Recent international stories have highlighted the Caribbean as increasingly becoming the festival capital of the world. From the spectacular Carnival season in Trinidad and Tobago, to Crop Over in Barbados, to Reggae Sumfest in Jamaica, to the Creole and Jazz celebrations in Dominica, the region’s cultural energy is growing steadily in visibility, sophistication, and international appeal.
Importantly, this cultural growth has become increasingly interconnected across the Caribbean itself. We now see Carnival flourishing in Jamaica, jazz festivals expanding in Barbados, Creole expressions traveling throughout the region, and Caribbean cultural forms influencing one another in dynamic and exciting ways. This is a healthy and necessary development.
- Advertisement -
Culture must never be viewed merely as a side hustle for promoters or simply an entertainment commodity. Promoters have their important role, but culture is much deeper than commerce. Culture is consciousness. It is memory. It is identity. It is a people understanding themselves and expressing their value to the world.
The richness of Caribbean culture is part of a legacy that is deep, abiding, and of tremendous importance to the advancement of our societies. When a people become consciously aware of the value of their culture, they create the foundation for self-confidence, creativity, national development, and the shaping of future generations.
The late Harry Belafonte understood this profoundly. Belafonte reminded us repeatedly that “the artist is the gatekeeper to society,” and that the role of the artist is critical to the protection and advancement of civilization itself. Through his work and through the organization Sankofa, he laid down a powerful marker for all of us to continue protecting and elevating our cultural inheritance.
CARIB News has long understood this responsibility.
In the early years of our publication, one of the first major initiatives we undertook was a campaign in the early 1980s advocating for Grammy recognition for reggae and calypso music. Through petitions, media advocacy, and radio outreach, we campaigned vigorously for recognition of Caribbean music on the world stage. The reggae category was eventually established, creating an international institutional pathway for Caribbean music. While calypso and soca still await full Grammy recognition, the struggle continues.
We also recognized early the extraordinary global significance of the steel orchestra. CARIB News played a major role in helping bring a full steel orchestra performance to Carnegie Hall alongside a symphony orchestra—an historic moment that introduced the steel orchestra to a new audience and a new level of artistic respect. The performance received a standing ovation and demonstrated the extraordinary sophistication and emotional power of the instrument born in the Caribbean experience.
That work continued at Brooklyn Academy of Music, where we helped promote major steel orchestra performances, once again breaking cultural ground and widening appreciation for Caribbean artistic excellence.
CARIB News also developed the Caribbean Cultural Series for Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, which became one of the institution’s most successful annual programs. Through this initiative, Caribbean artistic and intellectual contributions were presented with the seriousness and prestige they deserved.
As the Caribbean Multinational Business Conference evolved, culture remained a central pillar of the conversation. We understood clearly that economic development without cultural grounding would leave our people spiritually incomplete.
The great cultural scholar Rex Nettleford consistently reminded us of the significance of our cultural underpinning and warned against cultural compromise. Professor Nettleford believed Caribbean people should present themselves to the world in full cultural confidence and with pride in their heritage.
Again and again, Harry Belafonte emphasized at our conferences the value of protecting and preserving culture and the obligation we all share in carrying this mission forward.
Howard Dodson, then Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, often spoke passionately about the need to preserve, document, and understand the cultural inheritance passed down to us through struggle, migration, and survival.
Marta Vega continually emphasized the necessity of understanding our shared cultural heritage and creating institutions capable of protecting and advancing it.
Sheryl Lee Ralph also contributed significantly to these conversations, speaking powerfully about our collective Caribbean journey and the importance of cultural affirmation.
And so we have long understood that culture is not weak within our community. We are not culturally deficient. On the contrary, we possess one of the richest cultural inheritances in the modern world. Our challenge is not whether culture exists, but whether we properly value it, preserve it, institutionalize it, and present it confidently to ourselves and to the world.
When Caribbean cultural expressions faced resistance in public venues, including challenges surrounding performances at Roy Wilkins Park in Queens, many within our community stood firmly in defense of the right of Caribbean culture to be seen, heard, respected, and celebrated.
Former Prime Minister of Jamaica, P. J. Patterson, also understood deeply the importance of culture to the future development of the Caribbean region. Through conference held in The Bahamas, Patterson advanced a major white paper addressing the cultural development and cultural potential of the Caribbean. That work was ultimately adopted by CARICOM as part of its official regional framework, recognizing culture not as an afterthought, but as a strategic pillar of Caribbean advancement and integration.
This recognition at the governmental and regional level reflects what CARIB News has long believed and advocated throughout its history: that the cultural contribution of the Caribbean is one of the region’s greatest assets and must be treated with seriousness, investment, vision, and institutional support.
That is why, when we witness greater global recognition of Caribbean festivals, music, art, literature, fashion, and creative industries, we feel justified in the decades of effort undertaken to promote and protect the culture. But we also recognize that much more remains to be done.
The cultural industries of the Caribbean possess enormous potential to help build stronger economies, generate employment, expand tourism, strengthen education, and deepen international respect for the region and its people. Culture must therefore not be treated casually or superficially. It must be understood as a strategic resource and a defining force in nation-building and regional development.
Today, as the world increasingly turns its attention toward the Caribbean’s festivals, music, creativity, and artistic spirit, we must understand clearly that culture is not peripheral to development. Culture is development. Culture is identity. Culture is diplomacy. Culture is economic power. Culture is memory. Culture is nation-building.
And most importantly, culture is the soul of a people.
