NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try is buzzing af­ter the Caribbean Mu­sic Awards an­nounced that its 2026 cer­e­mo­ny will move from the Unit­ed States to the Caribbean, with T&T cho­sen as its first re­gion­al host.

Af­ter be­ing im­pressed by the coun­try’s cul­ture, cre­ative tal­ent and in­fra­struc­ture, founder and CEO Dane Tay­lor said T&T felt like “the right place” to be­gin the awards’ move to the re­gion.

The cer­e­mo­ny is set for Sep­tem­ber 19 at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Port-of-Spain, and will be co-host­ed by so­ca star Nailah Black­man and co­me­di­an Ma­jah Hype.

It will be the first time the awards are held out­side the US, fol­low­ing three pre­vi­ous edi­tions in New York.

On its so­cial me­dia pages, the awards had teased that a “big an­nounce­ment” was com­ing re­gard­ing this year’s venue, while al­so ask­ing the pub­lic where they want­ed to see the cer­e­mo­ny host­ed.

Many re­spond­ed with the same sug­ges­tion: Why not some­where in the Caribbean?

When T&T was fi­nal­ly re­vealed as the host on Wednes­day, the an­nounce­ment was met with wide­spread ex­cite­ment.

Tay­lor told WE En­ter­tain­ment that he first vis­it­ed T&T last No­vem­ber af­ter be­ing in­vit­ed by Glob­alTT to par­tic­i­pate in its In­ward Mu­sic Mis­sion.

Dur­ing the vis­it, he ex­pe­ri­enced the coun­try’s steel­pan cul­ture, met lo­cal cre­atives and gained a deep­er un­der­stand­ing of the mu­sic in­dus­try and its po­ten­tial.

The ex­pe­ri­ence al­so “opened his mind” to the pos­si­bil­i­ties that ex­ist­ed in T&T.

“I saw, first­hand, the world-class tal­ent, in­fra­struc­ture and pas­sion that ex­ists through­out T&T,” he said.

Tay­lor said bring­ing the awards to the re­gion had al­ways been part of the long-term plan.

How­ev­er, af­ter sub­se­quent vis­its to T&T, he be­gan to con­sid­er whether the coun­try could be­come the first Caribbean host.

“It felt like the right place to be­gin this new chap­ter,” he added.

Dur­ing those vis­its, Tay­lor held dis­cus­sions with mu­sic in­dus­try pro­fes­sion­als, gov­ern­ment stake­hold­ers and mem­bers of the cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty.

Those con­ver­sa­tions, he said, gave him an op­por­tu­ni­ty to bet­ter un­der­stand T&T’s mu­sic ecosys­tem and as­sess what host­ing the awards would en­tail.

By Jan­u­ary, the de­ci­sion had been made.

“The Caribbean Mu­sic Awards was al­ways cre­at­ed to cel­e­brate Caribbean mu­sic, and bring­ing it to the Caribbean felt like the nat­ur­al evo­lu­tion of the brand,” Tay­lor said.

The awards cer­e­mo­ny will form part of a wider “elite week­end ex­pe­ri­ence” run­ning from Sep­tem­ber 18-20, with or­gan­is­ers promis­ing a pro­gramme of mu­sic, cul­ture, net­work­ing and cel­e­bra­tion.

Tay­lor said the team al­so has some “in­cred­i­ble sur­pris­es” wait­ing to be re­vealed, de­scrib­ing the week­end as a “true des­ti­na­tion event.”

He said the lev­el of sup­port fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment had been both over­whelm­ing and in­spir­ing.

Tay­lor said he was ex­cit­ed about the event com­ing to T&T, but was equal­ly grate­ful for what the oc­ca­sion rep­re­sents.

“I’m ex­cit­ed for T&T, I’m ex­cit­ed for the (event), and most im­por­tant­ly, I’m ex­cit­ed for what this mo­ment rep­re­sents—the con­tin­ued growth and glob­al el­e­va­tion of Caribbean mu­sic and cul­ture.”

Mem­bers of T&T’s mu­sic in­dus­try have been nom­i­nat­ed across 23 cat­e­gories.

The pub­lic can vote at carib­mu­si­cawards.com un­til Au­gust 10.