One of dancehall’s most lucrative riddims has returned to the spotlight—but for veteran producer Colin “Iley Dread” Levy, the renewed attention has reopened a 23-year-old wound.
News Americas, BROOKLYN, NY, Mon. Sept. 7, 2026: Hundreds of thousands turned out for Brooklyn’s annual West Indian American Day Carnival Parade today but for many Haitian marchers, this year’s celebration doubled as a pointed message about the crisis facing their community following the loss of Temporary Protected Status.
A woman wears a dress about Temporary Protected Status (TPS) during the annual West Indian American Day Carnival Parade on September 7, 2026 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. This year’s parade was held against the backdrop of Federal immigration enforcement intensifying against Caribbean and other Black immigrant communities, as Haitians lost their Temporary Protected Status. (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)
Natalie Lafontant, who organizes Lespri Ayiti, the parade’s largest Haitian mas group, said the mood carried real weight this year. “There’s a somber cloud over it with everything that has happened from last year to this year with TPS… what’s happening in detention centers, and those who are being sent back with no valid way of living or supporting themselves,” she said. Still, she said the response to hardship wasn’t surrender. “If you know anything about the Caribbean, especially about Haiti, we use music, dance, art, to continue to strive and push through,” she said.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts cannot review the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS for Haitian and Syrian immigrants, clearing the way for roughly 350,000 Haitians to lose the protection. A federal judge finalized the order in early August, and work permits tied to Haitian TPS expired July 27.
A woman wears a dress about Temporary Protected Status (TPS) during the annual West Indian Day Parade on September 7, 2026 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. This year’s parade was held against the backdrop of Federal immigration enforcement intensifying against Caribbean and other Black immigrant communities, as Haitians lost their Temporary Protected Status. (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)
Lafontant’s group, about 180 artists, designers, musicians and residents, struggled to find float sponsors this year given the costs of insurance, costumes and care for marchers. “But we continue to do it because we love our country,” she said.
New York’s Haitian community, roughly 163,000 people in the metropolitan area, is the second-largest in the U.S. after Miami, with most settled in Brooklyn’s Flatbush, East Flatbush and Crown Heights neighborhoods. Many arrived during and after the Duvalier dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s, part of a broader history of resistance tracing back to the Haitian Revolution, when enslaved and free Black people overthrew French colonial rule in the only successful slave revolt in modern history.
This woman holds a sign about Pierre Damas Bel during the annual West Indian Day Parade on September 7, 2026 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. This year’s parade was held against the backdrop of Federal immigration enforcement intensifying against Caribbean and other Black immigrant communities, as Haitians lost their Temporary Protected Status. (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)
That legacy shaped this year’s costumes. Fashion designer Clara Poteau created royal blue emperor robes honoring Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a revolutionary leader and Haiti’s first head of state after independence. Other designs featured miniature Haitian flags and the faces of national football stars Duckens Nazon and Emmanuel Sanon, while a “Freedom” T-shirt carried the flags of nations Haitian revolutionary leaders helped liberate, including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Panama, Mexico and Greece.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marches in the annual West Indian Day Parade on September 7, 2026 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City as a parade goer holds a sign on TPS. (Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images)
Edwina Paul, founder of the women’s coalition Fanm Se Poto Mitan, left Haiti in 1993 amid instability and said the parade reflects why so many made that same journey. “We don’t come here to sin, we don’t come here to kill. We come here to work, to have a better education,” she said.
The parade was briefly interrupted around 4 p.m., one and a half hour before the new 5:30 PM finish, when at least three people were shot in separate incidents near the route, according to police. A man was shot near Nostrand Avenue and St. John’s Place in Crown Heights, with a suspect quickly taken into custody; a woman was shot and a man grazed in the leg near Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue. The parade concluded at 5:30 p.m., earlier than in past years, as part of city officials’ effort to curb violence, with checkpoints and bag restrictions in place along the route.
NewsAmericasNow will continue covering the Haitian community’s response to TPS policy changes.
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. Sept. 7, 2026: As the 59th annual West Indian American Day Carnival gets underway in Brooklyn, NY today, a Caribbean American community leader is criticizing New York City government’s decision to shorten the Parade, arguing the move won’t address the root causes of gun violence at the event and could set a troubling precedent for the celebration’s future.
Rickford Burke, president of the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy, wrote in a commentary that Mayor Zohran Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s decision to end this year’s parade at 5:30 p.m., down from its usual schedule, “lacks focused, strategic thinking” as a response to gun violence. The change follows three shootings that injured six people during last year’s parade, prompting NYPD to shut down celebrations early.
“How does shortening the parade mitigate violence? How would this decision deter criminals from committing acts of violence between 10 a.m and the new end time of 5:30?” Burke wrote, calling the move “expedient, superficial and impulsive” and warning it unfairly penalizes law-abiding attendees.
FLASHBACK – One of the floats at a a scaled-down version of the West Indian American Day Carnival Parade moves down Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn on September 6, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Tisch said at a Friday press conference announcing the change that “for too long, a select few have mistaken the West Indian Day Parade as an opportunity to commit acts of violence,” adding there would be “zero tolerance for violence of any kind” this year. Thousands of police officers will secure the area, marking one of the department’s largest deployments of the year. Mayor Mamdani on Friday said “With the measures that we have put into place this year, we are confident that every New Yorker will be able to celebrate this parade freely and safely.” In 2025, five people were shot and two were slashed in the hours after the parade, and in 2024, one man was killed and four others were hurt in a shooting during the parade.
Burke said he agreed with that sentiment, but said the “hooliganism and thuggery” that does not represent Caribbean culture. Instead of shortening the event, Burke called for New York City to apply the same security measures used at other major events, including the Celebrate Israel Parade and New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square, citing heavy police presence, random searches and security checkpoints. He noted the NYPD assigned roughly 10,000 officers to this year’s Israeli parade, which drew under 100,000 attendees, compared with just under 8,000 officers for the West Indian Day Parade, which he said traditionally draws about six million people.
“Let’s start by surging more cops and implementing stricter safety measures at the parade before we start chipping away at its foundations,” Burke wrote, cautioning that gradual changes to the parade’s format could eventually lead to discussions about ending it altogether. “Never!” he added.
Burke emphasized that Caribbean community leaders have partnered with police for generations to keep the parade and other community events safe, and said he shares officials’ goal of a safe celebration. But he cautioned against measures he said could be “disguised as safety precautions” while undermining the event’s cultural significance.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, whose roots run to Grenada, said Friday: “I don’t think there’s any more reason to fear to come out on Labor Day, and I think the fact that we have the mayor that we do, the police commissioner that we do, the elected officials that we do, we’re going to do everything in our power to protect everyone that’s here. And so, we want everybody to come celebrate, it might be a moment of reprieve in a very, very tough time.”
Mayor Mamdani last week welcomed Caribbean community leaders to Gracie Mansion for a Caribbean Heritage Reception ahead of today’s Labor Day Parade, using the evening to honor the diaspora’s influence on the city while addressing what he called the “fear” gripping Haitian New Yorkers since the federal government revoked their Temporary Protected Status.
“It is an honor to welcome you to Gracie Mansion as we celebrate our Caribbean community right here in New York City,” Mamdani said, addressing a room that included Deputy Mayor for Community Safety Renita Francois, Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels, New York City Sheriff Edwin Raymond, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and State Senator Jabari Brisport.
The mayor, who described growing up watching West Indies cricket legends and attending the 2007 Cricket World Cup in Antigua with his family, framed the reception around a story of Caribbean solidarity, from the cricket pitch to the city’s neighborhoods.
“That legacy of Caribbean greatness has stayed with me because we know that it’s a legacy that is not limited to cricket,” Mamdani said, citing Flatbush, Wakefield, Canarsie, Rosedale, Richmond Hill and Crown Heights as neighborhoods shaped by Caribbean New Yorkers. Mamdani turned more serious in addressing the federal revocation of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants, which he said had “plunged many Caribbean Neew Yorkers’ lives into fear.”
“In the face of this kind of a sudden and immense instability, of this kind of cruelty, what the Caribbean community has done has been what the Caribbean has done for decades in this city: founding benevolent associations to look after one another,” he said, pointing to volunteer-led Know Your Rights sessions in Haitian Creole and unpaid translators helping neighbors navigate paperwork.
Today’s J’Ouvert runs from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. today while the West Indian American Day Carnival parade begins at 11 a.m. and ends promptly at 5:30 p.m. Thirteen entry points featuring magnetometers will screen attendees. Banned items include weapons, alcohol, large bags, and drones. Singers Buju Banton and Kes will be among the grand marshals at this year’s parade.
STREET CLOSURES: Street closures in Brooklyn on Sept. 7:
West Indian American Day Parade Route
Eastern Parkway between Ralph Avenue and Plaza Street West
J’Ouvert Festival Route
Eastern Parkway between Ralph Avenue and Plaza Street West
Flatbush Avenue between Grand Army Plaza and Empire Boulevard/Ocean Avenue
Empire Boulevard between Flatbush Avenue and Nostrand Avenue
Nostrand Avenue between Empire Boulevard and Rutland Road
Additional Location(s):
Grand Army Plaza (Entire Circle)
Butler Place between Grand Army Plaza and Sterling Place
St. Johns Place between Underhill Avenue and Grand Army Plaza
Flatbush Avenue between Grand Army Plaza and Caton Avenue
Washington Avenue between Sterling Place and Lincoln Road
Bedford Avenue between Eastern Parkway and Empire Boulevard
Rochester Avenue between East New York Avenue and Sterling Place
Buffalo Avenue between Eastern Parkway and East New York Avenue
Ralph Avenue between Eastern Parkway and East New York Avenue
Ocean Avenue between Empire Boulevard and Parkside Avenue
Nostrand Avenue between Empire Boulevard and Linden Boulevard
Eastern Parkway (Main & Service Roads) between Plaza Street East and Howard Avenue
Lincoln Place between Eastern Parkway and East New York Avenue
Rockaway Parkway between East New York Avenue and Kings Highway
East New York Avenue between Howard Avenue and Utica Avenue
Parkside Avenue between Park Circle and Flatbush Avenue
NewsAmericasNow will continue covering today’s West Indian Day Parade.
The Cayman Islands welcomed a record 333,747 stayover visitors in the first seven months of 2026, up 11% from the same period last year. July arrivals rose 10% to 45,053, marking the destination’s ninth consecutive month of growth.
The United States drove July’s gains, delivering 37,910 visitors, a 12% increase. European arrivals grew in July 12.7%. Canadian visitation fell 15.9% amid reduced nonstop flight frequency, but arrivals from Canada remained up 43.3% for the year through July.
Combined stayover and cruise visitation reached 1,058,781 through July, up 6.2% year over year.
Cruise arrivals increased 4% over the seven-month period, despite a 23% decline in July to 43,380 passengers as fewer ships called at the destination.
Skatta Burrell just said something that a lot of people are going to have strong feelings about.
Malie Donn just proved his UK fanbase is no joke, pulling off a fully sold-out show in London that had people talking well after the last riddim dropped.
Capleton is turning up the heat ahead of his SoulFoodFestival416 appearance, taking to Twitter to remind fans that there are only six days left before he brings “Fyah In The Park” to Vaughan, Ontario.
Anthony B didn’t bury the lead he opened his announcement with a question aimed straight at his audience: “Are a winner?
When someone dares you to rap in Mandarin to prove your next single is fire, most artists would scroll past.
Capleton is heading to the UK for three headline shows this September, and the buzz around the announcement is already building.