s a way to iden­ti­fy emerg­ing tal­ent. It’s a way to give an ac­co­lade to a young up and com­ing artist who may be very, very good, but hasn’t as yet achieved the amount of sales. And these awards are giv­en to peo­ple based on pop­u­lar vote. Peo­ple are asked to vote for this, so this is not the own­ers of the awards or the founders or a com­mit­tee of peo­ple sit­ting down and de­cid­ing who peo­ple are nom­i­nat­ed and the pub­lic votes. That be­comes very im­por­tant be­cause it tells you tru­ly what peo­ple love and what the mar­ket has an ap­petite for,” she said.

That point had al­so been em­pha­sised by Ryan and Mela Caribe, who ex­plained the award could help val­i­date the mu­sic in­dus­try as a pro­fes­sion­al sec­tor ca­pa­ble of at­tract­ing in­vest­ment.

In Au­gust, chair­man of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Ken­ny Phillips, made a sim­i­lar call for in­creased sup­port of the or­ange econ­o­my.

While ad­dress­ing a me­dia event, which an­nounced the 2026 re­cip­i­ents of the Make It Hap­pen Awards, he said cul­ture should not be viewed as sep­a­rate from the econ­o­my.

Phillips said then, “Recog­ni­tion mat­ters; gov­ern­ment, state in­sti­tu­tions, and cor­po­rate T&Tthere­fore has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that goes be­yond spon­sor­ship or putting a lo­go on an event. It should be more than that. We must in­vest in peo­ple. We must in­vest in tal­ent be­cause cul­ture is not sep­a­rate from our econ­o­my; cul­ture is one of our great­est eco­nom­ic as­sets.”

In that re­gard, De Leon was pleased that sev­er­al re­gion­al tourism bod­ies, in­clud­ing Tourism Trinidad Ltd, the Do­mini­ca Tourism Au­thor­i­ty and the Saint Lu­cia Tourism Au­thor­i­ty, had recog­nised the im­por­tance of hav­ing the awards in the Caribbean.

“Those are very im­por­tant to us be­cause what it means is that they un­der­stand the val­ue of this event in the con­text of the econ­o­my, and we know that pol­i­cy, leg­is­la­tion, and peo­ple fol­low mon­ey,” she said, “We live in small is­land de­vel­op­ing states. One of the fea­tures of that is that the gov­ern­ment and the state has a lot of stay and sway in terms of what gets done, what doesn’t get done, and what is al­lowed to im­pact a coun­try. So we’re re­al­ly, re­al­ly hap­py to be get­ting that type of buy-in from state-spon­sored au­thor­i­ties in the Caribbean.”

While the main award show will be held on Sat­ur­day night, there will be events start­ing from Thurs­day with an In­dus­try Di­a­logue Se­ries and clos­ing with the Stars and Steel Pan Awards, a lega­cy cer­e­mo­ny ded­i­cat­ed to the steel­pan fra­ter­ni­ty on Sun­day.