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Kelli’s Rundown

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Weekly Caribbean Dispatch

By Kelli Blake Substack · LinkedIn

Opening Note

The region keeps choosing to host itself. The Caribbean Music Awards left Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre for Port of Spain this year, its first ceremony staged in the Caribbean in four editions. Guyana’s own literary prize, three years into a comeback after a six-year hiatus, closed its festival on August 9 with a poetry slam and the Martin Carter Lecture. Jamaica marked 64 years of independence the same week, crowning a Festival Song and naming its Reggae Icons at the National Stadium. None of this needed an outside stage to matter.

The Pulse

  • Caribbean Music Awards relocates to Trinidad & Tobago. After three years at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre, the fourth annual ceremony lands September 18-20 at NAPA in Port of Spain, its first staging in the region. Lady Lava leads nominations with nine nods. billboard.com
  • Guyana Prize for Literature returns winners after a full comeback run. Jury chaired by Dr. Stewart Brown announced category winners on August 6 in Georgetown, closing a four-day festival with a poetry slam and the Martin Carter Lecture. guyanachronicle.com
  • dBurnz wins the 2026 Jamaica Festival Song with “I Love Jamaica.” Crowned July 25 at the Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre, beating 189 entries and nine finalists for the $3 million prize. The song anchored Jamaica’s 64th Independence Day celebrations Aug. 6. jis.gov.jm
  • “From Venice with Love” continues at The Betsy Hotel, Miami Beach. Edouard Duval-Carrié’s solo retrospective, following his turn at the 61st Venice Biennale, fills The Betsy Gallery through November 15. Nightly video art plays on The Betsy Orb through August. thebetsyhotel.com
  • Haiti International Film Festival announces its 11th edition lineup. Sixteen official selections screened on August 15 in Hollywood under the theme “Konnesans,” honoring Yale professor Marlene Daut, actress-producer Tessa Munro, and filmmaker Rodney Charles. haitiantimes.com
  • Barbados held a state funeral for Sir Garfield Sobers. The cricket legend and National Hero was honored at Kensington Oval, with fellow National Hero Rihanna among those paying tribute. A reminder of how small and tightly bound Barbados’ pantheon of icons really is.

Market & Opportunities

  • British Art Prize 2026, extended deadline Wednesday, August 19, 5:00 PM. Hosted by Artists & Illustrators, international, open to all levels, painting, drawing, textiles, prints, and mixed media. Three days left. artopps.co.uk
  • Delfina Foundation London residencies, apply now. Fully funded 12-week residencies explicitly widening access for Latin American and Caribbean artists. Rolling deadline, earlier applications get first look at the autumn cohort. delfinafoundation.com
  • Nederlands Letterenfonds Fellowship, closes August 25. Five-month literary residency for established writers from Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten. A direct route into the Dutch literary scene for Kingdom-Caribbean writers.

Release Radar

Quiet this week for new music and visual releases. The next wave lands with the Caribbean Music Awards weekend in September, expect a run of new singles and videos timed to that stage.

Creator Spotlight: dBurnz

What are you telling now? “I Love Jamaica” stemmed from homesickness. dBurnz (Melbourne Douglas, a Clarendon native) spent six months in 2025 performing in the Bob Marley Hope Road show at Mandalay Bay, and he and his castmates wrote the song from that distance. It won him the JMD $3 million grand prize and the Best Performer sectional award at this year’s Festival Song Competition, and it is now the soundtrack running under Jamaica’s 64th Independence celebrations.

He wasn’t the only one honored that week. Jamaica’s 2026 National Honours named nine figures from the music industry: Reggae Icon Awards went to Busy Signal and Wayne Wonder, presented by PM Andrew Holness and Culture Minister Olivia Grange at the Grand Gala. Stranger Cole received a posthumous honor for his contributions to Jamaican music, and a Badge of Honour went to gospel artist Shirley Deloris Findley-Willis, among others. A young Festival Song winner and a slate of veteran honorees, crowned in the same week, is its own statement about where Jamaica’s music industry sees its future and its foundation.

What do you need next? A crossover moment beyond Festival Song season, the kind of placement or press run that turns a competition win into year-round rotation. (Inferred from available reporting.)

Where can we follow / support you? Instagram, @dburnzmusic.

On the Circuit

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Last Look

A song, a state funeral, a prize ceremony, a gallery in Miami, a stage moving home to Port of Spain. The Caribbean marks its year the way it always has, loudly, and increasingly on its own terms. 

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