Trinida­di­an en­ter­tain­ers close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the rise of the Trini­bad dance­hall sub­genre have been banned from per­form­ing in St Kitts and Nevis.

Yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty of St Kitts and Nevis is­sued a re­lease to ex­plain “the de­ci­sion to bar the en­ter­tain­ment artistes from Trinidad and To­ba­go, name­ly Richard An­tho­ny Ro­mano, aka “DJ Punz”, Loren­zo J A Homer, and Jasse David Aguillera, from en­ter­ing the Fed­er­a­tion.”

The en­ter­tain­ers were set to head­line an event called “Lights Off” yes­ter­day. The event was al­so be­ing billed as Se­lec­tah Ren­zo’s (Homer) birth­day bash.

The re­lease was sent in re­sponse to pub­lic dis­plea­sure over the de­ci­sion. The re­lease stat­ed, “We ap­pre­ci­ate the pas­sion and con­cerns ex­pressed by our cit­i­zens and stake­hold­ers, and we want to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to clar­i­fy the ra­tio­nale be­hind this de­ci­sion. The safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of our cit­i­zens, res­i­dents, and vis­i­tors are of para­mount im­por­tance to this gov­ern­ment. The de­ci­sion to re­strict en­try was not tak­en light­ly. It was made based on cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence and thor­ough as­sess­ments, which high­light­ed po­ten­tial risks as­so­ci­at­ed with the pres­ence of these in­di­vid­u­als with­in our bor­ders. It re­flects our un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to pre­serv­ing and im­prov­ing the safe­ty sta­tus of our na­tion.”

The state­ment added, “We un­der­stand the cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of mu­sic and en­ter­tain­ment, and we val­ue the con­tri­bu­tions that artistes make to our so­ci­ety. How­ev­er, in mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, the well-be­ing of our peo­ple will be pri­ori­tised above all else.”

In re­sponse to the ban, the or­gan­is­ers of an event, Study­it En­ter­tain­ment, post­ed to so­cial me­dia stat­ing they did not know what in­for­ma­tion prompt­ed the de­ci­sion to be made, as they point­ed out that nei­ther DJ Punz nor Ren­zo has any crim­i­nal records. It was al­so point­ed out that the en­ter­tain­ers have vis­it­ed St Kitts and Nevis mul­ti­ple times with­out in­ci­dent, in­clud­ing a vis­it as re­cent as May 2024. It is not the first time the coun­try has is­sued a ban for a Trini­bad artiste. In Feb­ru­ary, the coun­try barred Kman Sixx (Kashif Alexan­der) from en­ter­ing the coun­try.