SAN­DRA L BLOOD

When Bran­don Beck­with set out to cre­ate the most cul­tur­al­ly di­verse al­bum ever made, he didn’t ex­pect to stum­ble up­on a cel­e­bra­tion that would re­shape his world­view: Eman­ci­pa­tion Day.

The 37-year-old Amer­i­can-Dutch mu­sic pro­duc­er and founder of the In­ter­na­tion­al Artists Project (IAP) had been trav­el­ling the globe in search of au­then­tic voic­es—one from every coun­try on Earth. But it was in T&T that the project took on a deep­er cul­tur­al mean­ing.

Beck­with met two pow­er­house per­form­ers—Queen Omega, a revered fig­ure in glob­al reg­gae, and Em­press Ajé, a mod­ern torch­bear­er of the tra­di­tion­al chantuelle form. Dur­ing their col­lab­o­ra­tions, they in­tro­duced him to Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, a na­tion­al hol­i­day first recog­nised by T&T in 1985 and now ob­served across the Caribbean and African di­as­po­ra on Au­gust 1.

“I had nev­er heard of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day be­fore this jour­ney,” Beck­with ad­mits. “But learn­ing its sig­nif­i­cance—es­pe­cial­ly from these artistes who live its lega­cy through their mu­sic—gave the al­bum a new soul.”

Found­ed in 2023, the In­ter­na­tion­al Artists Project is more than just a mu­si­cal en­deav­our. It’s a cul­tur­al, phil­an­thropic, and his­tor­i­cal move­ment in the form of an al­bum. Its first phase—a con­cept re­lease—was fol­lowed in 2024 by a 9.5-hour com­pi­la­tion fea­tur­ing 158 songs by artistes from 157 coun­tries, singing in 64 lan­guages across 104 gen­res.

Now comes the fi­nal chap­ter:

The World Al­bum: In­ter­na­tion­al Artists Project, a 200-track, 12.5-hour mu­si­cal odyssey fea­tur­ing mu­sic in 93 lan­guages and 121 gen­res. It launch­es glob­al­ly on Au­gust 1—in­ten­tion­al­ly cho­sen to ho­n­our Eman­ci­pa­tion Day and the com­mu­ni­ties that in­spired it.

Beck­with calls it “an al­bum where glob­al mu­sic meets world his­to­ry.”

More than just a record, the IAP is de­signed to up­lift. Artistes re­tain 100 per cent of their own­er­ship and roy­al­ties and are en­cour­aged to di­rect at least half to­ward phil­an­thropic caus­es in their com­mu­ni­ties. Beck­with says this mod­el was non-ne­go­tiable.

“We want­ed the project to re­flect cul­tur­al em­pow­er­ment and mu­tu­al re­spect,” he ex­plains.

Queen Omega’s sin­gle Fittest, pro­duced by Li­ons­Flow Pro­duc­tions, ap­pears on the al­bum as a call for spir­i­tu­al re­silience and moral clar­i­ty in the face of ad­ver­si­ty. Mean­while, Em­press Ajé’s haunt­ing Come An­ces­tors, pro­duced by Kyle Pe­ters, serves as both a trib­ute to her lin­eage and a cel­e­bra­tion of cul­tur­al con­ti­nu­ity.

Orig­i­nal­ly, Beck­with had hoped to re­lease the al­bum on Ju­ly 31 as a birth­day gift to his moth­er. But af­ter dis­cov­er­ing the mean­ing be­hind Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, he post­poned it by one day.

“It felt right,” he says, “like some­thing larg­er than all of us.”

The World Al­bum is al­ready in con­tention for Best Glob­al Mu­sic Al­bum at the Gram­mys and three Guin­ness World Records. Plans are un­der­way for a com­pan­ion In­ter­na­tion­al Artistes Fes­ti­val and ef­forts are on­go­ing to in­te­grate the al­bum in­to ed­u­ca­tion­al cur­ric­u­la world­wide.

The project’s heart, though, re­mains sim­ple.

“This is mu­sic made by the world, for the world,” Beck­with says.

“And it start­ed with just lis­ten­ing.”

The World Al­bum: In­ter­na­tion­al Artists Project will be avail­able on all ma­jor stream­ing plat­forms from Au­gust 1.