Shelly-Ann Coop­er has al­ways known who she is. Ground­ed in her iden­ti­ty and un­fazed by neg­a­tive re­marks about her ori­gins, she proud­ly cel­e­brates the place where she was born, raised, and still lives—a small com­mu­ni­ty on Trinidad’s west­ern coast.

T&T so­ca sen­sa­tion Yung Bred­da (Akhen­aton Lewis) says he is “hum­bled and ex­cit­ed” as his run­away hit, The Great­est Bend Over (Take It Easy), gets a fresh spin with a star-stud­ded remix fea­tur­ing US R&B/Pop pow­er­house Chlöe Bai­ley and Ghana­ian vi­ral star Moliy. The remix promis­es to take the an­them’s glob­al mo­men­tum to even high­er heights.

Funky Fitz En­ter­tain­ment took things to new heights with their “Al­ti­tude: Di­a­monds in the Sky” par­ty at Ilya Rooftop, San Fer­nan­do, on Au­gust 1—and what a night it was!

Fash­ion and cul­tur­al ex­perts from T&T and Cana­da are join­ing forces to cel­e­brate Caribbean cre­ativ­i­ty, cul­ture, and sus­tain­able de­sign, with a spot­light on both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al de­sign­ers.

In Oc­to­ber, Ivy Ma­habir will re­ceive the pres­ti­gious Life­time Achieve­ment Award from the Crick­et Hall of Fame in the Unit­ed States. She will be­come the ninth re­cip­i­ent of this ho­n­our—and the first woman, the first per­son from New Jer­sey, and the first Trinida­di­an to achieve such recog­ni­tion. For more than three decades, Ma­habir has ded­i­cat­ed her life to de­vel­op­ing crick­et in New Jer­sey, leav­ing an im­pact that has been wide and far-reach­ing.

Wood­brook Sec­ondary School’s e-alum­ni body is mak­ing an ur­gent ap­peal to alum­ni, fam­i­ly, friends, and well-wish­ers to help raise $475,000 for Class of 1981 alum­nus Kurt Ger­ard Charles, who re­quires emer­gency surgery on Au­gust 28.

Moth­er-and-daugh­ter duo Lau­ra Pol­lon­ais-Kissoon and Jolan­ta Kissoon Young have made it their mis­sion to show the world what uni­ty and cul­tur­al love are all about.

Ten of T&T’s finest tas­sa groups com­pet­ed for su­prema­cy at the fi­nals of the Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Tro­phy Com­pe­ti­tion, held at Na­pari­ma Bowl in San Fer­nan­do on Au­gust 10.

I’ve re­alised my in­ner voice can be pret­ty harsh. I al­ways ex­pect the worst or talk my­self out of things be­fore I even try. I want to learn how to flip these thoughts in­to ones that ac­tu­al­ly build me up in­stead of tear me down, but with­out turn­ing in­to one of those fake ‘good vibes on­ly’ peo­ple. How do I fo­cus my thoughts on the pos­i­tive in a re­al, au­then­tic way?

In 2019, three young mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artistes—Tene­ka Mo­hammed, Mikhail Gib­bings, and Aviel Scant­er­bury—em­barked on a mis­sion to pre­serve the sto­ries of cul­tur­al his­to­ry and cre­ative ex­cel­lence in T&T and the wider Caribbean. Pool­ing their re­sources, they be­gan a project that evolved in­to Pome­gran­ate Stu­dio, a pri­vate, in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ty of­fi­cial­ly reg­is­tered in 2021.

At 61, Alana Mo­hammed is ap­proach­ing re­tire­ment af­ter a long ca­reer as an ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant, ready to em­brace the next chap­ter of her life. Raised in Vista­bel­la, San Fer­nan­do, she fond­ly re­calls a child­hood shaped by fam­i­ly val­ues, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty. With three chil­dren—and one fur ba­by—Mo­hammed ra­di­ates a spir­it she de­scribes as high, hap­py, and pos­i­tive. But her sto­ry goes be­yond sur­viv­ing can­cer; it’s about con­fronting it with un­wa­ver­ing courage.

Hot flash­es. Ir­reg­u­lar pe­ri­ods. Vagi­nal dry­ness. For mil­lions of women, these aren’t ran­dom in­con­ve­niences—they’re signs of one of life’s least talked-about tran­si­tions: per­i­menopause and menopause.