When it comes to her craft, Karene As­che knows where her strengths lie, and she leaves no room for weak­ness­es.

At 33, Naki­ta Hy­atali stands as one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most ver­sa­tile cre­atives, with a ca­reer span­ning fash­ion de­sign, car­ni­val pro­duc­tion, and cre­ative di­rec­tion. Her jour­ney has been shaped by pa­tience, ed­u­ca­tion, and hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence, a path she de­scribes as de­lib­er­ate rather than rushed.

Hav­ing to change the lo­ca­tion of a large-scale, all-in­clu­sive Car­ni­val event is no small task, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing a sea­son when large, sought-af­ter venues are booked quick­ly and of­ten months be­fore­hand.

As a graph­ic de­sign­er by train­ing, she has built a sol­id, 15-year ca­reer in graph­ic de­sign and al­so ex­pand­ed her cre­ativ­i­ty or­gan­i­cal­ly in­to fash­ion and cos­tume de­sign, where she has spent the last decade bring­ing char­ac­ters and con­cepts to life. Win­ches­ter is al­so a wife and moth­er of two, roles that, like her work, de­mand her en­er­gy, de­vot­ed pres­ence and con­stant care. A lover of colour, tex­ture and trav­el, her cre­ative jour­ney places vi­brance and evo­lu­tion at the core, and she has re­cent­ly tak­en her tal­ents in­to a new field with the cre­ation of her self-care jour­nal, Root­ed.

Gilberte Farah O’Sul­li­van (22/12/1971–25/1 2026) was a Trinidad-born po­et, ed­u­cat­ed in Trinidad, the UK, and the US, with an MFA in Cre­ative Fic­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. Her work was pub­lished across the Caribbean, North Amer­i­ca, the UK and Aus­tralia. On Jan­u­ary 25, 2026, she died of a stroke in Brighton, sur­round­ed by her three chil­dren, Rhi­an­non (22), Sinead (Max) (19) and Conor (15). This trib­ute is of­fered by her col­leagues, writ­ers and po­ets, in memo­r­i­al.

If Jah­mike “Chris­to” Bonas had not gone on In­sta­gram on a par­tic­u­lar day last year, one of his best songs may nev­er have ex­ist­ed. It was a quick DM (di­rect mes­sage) to a pro­duc­er about a con­cept that even­tu­al­ly led to the cre­ation of Doux Doux Dar­lin — one of the sweet­est tunes for the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son.

In a Car­ni­val econ­o­my dri­ven by speed—faster re­leas­es, loud­er hooks, vi­ral mo­ments mea­sured in hours rather than years—Den­zel Coutain is mov­ing de­lib­er­ate­ly against the cur­rent.

Lo­cal su­per-pro­duc­er Michael “Tano” Mon­tano is back with an­oth­er groovy rid­dim set to take over the Caribbean’s air­waves. The Block­buster Rid­dim, fea­tur­ing GBM Nu­tron, Kes, Full Blown, Mi­cal Te­ja and Coutain, al­ready has the pub­lic buzzing.

For Hilton Trinidad’s Lav­ish, the fo­cus has al­ways been less about how many peo­ple can be packed in­to a space and more about how the night flows.

A pow­er­ful trib­ute to so­ca and ca­lyp­so leg­ends re­turns to the spot­light on Wednes­day at Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) and Thurs­day at South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ingg Arts (SAPA), from 6 pm night­ly, fol­low­ing the over­whelm­ing suc­cess of its in­au­gur­al stag­ing last Feb­ru­ary.

Reez Mu­sic rock/fu­sion group will add to T&T's melt­ing pot mu­si­cal brew land­scape on Sat­ur­day (Jan­u­ary 31), when they per­form at an event where part pro­ceeds go to the UNICEF sup­port­ed ini­tia­tive "The Child Friend­ly Space." This fa­cil­i­tates a safe en­vi­ron­ment for mi­grant chil­dren to learn and play.

Sea­soned per­former Tri­cia Hamil­ton en­ters the 2026 Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion with her lat­est of­fer­ing, D Bam­boo—a track she de­scribes as play­ful, cul­tur­al­ly rich and de­signed to ig­nite any stage.