Trinidad and Tobago makes mark at the Grammys

Trinidad and To­ba­go fea­tured twice on the Gram­my stage last night, with lo­cal tal­ent recog­nised across mu­sic video and clas­si­cal cat­e­gories.

Trin­bag­on­ian pro­duc­er Jo­lene Mendes was part of the pro­duc­tion team be­hind hip hop star Doechii’s hit song Anx­i­ety, which won the Gram­my Award for best mu­sic video. The project beat out en­tries from Sab­ri­na Car­pen­ter, Sade, OK Go, and Clipse. Al­though Doechii is not Trin­bag­on­ian, Mendes is. With both Doechii and di­rec­tor James Mack­el un­avail­able to ac­cept the award, Mendes stepped for­ward to re­ceive the Gram­my and de­liv­er the ac­cep­tance re­marks.

Al­so rep­re­sent­ing the red, white and black was Trinida­di­an-Cana­di­an con­duc­tor Kwame Ryan. Ryan, a 2017 ANSA Lau­re­ate and for­mer di­rec­tor of the UTT Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, won the Gram­my Award for best opera record­ing for the Hous­ton Grand Opera pro­duc­tion of com­pos­er Jake Heg­gie’s In­tel­li­gence.

Known as mu­sic’s biggest night, the 68th an­nu­al Gram­my Awards was held in Los An­ge­les. Bil­lie Eil­ish won song of the year for Wild­flower, Olivia Dean was named best new artist, Bad Bun­ny took al­bum of the year, and Kendrick Lamar and SZA won record of the year for Luther.