De­spite an en­cour­ag­ing wave of sub­mis­sions from Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean, no T&T artiste has se­cured a nom­i­na­tion for the 2026 Gram­my Awards.

The of­fi­cial nom­i­nee list, re­leased Fri­day by the Record­ing Acad­e­my, con­firms that none of the so­ca or oth­er en­tries sub­mit­ted for con­sid­er­a­tion ad­vanced to the fi­nal bal­lot.

The out­come comes af­ter a record num­ber of so­ca cre­atives and oth­ers threw their hats in­to the Gram­my ring this year, seek­ing recog­ni­tion pri­mar­i­ly across the cat­e­gories of Best Glob­al Mu­sic Per­for­mance, Best Glob­al Mu­sic Al­bum, and Best African Mu­sic Per­for­mance.

Among those who sub­mit­ted were es­tab­lished heavy­weights and ris­ing voic­es alike: Kes the Band with Co­coa Tea; Machel Mon­tano for both One De­gree Hot­ter (al­bum) and Pardy & Fling It Up fea­tur­ing Davi­do (per­for­mance); Free­town Col­lec­tive for Be­yond The Ma­chine; Yung Bred­da & Full Blown for The Great­est Bend Over; Ani­ka Berry with Sad­dle; Sher­win Gard­ner for the gospel-in­fused an­them Over Me; MX Prime with Kick Off; RKG with Hard Life; Jim­my Oc­to­ber with his al­bum From Oc­to­ber With Love; Em­press Aje & Queen Omega for The World Al­bum; M1 aka Men­ace and Ted Ga­nung for First Time Caribbean Par­ty; and Pre­cious Gail for Adored in the African mu­sic cat­e­go­ry.

But when the nom­i­na­tions were re­leased, none of these en­tries ap­peared on the fi­nal list.

The Best Glob­al Mu­sic Per­for­mance cat­e­go­ry - which at­tract­ed the most so­ca sub­mis­sions - was in­stead dom­i­nat­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al acts such as Bad Bun­ny (EoO), Angélique Kid­jo (JERUSALE­MA), and Shak­ti, whose track Shri­ni’s Dream [Live] led the more tra­di­tion­al world-fu­sion of­fer­ings. Oth­er nom­i­nees in­clud­ed Ciro Hur­ta­do’s Can­tan­do en el Camino, Yeisy Ro­jas’ In­mi­grante Y Que?, and Day­break by Anoush­ka Shankar fea­tur­ing Alam Khan & Sarathy Ko­r­war.

In the Best Glob­al Mu­sic Al­bum race, the nom­i­nees - Sid­dhant Bha­tia, Bur­na Boy, Yous­sou N’Dour, Shak­ti, Anoush­ka Shankar, and Cae­tano Veloso & Maria Bethâ­nia - rep­re­sent­ed a mix of glob­al icons and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned tour­ing col­lec­tives.

No­tably ab­sent were Caribbean gen­res, in­clud­ing so­ca, reg­gae, and dance­hall.

For Best African Mu­sic Per­for­mance, the short­list fea­tured Bur­na Boy, Davi­do fea­tur­ing Om­ah Lay, Ed­dy Ken­zo & Mehran Matin, Ayra Starr fea­tur­ing Wiz­kid, and Ty­la.

De­spite Pre­cious Gail’s sub­mis­sion for Adored, she did not reach the nom­i­na­tion stage.

The lack of nom­i­na­tions comes amid a ris­ing move­ment with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mu­sic com­mu­ni­ty ad­vo­cat­ing for greater glob­al recog­ni­tion of so­ca.

In re­cent years, mul­ti­ple stake­hold­ers - in­clud­ing artistes, man­agers, and cul­tur­al bod­ies - have been lob­by­ing for the cre­ation of a ded­i­cat­ed Best So­ca Mu­sic Per­for­mance or Best Caribbean Mu­sic cat­e­go­ry at the Gram­mys.

Sev­er­al in­dus­try pro­fes­sion­als have ar­gued that so­ca con­tin­ues to be over­shad­owed with­in the broad and cul­tur­al­ly di­verse “Glob­al Mu­sic” field, where sub­mis­sions range from Afrobeats to In­di­an clas­si­cal to Latin al­ter­na­tive.

With on­ly a hand­ful of slots and wide cul­tur­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion, gen­res like so­ca of­ten strug­gle to gain trac­tion among Acad­e­my vot­ers who may be more fa­mil­iar with in­ter­na­tion­al­ly dom­i­nant artists.

De­spite this year’s shutout, many in the in­dus­try see the high num­ber of sub­mis­sions as a sign of progress.

The Record­ing Acad­e­my’s re­cent de­ci­sion to ex­pand its Caribbean mem­ber­ship out­reach has al­so been wel­comed, with hopes that more Caribbean vot­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the nom­i­nat­ing process will grad­u­al­ly shift out­comes.

While so­ca has yet to earn a Gram­my nom­i­na­tion since the Glob­al cat­e­go­ry re­struc­ture in 2020, the genre has steadi­ly in­creased its glob­al foot­print, thanks to col­lab­o­ra­tions with Afrobeats stars, in­ter­na­tion­al fes­ti­val book­ings, and vi­ral dig­i­tal dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty.

Five Ja­maican artistes were nom­i­nat­ed in the Best Reg­gae Al­bum cat­e­go­ry.

Those nom­i­nees are Vy­bz Kar­tel with “Heart & Soul”, Jesse Roy­al with “No Place Like Home”, Lila Iké with her com­pi­la­tion “Trea­sure Self Love”, Kez­nam­di with “Blood & Fyah”, and Mor­timer with “From With­in”.

The win­ners will be an­nounced on Feb­ru­ary 1, 2026, at the Gram­my Awards cer­e­mo­ny in Los An­ge­les.