SAN­DRA L BLOOD

In 2023, singer, song­writer, ac­tor, and pro­duc­er Kar­la C Gon­za­les faced one of the tough­est chal­lenges of her ca­reer. Years af­ter a fall dur­ing a per­for­mance—which she had then dis­missed as “just a fall”—ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain resur­faced, leav­ing her de­pen­dent on a walk­er or walk­ing stick, and forc­ing her to per­form seat­ed at times.

A vig­or­ous fundrais­ing dri­ve that year cul­mi­nat­ed in a mas­sive ben­e­fit con­cert at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, on Sep­tem­ber 1, help­ing to fi­nance emer­gency hip re­place­ment surgery. Thanks to over­whelm­ing pub­lic sup­port, Gon­za­les suc­cess­ful­ly un­der­went the pro­ce­dure on De­cem­ber 9, 2023.

Just a few months lat­er, the Min­istry of Cul­ture em­ploy­ee and moth­er of award-win­ning singer and pro­duc­er 1stK­lase (Klase Gon­za­les) was back on her feet—lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly—with her sig­na­ture en­er­gy, charm, and stage pres­ence ful­ly re­stored.

This year, Gon­za­les’ mu­si­cal jour­ney reached new heights when she re­ceived an ex­tra­or­di­nary in­vi­ta­tion from the Chi­nese Em­bassy in T&T to rep­re­sent the Caribbean at the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Mu­sic (LACM) Fes­ti­val, launched on Sep­tem­ber 12 at the Wuxi Bin­hu MixC as part of the Latin Amer­i­can Art Sea­son.

“I spent 12 ex­cit­ing days in Chi­na,” Gon­za­les said. “Among the many mag­nif­i­cent ex­pe­ri­ences was vis­it­ing the fa­mous Great Wall. Climb­ing and walk­ing along it was awe-in­spir­ing. While my per­for­mances were great­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed, two mo­ments stood out—pri­ma­ry school stu­dents danc­ing to my ca­lyp­so, and re­ceiv­ing a spe­cial ring af­ter per­form­ing at a home for the el­der­ly.”

Dur­ing the fes­ti­val, Gon­za­les show­cased the vi­brant cul­ture of T&T, per­form­ing in Wuxi (Sep­tem­ber 12), Ji­nan (Sep­tem­ber 17), and Bei­jing (Sep­tem­ber 21). Her setlist—a seam­less blend of ca­lyp­so, jazz, R&B, zouk, and reg­gae—in­clud­ed A Song for You, Get Here, Sew Mwen En­me, Turn Your Lights Down Low, Wait­ing in Vain, Zouk La, Get Up and Dance, and her own hit, Ca­lyp­so Nice.

Ac­cord­ing to a Chi­nese me­dia re­lease, Gon­za­les “pre­sent­ed a feast of artis­tic tal­ent steeped in Latin Amer­i­can in­flu­ences to lo­cal au­di­ences.” The event al­so co­in­cid­ed with the eighth Chi­na–Latin Amer­i­ca Civ­i­liza­tion Di­a­logue Fo­rum in Wuxi, where “the gen­tle wa­ters of Tai­hu Lake met the vi­brant at­mos­phere of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.”

In a mem­o­rable fi­nale, while per­form­ing Ca­lyp­so Nice, Gon­za­les was joined on stage by Ecuado­ri­an band Taita­mi­ki, who had been cap­ti­vat­ed by the rhythm and re­quest­ed to play along.

An­oth­er re­lease praised her artistry: “Singer Kar­la Gon­za­les from Trinidad and To­ba­go cap­ti­vat­ed the au­di­ence with her rich voice, mas­ter­ing a va­ri­ety of mu­si­cal styles. Her im­pec­ca­ble vo­cal skills, honed through over a thou­sand reper­toires, led every­one on a dy­nam­ic, cross-cul­tur­al jour­ney.”

Be­yond the stage, Gon­za­les im­mersed her­self in Chi­nese cul­ture—don­ning Han­fu at­tire for tours of Daming Lake and Bay Huazhou, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing Ji­nan shad­ow pup­petry, Shan­dong drum mu­sic, and the Qi and Lu artis­tic styles at the Shan­dong Mu­se­um. She al­so vis­it­ed the Shan­dong Uni­ver­si­ty School of Art, Longding Ex­per­i­men­tal School in Ji­nan’s Lix­ia Dis­trict, and Jiefang Road, deep­en­ing her ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the re­gion’s artis­tic her­itage.

From over­com­ing per­son­al pain to rep­re­sent­ing the Caribbean on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, Kar­la C Gon­za­les con­tin­ues to em­body re­silience, grace, and the en­dur­ing spir­it of T&T’s mu­sic.