Laugh­ter and sus­pense took over the Samaan Es­tate in St Clair on Au­gust 8 as Teatro Journee host­ed Served—its first din­ner the­atre—tak­ing guests on a mys­tery-filled im­mer­sive the­atre ex­pe­ri­ence.

The stage at NCIC Na­gar came alive with colour, rhythm and move­ment as dancers from dif­fer­ent tra­di­tions came to­geth­er for the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture’s (NCIC) In­de­pen­dence Rain­bow Dance Fes­ti­val.

When thou­sands of Caribbean peo­ple and their de­scen­dants take to the streets of Brook­lyn, New York, on Labour Day, Sep­tem­ber 7, the sounds of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ja­maica will share the spot­light.

As Spice­mas cel­e­bra­tions conclud­ed in Grena­da, pro­duc­ers from T&T have stamped their names on the 2026 So­ca Monarch stage. Michael “Stemz” Ram­roop S’obri­an is the man be­hind the win­ning groovy song, while Mevon “Xplic­it­Mevon” Sood­een pro­duced the sec­ond-place pow­er track.

Machel Mon­tano has per­formed be­fore mas­sive crowds around the world, col­lect­ed tro­phies and ti­tles across four decades and car­ried so­ca on­to some of mu­sic’s biggest stages. But walk­ing through a Brook­lyn ex­hi­bi­tion last week filled with the phys­i­cal ev­i­dence of that jour­ney ap­par­ent­ly man­aged to sur­prise even the Road March record hold­er.

When you are recog­nised as one of the greats who have pro­duced abun­dant­ly for the cul­tur­al land­scape of Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­ing no­ticed speaks vol­umes.

Ja­maican dance­hall star Tee­jay (Tim­oy Jones) is ap­plaud­ing the in­creas­ing­ly vis­i­ble peace move­ment among Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Trini­bad artistes, say­ing the pub­lic dis­play of uni­ty he wit­nessed dur­ing his re­cent vis­it rep­re­sents pre­cise­ly the kind of evo­lu­tion he has been ad­vo­cat­ing for with­in the cul­ture.

The sto­ries of Trinidad and To­ba­go have been told in many ways, most of­ten with one goal in mind—to pre­serve the his­to­ry and tra­di­tions that make the twin-is­land na­tion what it is.

The aro­ma of wood smoke drifts along the SS Erin Road at Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, draw­ing the at­ten­tion of mo­torists and passers-by.

Mervyn Critchlow was ini­ti­at­ed in­to a ca­reer in news re­port­ing in the 1960s and 1970s, a pe­ri­od of in­tense in­dus­tri­al and con­tentious trade union ac­tiv­i­ty, po­lit­i­cal ac­tivism and an­gry calls for “Black Pow­er”.

Andy Po­li­ah, cred­it­ed with bring­ing his own Mex­i­can-Tri­ni-flavoured cui­sine to San Fer­nan­do, says pas­sion and de­ter­mi­na­tion are key in­gre­di­ents for young en­tre­pre­neurs seek­ing suc­cess, but he warns they should nev­er be afraid of fail­ure.

When you hear “Big Man Ting” (BMT) in col­lo­qui­al lan­guage, it means se­ri­ous busi­ness that on­ly an adult can han­dle.