SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@mail.com

Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine and one of the most re­spect­ed en­ti­ties of Gas­par­il­lo in South Trinidad, his band Dil-E-Nadan, are cel­e­brat­ing one of their strongest in­ter­na­tion­al runs to date, fol­low­ing a sold-out head­line per­for­mance at the Hard Rock Café in Hol­ly­wood, Flori­da, on May 9, 2026. The mile­stone per­for­mance marked the chut­ney so­ca artiste’s in­au­gur­al head­line act at the pres­ti­gious venue, adding an­oth­er his­toric mo­ment to the band’s grow­ing glob­al jour­ney.

For Dil-E-Nadan, the Hard Rock high­light comes dur­ing a pow­er­ful 2025/2026 sea­son that has al­ready in­clud­ed the suc­cess of Kuchela—the band’s Car­ni­val con­cert in Cou­va—and Ram­nar­ine’s sold-out I Am The Mu­sic Boss con­cert, held in April at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Ma­coya.

“This year has been noth­ing short of a bless­ing,” said Ram­nar­ine.

“From Kuchela to I Am The Mu­sic Boss, and now Hard Rock Café, the love has been over­whelm­ing. Every stage re­minds us that our mu­sic con­tin­ues to grow, and peo­ple are con­nect­ing with it in a re­al way.”

The mo­men­tum con­tin­ued on May 16, when the band per­formed to an­oth­er sold-out au­di­ence at Man­goes in Sch­enec­tady, New York, fur­ther strength­en­ing their con­nec­tion with di­as­po­ra au­di­ences across North Amer­i­ca.

Among these glo­ri­ous mo­ments is the band cel­e­brat­ing the suc­cess of Ram­nar­ine’s orig­i­nal Bol­ly­wood song Yaaram, which held the num­ber one po­si­tion on the 103FM charts for April.

“Yaaram is very spe­cial to me be­cause it shows an­oth­er side of who I am as an artiste,” stat­ed Ram­nar­ine.

“To see an orig­i­nal Bol­ly­wood song from Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T) reach num­ber one on our charts and stay there for a whole month is some­thing I am tru­ly grate­ful for.”

Band man­ag­er Richard Ram­nar­ine said the re­cent achieve­ments re­flect years of work, sac­ri­fice and be­lief in the band’s abil­i­ty to take a full Caribbean sound to larg­er in­ter­na­tion­al plat­forms.

Richard ex­plained that these mo­ments do not hap­pen overnight. They’ve been build­ing for a long time, and every sold-out show, every new mar­ket and every ma­jor stage tells them their mu­sic is con­nect­ing. “Hard Rock Café was his­toric, and it’s an­oth­er sign that our mu­sic be­longs on pres­ti­gious stages around the world.”

Dil-E-Nadan is cur­rent­ly prepar­ing for a busy in­ter­na­tion­al sum­mer tour sched­ule, which be­gins with a head­line per­for­mance at Car­ifest in Min­neapo­lis in Ju­ly be­fore head­ing to Carib­ana in Toron­to. The run con­tin­ues in Au­gust with per­for­mances in Dur­ban, South Africa, Suri­name Fes­ti­val in Rot­ter­dam and the Mi­lan Fes­ti­val in The Hague, Hol­land.

Ram­nar­ine said his mis­sion re­mains guid­ed by cul­ture, grat­i­tude and rep­re­sen­ta­tion. “Wher­ev­er we go, we car­ry T&T with us. We car­ry our an­ces­tors, our fans and the sound that raised us. This is more than per­form­ing. It’s about show­ing the world the pow­er, beau­ty and emo­tion of our mu­sic.”