Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@guardian.co.tt

Even be­fore last year’s I Am Woman con­cert, so­ca artiste Patrice Roberts felt it was time to take her an­nu­al show in a new di­rec­tion, al­though she hadn’t yet fig­ured out how.

This year, she re­vealed that the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges af­fect­ing many cit­i­zens and the broad­er en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try had in­spired her to host a free con­cert at Fla­va Vil­lage, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, on Jan­u­ary 22.

The con­cert will be a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC).

“I just want­ed to give fans an op­por­tu­ni­ty to just come out and en­joy them­selves for a day. Be­cause I know what life can feel like when it’s dif­fi­cult, and you want to es­cape, but you don’t have the means to. So, I just cre­at­ed this op­por­tu­ni­ty for fans to come out, to give them me,” Roberts said yes­ter­day.

Roberts said it was nev­er about the mon­ey for her, but about show­ing ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the loy­al fans who have sup­port­ed her over the years. She said she want­ed to give them the chance to cel­e­brate with­out any fi­nan­cial pres­sure.

“I don’t want any­thing. I just want to give ... I re­al­ly love my fans. I don’t just say it—I tru­ly ap­pre­ci­ate them. I want­ed to give them a space to come out and en­joy them­selves, es­pe­cial­ly know­ing that many don’t have the means right now,” she said.

The Rock So singer ex­plained that the idea came to her just as she was about to shoot the mu­sic video for Mi­cal Te­ja’s pop­u­lar 2026 so­ca track, The Cap­i­tal, on which she is fea­tured, and she im­me­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed her team to make it hap­pen.

“I’ll be to­tal­ly hon­est, it lit­er­al­ly came to my heart. For the past cou­ple of years, every time I men­tion my date, I Am Woman, every liv­ing fan, they sup­port me.
They spend, they make sure I’m okay. And this is just my way of giv­ing back and my way of say­ing thank you, you know, for rid­ing with me. Thanks for sup­port­ing me. Thanks for be­liev­ing in my prod­uct,” she said.

Since the an­nounce­ment on Sun­day, Roberts’ ges­ture has re­ceived pos­i­tive feed­back on so­cial me­dia.

Jenelle Elie wrote, “Patrice, I am a work­ing nurse and CAN­NOT af­ford even one fete this sea­son—too many bills. THANKS SO MUCH, WE AP­PRE­CI­ATE THIS GES­TURE.”

Mean­while, Wendy Best praised the ini­tia­tive, say­ing, “The love of our lo­cal mu­sic brings to­geth­er­ness, fun, and en­joy­ment to all class­es with­out sep­a­ra­tion. This is the true spir­it of Car­ni­val.”

Roberts yes­ter­day re­it­er­at­ed that the event re­quires no tick­ets, will have no bar­ri­ers, and no pres­sure to spend; there is sim­ply no catch.

More in­for­ma­tion on lo­gis­tics will be post­ed to Patrice Roberts Mu­sic so­cial me­dia pages.

“There’s no twist. It’s just me and my fans,” she said.