An in­ter-gen­er­a­tional col­lec­tive of mu­si­cal in­de­pen­dents–Free­town Col­lec­tive, 3Canal and An­nalie Prime–take their love and fire to the stage on Fri­day to cel­e­brate T&T’s di­a­mond ju­bilee, and re­an­i­mate what it means to be in­de­pen­dent, self-suf­fi­cient and free.

For one night on­ly at Sound Forge, The Fire of Love presents the band Free­town Col­lec­tive, roots-pop so­lo artist An­nalie Prime, and rap­so icons 3Canal in con­cert.

" To­geth­er, they as­pire to de­liv­er word, sound and pow­er, in their unique rhythms and styles, root­ed in ca­lyp­so and forged from the love of na­tion, and self," a re­lease stat­ed.

All dis­tinc­tive in the ex­pres­sion of their craft, this col­lab­o­ra­tion re­in­forces what con­nects these “in­de­pen­dents” as artists ac­tive­ly in­volved in the long, wind­ing process of na­tion-build­ing.

"They have cho­sen to cre­ate and grow in­de­pen­dent of pre­vail­ing in­dus­try for­mu­lae for suc­cess, which they have al­so de­fined by their own mark­ers, and they have con­scious­ly set about find­ing and ex­plor­ing their own voic­es."

3Canal

In re­flect­ing on the sig­nif­i­cance of the di­a­mond ju­bilee, Wen­dell Man­war­ren of 3Canal quotes Mar­tin Carter, “The more the men of Our Time We are, the more Our Time IS…” For him, this idea “has al­ways been fraught with mean­ing, as a way of recog­nis­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty we all bear in mak­ing and shap­ing Our Time”.

He added, “It is up to us to mark these mo­ments as a na­tion and a peo­ple, for in do­ing so we im­bue it with mean­ing and make it come alive be­yond mere sym­bol­ism.”

For An­nalie Prime, the youngest of a cast that al­to­geth­er com­pris­es over five decades of mu­sic, “It is as much an ho­n­our to work with and learn from these gi­ants, as it is to con­nect with and con­tribute to the deep­er and greater mean­ing of the show it­self.

“I get a sense of com­mu­ni­ty, strength and pride in all the work that has been done and is be­ing done to keep the cul­ture alive, fiery and of course, full of love.”

As a demon­stra­tion of the artists’ com­mit­ment to recog­nis­ing the gi­ants of the past, a bonus sur­prise trib­ute is set to close the show, and promis­es, ac­cord­ing to co-pro­duc­er Jay­ron “Rawkus” Re­my, “to keep the love-fire blaz­ing in­to our 61st year!”

Annalie Prime

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

“We want pa­trons to leave feel­ing hope­ful, proud and pow­er­ful, know­ing that they can achieve any­thing, that they are lim­it­less and that present cir­cum­stances will not dic­tate the out­come of our lives. These are un­prece­dent­ed times for hu­man­i­ty and I feel like there is a great fight in us to stay above the waves at this point. It’s about light­ing up the dark­ness!” Muham­mad Muwak­il of Free­town Col­lec­tive said.

Show time is 10 pm, gates open at 9 pm. Ob­ser­va­tion of COVID-19 pro­to­cols is en­cour­aged.

All tick­ets can be pur­chased on­line at https://is­landet­ick­ets.com/event/Fire­ofLove and at the Big Black Box and Sound Forge Box Of­fices.

For more in­for­ma­tion, fol­low @weare­free­town, @an­nalieprime and @3canaltt across so­cial me­dia plat­forms.