KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Words are un­de­ni­ably pow­er­ful. They can evoke strong emo­tions, shape per­cep­tions, and even in­flu­ence both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive be­hav­iour. Singer, song­writer, and gui­tarist Muham­mad Muwak­il un­der­stands the pow­er of words, and he has been us­ing his lyrics to in­spire lis­ten­ers.

“My style (lol), I guess, is a col­lec­tion of all your ex­pe­ri­ences and how you re­spond­ed and con­tin­ue to re­spond to them. My style is dif­fer­ent be­cause my ex­pe­ri­ence of life has been very dif­fer­ent, and I’ve not tried to be any­one else but my­self,” he ex­plained.

“I grew up with a fa­ther who was a war­rior for jus­tice in the com­mu­ni­ty; every­thing about him was geared to­wards mak­ing the world more just. That is a part of my style. I grew up read­ing the Qur’an, and the tones of Ara­bic are all over my voice and in my melodies, which is my style. I love words, and I’ve seen their pow­er, and I try not to take them for grant­ed; that’s my style.” Muwak­il’s dad, Sal­im Muwak­il, who was part of the 1990 in­sur­rec­tion in T&T, was shot and killed at his Diego Mar­tin home in 2022.

“I’ve wit­nessed the pow­er of mu­sic as a force for change in the world and peo­ple’s in­di­vid­ual lives,” he said. “Mu­sic is a pow­er that moves and shifts things in what­ev­er di­rec­tion you point it. I’ve al­ways made mu­sic that dealt with jus­tice and love, and I think be­cause of that we have al­ways had the love and sup­port of the peo­ple.”

The singer en­tered the 2025 Young Kings com­pe­ti­tion and copped third place with Take Me Home. An­tho­ny La Fleur, known as “Squeezy Rankin”, was crowned the win­ner with his song Jus­tice, while sec­ond place went to Kyle Cowie (KC) with his song West­ern Town.

“I think for a first time en­ter­ing a na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion with a song that is push­ing the bound­aries of what we have tra­di­tion­al­ly ac­cept­ed ca­lyp­so to be, plac­ing third is a phe­nom­e­nal achieve­ment against a field of sea­soned vet­er­ans,” he said.

“We are at a mo­ment in his­to­ry where the art form is seek­ing evo­lu­tion again in or­der to tru­ly con­nect to a younger gen­er­a­tion. We see it with Coutain, Jim­my Oc­to­ber, Yung Bred­da, Kes, Free­town, and many oth­ers. I am over­joyed to be alive and liv­ing at the very edges where the cul­ture is form­ing it­self in­to new things.”

The Bel­mont en­ter­tain­er start­ed singing in his pri­ma­ry school choir at St Joseph TML. A prac­tis­ing Mus­lim, he al­so grew up recit­ing the Qur’an, which is a sort of singing in it­self. At the age of 26, he joined the group Free­town Col­lec­tive.

“Well, as you may know, many Mus­lims con­sid­er mu­sic haraam (for­bid­den by God),” he said. “Be­ing an ac­tive mem­ber of my com­mu­ni­ty at the time, I was ad­mon­ished and in many ways os­tracised and looked down on for choos­ing to make mu­sic.”

De­spite the crit­ics, Muham­mad forged ahead, re­leas­ing hits with Free­town Col­lec­tive like Feel the Love, Mas, and Take Me Home. Fam­i­ly con­tin­ues to be a ma­jor part of his life, and Muwak­il shares a spe­cial bond with his ma­ter­nal grand­moth­er.

“My grand­moth­er has been a guid­ing hand from the mo­ment I was born, a bit of an ob­ses­sive-type par­ent if we’re be­ing hon­est, but I un­der­stand that the world is a dan­ger­ous place for us be­fore we even know what it is, so she al­ways want­ed to pro­tect me,” he said.

“In many ways, fight­ing against be­ing cod­dled was a part of my for­ma­tion, but al­so, Granny al­ways pro­vid­ed a soft place to land, a con­stant love in a re­al­ly tu­mul­tuous up­bring­ing. My grand­moth­er and grand­fa­ther pro­vid­ed sta­bil­i­ty for me and my sib­lings that, in the end, re­al­ly saved our lives and set us on a path to win.”

Granny Neila is quite pop­u­lar for her wit­ty con­ver­sa­tions with the en­ter­tain­er on so­cial me­dia. “Nev­er in a mil­lion years did I ever think she would blow up like this; I think she may have hit 100k on In­sta­gram; I have to check,” he said.

“She is a star and has al­ways been, and I’m just hap­py that to­wards the evening of her life, she is get­ting to ex­pe­ri­ence what it is like to be so wide­ly adored sim­ply for who she is.”

As Muwak­il con­tin­ues his jour­ney in en­ter­tain­ment, he gets in­spi­ra­tion from al­most every­thing. “Movies are big for me; a good movie can give me so much ma­te­r­i­al to work with. Con­ver­sa­tions, good art in­spires,” he added.

“But re­al­ly, I think peo­ple who get in­spired are peo­ple who are pay­ing at­ten­tion. Life is beau­ti­ful and trag­ic. No two mo­ments are the same. If you pay at­ten­tion, with­out re­al­is­ing it, you col­lect in­side of your­self all of the things you feel and see, and some­where on a sub­con­scious lev­el, you go over it all, and it cre­ates the ground for won­der.

“Once you can still have won­der like a child, then every now and then some­thing that means al­most noth­ing to 99 per cent of peo­ple will jump out at you so hard you’ll won­der why you nev­er thought about it like that. The small­est things are com­plete­ly mag­ic if you have eyes to ap­pre­ci­ate them as such.”

His hope is that the mes­sage and the mu­sic will spread as wide­ly as pos­si­ble. “I see my­self do­ing what­ev­er my heart calls me to do at the point in time. Hope­ful­ly, I can stay true to that.”

Muwak­il will be per­form­ing with Free­town Col­lec­tive at Sound Forge, Mu­cu­rapo Road, Port-of-Spain tonight from 7 pm. The event will al­so fea­ture a mar­ket­place that opens at 6 pm.