Kristy Ram­nar­ine

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

As Car­ni­val 2025 wrapped up, fans were left won­der­ing—where was De­stra Gar­cia? The so­ca queen, the Queen of Bac­cha­nal, who usu­al­ly com­mands the stage every year, was no­tice­ably miss­ing from the cel­e­bra­tions.

Through­out the sea­son, fans ea­ger­ly asked the burn­ing ques­tion.

The sea­son con­clud­ed at mid­night on March 4, mark­ing the ar­rival of Ash Wednes­day—the be­gin­ning of Lent—and co­in­cid­ing with Ra­madan, which start­ed on March 2.

The an­swer for Gar­cia’s ab­sence came as a sur­prise to many: The en­ter­tain­er chose to fo­cus on a per­son­al pas­sion that had been years in the mak­ing.

Gar­cia shared that she had ded­i­cat­ed this time to com­plet­ing her long-await­ed gospel al­bum, Re­flec­tions.

With 12 tracks of soul­ful cov­ers set to in­spire, Gar­cia is not on­ly prepar­ing for its re­lease but al­so gear­ing up for an ex­cit­ing new con­cert ex­pe­ri­ence that she hopes to turn in­to an an­nu­al tra­di­tion.

“When I per­formed for Car­ni­val 2024, I did my 16th so­ca al­bum, and I told my­self then I was not go­ing to do an­oth­er so­ca al­bum un­til I com­plet­ed my gospel al­bum,” she said.

“Peo­ple just didn’t be­lieve me be­cause I have been say­ing that for the last decade and a half, that I was go­ing to be com­mit­ting to com­plet­ing my gospel al­bum at some point.”

She switched fo­cus to com­plet­ing her 12-track cov­er gospel al­bum called Re­flec­tions, soon to be re­leased, and pre­pared for her up­com­ing con­cert called Re­flec­tions.

Re­flec­tions will take place at Queen’s Hall on April 12, the day be­fore Palm Sun­day, with an open in­vi­ta­tion to all de­spite their re­li­gious back­ground.

“The event will be a show­case of the songs on the al­bum as well as some oth­er favourites in the gospel genre,” she said.

“I chose that date be­cause it is be­fore the start of Holy Week, and I stopped my fast­ing on Good Fri­day. I felt com­pelled to re­al­ly show­case the al­bum on that day to kind of set the mood for that week, in what­ev­er way I can con­tribute to the Lenten sea­son. I al­so felt it would be the best time to re­al­ly, sin­cere­ly sing the songs be­cause I’m fast­ing.”

While the move may be a bit of a sur­prise for some, it’s a project that is long over­due for Gar­cia. One that start­ed in 2003 but went on pause in 2009.

“I don’t want peo­ple to think that I am do­ing gospel, that I am a gospel artiste, that’s not what this is,” she ex­plained.

“When I did my first al­bum in 2003—the al­bum with It’s Car­ni­val, Whe Yuh Want, Trem­ble It—I put my first gospel song on that. For the next eight years, there was a gospel song on each of my al­bums. I re­alised peo­ple just keep jump­ing over the gospel track and not lis­ten­ing to it. Then I felt like maybe I shouldn’t mix the two.”

The Queen of Bac­cha­nal ac­tu­al­ly grew up in a Chris­t­ian home, and her dad is an or­dained rev­erend.

“That song, Lucy, is very, very true,” she added.

“I grew up in church; I know the Bible, I was bap­tised. I al­ways want­ed that to be a part of my jour­ney, but I knew I couldn’t mix the two. I said to my­self, ‘Self, you are not mak­ing an­oth­er so­ca song un­til you do this’.”

With every com­mit­ment, there comes a chal­lenge. While Gar­cia’s heart was telling her one thing, her mind was telling her an­oth­er.

“Every year I tell my­self, ‘Self, this is the year,’ and I start­ed to re­nege on it again,” she said.

“I was tempt­ed to record; peo­ple were send­ing me mu­sic, peo­ple were send­ing me songs, and I kept say­ing, ‘Nah, I am not do­ing any­thing for Car­ni­val’. Peo­ple kept say­ing, ‘Yeah, but you do say that all the time, just hear this song nah’.”

It was the pass­ing of mu­si­cal icon Roy Cape that so­lid­i­fied her de­ci­sion.

“That’s what pushed me over the edge in terms of de­cid­ing if I will do this now,” she added.

“It re­mind­ed me of mor­tal­i­ty. Roy has done so much for the cul­ture, so much for hu­man­i­ty; I didn’t want my lega­cy to just be De­stra, the so­ca artiste who sings songs like It’s Car­ni­val, Bon­nie and Clyde, and all these clas­sics that peo­ple love. But what am I do­ing for God, you know? What am I do­ing for my soul? What am I do­ing for this re­la­tion­ship with the Almighty?”

It’s a side of Gar­cia that many are un­fa­mil­iar with.

“No­body re­al­ly knows about this ex­cept for my close friends and col­leagues who know that I fast re­li­gious­ly,” she said.

“I’ve been fast­ing since I was 15 years old for 40 days straight. I start on the Mon­day af­ter Car­ni­val. Peo­ple do not re­al­ly know that side of me, that side of De­stra; all they know is the Queen of Bac­cha­nal.

“This side of me need­ed some at­ten­tion too, and I felt I couldn’t do that if I was ac­tive­ly part of Car­ni­val prepa­ra­tions. I couldn’t do that if I was plan­ning to mash up the place, what out­fits I was go­ing to have, what hair­style I was go­ing to wear, and which song I was go­ing to push for the road. I felt like I need­ed to stop and re­al­ly give my heart and soul and en­er­gy to this project.”

Gar­cia hopes that her jour­ney con­tin­ues to in­flu­ence oth­er fe­male artistes.

“By mak­ing the right de­ci­sions and go­ing forth on my path. My in­flu­ence is my vibe. I try to be dif­fer­ent; I tend to fol­low my pas­sion, I try to be my true, au­then­tic self, and by do­ing that, if that in it­self be­comes an in­flu­ence to some­body else, then great. I al­ways urge fe­males to be them­selves; there is on­ly one you, every­body else is al­ready tak­en. Be your­self; you do not need to use me or any­one else as an in­flu­ence. But if I can in­flu­ence, fan­tas­tic.”

She be­lieves mu­sic—no mat­ter the genre—is a plat­form for so­cial change.

“We have all kinds of dif­fer­ent gen­res that speak to peo­ple in so many dif­fer­ent ways,” she added.

“What I am do­ing speaks to me in this way be­cause we are in Lent and be­cause it is that time of year that I re­al­ly ob­serve Lent in this re­al­ly strict fash­ion. It’s my Zen time when I pray and fast with my fam­i­ly.

“All I can hope for is that it re­al­ly speaks to oth­ers who are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing this jour­ney that I am on at this time. This is not some­thing that hap­pened in 2025. I was al­ways singing gospel, I was al­ways ob­serv­ing Lent, and I was al­ways fast­ing.”

As for re­turn­ing to the Car­ni­val scene in 2026, it’s a de­ci­sion Gar­cia still has to make.

“So many mys­ti­cal things have hap­pened in the plan­ning of this con­cert,” she said.

“I can­not say at this point if I am go­ing to be re­turn­ing to Car­ni­val. I love my fans, what I do, and I love the stage. I have no re­grets about who I am; I am a holis­tic per­son. De­stra the en­ter­tain­er.

“I want to make mu­sic ac­cord­ing to how I feel and ac­cord­ing to how the uni­verse speaks to me. Right now I am on this vibe; I don’t know how I will feel when Lent is over. From my track record, I usu­al­ly go back to record­ing and tour­ing. I’m not sure how nor­mal the ex­tent will be, but I am al­ready booked for shows over­seas, and I in­tend to up­hold those com­mit­ments. As far as the mu­sic goes from this point on, I’m just gonna make mu­sic that makes me hap­py and that I feel my fans will love.”

One thing Gar­cia is very cer­tain of is that she will con­tin­ue to be her au­then­tic self.

Gar­cia, in keep­ing with the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day theme of Ac­cel­er­at­ing Ac­tion, is en­cour­ag­ing women to take charge of their growth, ad­vo­cate for their rights, and dri­ve mean­ing­ful change in their com­mu­ni­ties and in­dus­tries.