In the open­ing words of the pop­u­lar Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song… “Now this is a sto­ry all about how…” Yes, my life got some­what flipped — but in an im­pact­ful way. Along the way, I’ve been able to chron­i­cle and cap­ture some key mo­ments at CNC3 through what I call lega­cy shows — pro­duc­tions I had the priv­i­lege of cre­at­ing over the past years.

It feels serendip­i­tous that the first ma­jor show that comes to mind is The Pitch, a se­ries that took au­di­ences be­hind the scenes of the then T&T Red Steel and their first CPL crown in 2015. I filmed the show live from the play­ers’ stand along­side crick­et greats like Tony Gray, Col­in Mur­ray, Si­mon Katich, and Anisa Mo­hammed — and even cel­e­brat­ed the vic­to­ry on and off the field with the team.

Fast for­ward 10 years lat­er, and TKR is cel­e­brat­ing its fifth CPL vic­to­ry. One of the most mem­o­rable mo­ments of my crick­et jour­ney was be­ing among on­ly a hand­ful of peo­ple in the West­ern Hemi­sphere to in­ter­view Bol­ly­wood megas­tar and TKR own­er, Shah Rukh Khan.

On our con­tin­ued jour­ney to be num­ber one in not just news but en­ter­tain­ment, CNC3 se­cured the broad­cast rights for the 2016 Olympics. I trav­elled to Rio to pro­duce the se­ries Roamin’ in Rio, where we brought some Tri­ni flavour to the streets of Co­paca­bana and Ipane­ma Beach. And, in true Tri­ni form, we found our­selves every­where — from the set with Sha­ka His­lop at ES­PN to ABC with Ato Boldon, Sanya Richards, and even Ryan Seacrest. Lead­ing up to the Olympics, I en­gaged many of our po­ten­tial medal­ists in the se­ries On The Line, giv­ing view­ers a snap­shot of their train­ing sched­ules be­fore tak­ing them on one of my ad­ven­tures — fly­ing, div­ing, hik­ing, or even bowl­ing. Imag­ine Hase­ly Craw­ford, over 60 at the time, beat­ing me in his own sta­di­um, or Keshorn Wal­cott putting down the javelin and clean­ing up the lanes in Cu­ba, where he trained!

Next came the Foot­ball World Cup, an­oth­er ma­jor mile­stone. We trans­formed what is now GM Labs in­to a mi­ni sta­di­um, bring­ing analy­sis and colour com­men­tary of the 2016 World Cup with Rus­sell Lat­apy, Stern John, Ken­wyne Jones, Jan-Michael Williams, and Maylee At­tin John­son, to name a few. Eight years lat­er, I at­tend­ed my first World Cup in Qatar, pro­duc­ing the se­ries Quest 2 Qatar. That ex­pe­ri­ence was price­less — foot­ball in the desert, and with­out one hic­cup (apart from Ar­genti­na los­ing to Sau­di Ara­bia in the open­er, on­ly to go on and win it all).

From camel­back to the Cor­niche, the red, white, and black flag flew high, with my side­kick Kim­ron “CrazyLegs” Ram­paras and I in­duct­ing hon­orary Tri­ni cit­i­zens from across the globe who just want­ed a pic­ture with our flag — and some­times even tried to buy our po­los!

Of course, there were try­ing times, like the pan­dem­ic. Can you imag­ine, in the very first week of that ter­ri­fy­ing pe­ri­od, de­cid­ing to film a se­ries called On Pa­trol? I went in­to sev­er­al parts of the coun­try, day and night, along­side then-Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith to ex­plore crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty. Each time I re­turned home, I stripped down at the door and was sprayed as if I had fleas, be­fore be­ing al­lowed in­side.

Emerg­ing from that pe­ri­od un­scathed, we turned ad­ver­si­ty in­to cre­ativ­i­ty. What Tong Say, host­ed by the ex­treme­ly tal­ent­ed Ger­vail Jnr Lee Lemo, was born. It was our own take on Fam­i­ly Feud, with Ger­vail play­ing the short­er, no-mous­tache Steve Har­vey (mi­nus the pay cheque, of course). As peo­ple be­gan shak­ing hands again, we rolled out Lie Lie Lie — a comedic lip-sync satire with some of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most recog­nis­able faces. My team — So­phie, Niall, and the cast — had me in stitch­es. The on­ly ques­tion was: who was ly­ing?

Over the last four years, I’ve been de­ter­mined to cre­ate pro­gram­ming with more depth — shows that in­spire thought, mean­ing, and trans­for­ma­tion. It’s no easy task with a palate as unique as ours and a tongue sharp enough to pierce the thick­est skin.

Spell­bound is one such show — a spelling-based com­pe­ti­tion with a mag­i­cal twist, where pri­ma­ry school chil­dren not on­ly spell words but must al­so know their mean­ings in the fi­nal stages. It has reignit­ed ex­cite­ment about spelling, away from Chat­G­PT, Gram­marly, and pre­dic­tive text, while al­so teach­ing chil­dren about Trinidad and To­ba­go through our word list. More than 200 schools have par­tic­i­pat­ed so far, and the show is now recog­nised by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment.

Make Your Point, a sec­ondary schools’ de­bate se­ries, of­fers un­bi­ased, con­struc­tive de­bate on top­i­cal is­sues. Some of the na­tion’s bright­est minds have served as judges, and schools from as far as Mara­bel­la have com­pet­ed. Sea­son 3 was host­ed at Pres­i­dent’s House, with Her Ex­cel­len­cy at­tend­ing both the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny and the fi­nals.

Then there’s Wild TT, which takes au­di­ences from our high­est peaks to the depths of our sur­round­ing seas, show­cas­ing the nat­ur­al beau­ty of our coun­try. Taste of the World pairs a co­me­di­an with a shy top chef, ven­tur­ing through icon­ic sites in search of in­gre­di­ents be­fore re­turn­ing to the kitchen — al­ways pass­ing the light­house. Con­vo with Kids brings me face-to-face with lit­tle gi­ants, chil­dren who know what they want and who they ad­mire, and we do our best to make some of those dreams come true.

Fi­nal­ly, Man­hood — a men’s health pod­cast and safe space that I cre­at­ed with a few good men: Blaze, JW, Niall, Yohance, and oth­ers. It’s a space for courage, where we share open­ly to be bet­ter broth­ers, to heal, and to re­duce do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. From Cer­ti­fied Samp­son and David Rud­der to Akeal Ho­sein and Jnr. Lee, we’ve fea­tured over 100 guests shar­ing what it tru­ly means to be a man.