Burna Boy and Tems Score Three Nominations at 2026 MTV VMAs
The most telling detail from this year’s MTV VMA nominations is not who showed up, but what disappeared.
Ayra Starr’s ‘StarrGirl’ Is a Bold, Audacious Leap for Modern African Pop
Most artists making their third album play it safe. Ayra Starr did the opposite, and the result is 46 minutes of music that genuinely refuses to sit still long enough for you to pin it down.
Sean Paul & Chronic Law Lead Steve Gong’s Star-Studded ‘Well Wet’ Riddim
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Soca’s Biggest Star Machel Montano Gets A Shrine In Brooklyn, Right As Carnival Season Kicks Off
By NAN ET Editor, NewsAmericas Now
News Americas, BROOKLYN, NY, Fri. August 21, 2026: Just weeks before Eastern Parkway fills with soca, steel pan and a sea of Caribbean flags for Labor Day, Brooklyn Public Library is giving the genre’s biggest name his own dedicated stage. Journey of a Soca King: The Exhibition, presented by the library and the Machel Montano Foundation for Greatness, opens at Central Library tomorrow, Saturday, August 22 and runs through September 12, spanning the entire lead-up to this year’s West Indian American Day Carnival on September 7th.
The timing places the exhibition, and Montano’s more than four-decade career, directly inside the season that carries his music every year. Carnival week traditionally builds through the final days of August into Labor Day itself, with J’Ouvert and the main parade drawing between one and three million people to Crown Heights annually, many of them dancing to Montano’s songs along the way.
Costumes, trophies, and a career that started at seven
A very young Machel Montano performing at The FANN Club in Brooklyn, NY in 1987. (Hayden Roger Celestin image)
The exhibition features costumes, trophies and vinyl records spanning Montano’s career, offering an immersive look at an artist who began performing in 1982 at age seven and released his debut album, Too Young To Soca, in 1985 to widespread acclaim. He remains Trinidad and Tobago’s most decorated Road March champion, with a record 12 titles, and holds additional honors including National Calypso Monarch, Chutney Soca Monarch, and the Hummingbird Gold National Medal.
The exhibition follows the 2026 documentary Like Ah Boss: Journey of a Soca King, centered on Montano’s 16 performances during the 2015 Carnival season. The film will be projected onto Central Library’s facade on September 3rd, right as The West Indian American Carnival week itself kicks into high gear across Brooklyn, NY.
A Brooklyn story as much as a Trinidad one
Machel Montano brought Trinidad Carnival to Central Park for two sold-out nights of his “This Is The Encore” tour
While soca originated in Montano’s native Trinidad and Tobago, the exhibition specifically highlights the role Brooklyn played in his rise, a fitting home for it, given the borough’s status as the epicenter of Caribbean carnival culture in North America since the celebration relocated there in the 1960s.
NewsAmericasNow will continue covering Carnival season and Caribbean culture’s biggest moments across the diaspora.
Caribbean Economy To Grow 5.6% In 2026 – But Just 1.1% Without Guyana, ECLAC Says
By NAN Business Editor
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. August 21, 2026: The Caribbean economy is projected to grow by an impressive 5.6% in 2026 and 7.9% in 2027, but new United Nations data show that one country is dramatically altering the regional picture: Guyana.
Without Guyana, Caribbean economic growth falls to just 1.1% in 2026 and 2.2% in 2027, according to the newly released Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2026 from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, ECLAC.
The striking difference illustrates the growing economic divide between oil-rich Guyana and much of the rest of the Caribbean. ECLAC forecasts Guyana’s economy will expand by 16.2% this year before accelerating to 19.7% in 2027. No other Caribbean economy comes close. Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and Suriname share second place in the 2026 rankings, with projected growth of 3.5% each.
Caribbean Growth Forecasts Ranked
RankEconomy202620271Guyana16.2%19.7%2=Antigua and Barbuda3.5%3.5%2=Grenada3.5%3.5%2=Suriname3.5%4.4%5Dominica3.1%2.8%6St. Vincent and the Grenadines3.0%2.6%7=Barbados2.5%2.2%7=Belize2.5%2.3%9=The Bahamas2.0%2.2%9=St. Kitts and Nevis2.0%2.5%9=Saint Lucia2.0%1.5%12Trinidad and Tobago0.8%1.5%13Jamaica-1.2%2.5%
Source: ECLAC. Forecasts based on information available as of July 28, 2026.
Jamaica Forecast To Contract
At the opposite end of the table is Jamaica. ECLAC forecasts a 1.2% contraction in 2026, followed by a recovery to 2.5% growth in 2027.
Trinidad and Tobago is expected to post the second-weakest Caribbean performance this year, growing only 0.8%, before improving modestly to 1.5% next year.
Suriname, meanwhile, is forecast to accelerate from 3.5% growth in 2026 to 4.4% in 2027, putting it behind only Guyana among the Caribbean economies listed for next year.
The Bahamas is projected to grow 2% this year and 2.2% in 2027, while Barbados is forecast at 2.5% and 2.2%, respectively.
Caribbean Growth Outpaces Wider Region – On Paper
The Caribbean’s headline performance also appears exceptional when compared with Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole. ECLAC expects the wider region to grow only 2.2% in 2026, down from 2.4% in 2025, before recovering to 2.5% next year. But once Guyana is excluded, the Caribbean’s 1.1% growth forecast actually falls well below the wider regional projection.
ECLAC warns that the region remains caught in a prolonged period of weak economic expansion. If its latest forecasts prove correct, Latin America and the Caribbean will have experienced five years of average growth of approximately 2.3% – a pace the UN body considers insufficient to sustainably raise per-capita income and close development gaps.
Investment, Debt And Informality Remain Challenges
The problem extends beyond GDP growth. ECLAC identifies weak investment, slowing formal employment creation and persistent labor informality among the structural constraints limiting the region’s economic potential.
Nearly half of employed people across Latin America and the Caribbean continue to work informally, according to the report. The Commission argues that formal companies are better positioned to exploit economies of scale, adopt innovation, access financing and build productive capabilities.
Caribbean governments also continue to face substantial fiscal constraints. Gross public debt in the Caribbean stood at approximately 73% of GDP in 2025, according to ECLAC, while high financing costs and growing interest payments constrain governments’ ability to increase public investment and fund economic transformation.
The new projections therefore tell two Caribbean economic stories. One is a region apparently racing ahead at 5.6%. The other is a Caribbean outside Guyana growing at barely 1.1%. For businesses, governments and investors, the difference between those two numbers may be more revealing than the headline forecast itself.
READ MORE: For the investor analysis and what the country-by-country forecasts could mean for capital and investment, read “Caribbean Growth Forecast 2026–2027: Guyana Powers Regional Expansion, But The Numbers Reveal A Two-Speed Economy” on Invest Caribbean.
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New Data Points To A Caribbean Capital-Readiness Gap As Businesses Seek Millions In Financing
By NAN Business Editor
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. August 25, 2026: Caribbean businesses may face another obstacle beyond the region’s widely discussed shortage of financing – Caribbean Capital-Readiness. Many may not yet be prepared for the type of institutional capital they are seeking.
A new analysis of financing demand submitted to AI Capital Exchange, the debt pre-qualification platform powered by Invest Caribbean, has identified recurring mismatches between financing requests and the revenue, sponsor equity, collateral and financial documentation presented by prospective borrowers.
ACE has analyzed more than $200 million in financing demand, with Caribbean commercial real estate alone accounting for more than $244 million in stated financing requests in the platform’s current dataset. The findings do not represent approved or financeable transactions. Rather, they capture stated capital demand submitted for consideration — a distinction that Invest Caribbean says is central to understanding the region’s financing problem.
Millions Sought, But Equity Remains A Challenge
The commercial real estate data offers some of the starkest examples. One Caribbean request sought $150 million in financing while reporting $3 million in cash equity, equivalent to approximately 2% of the amount requested. Another sought $50 million against $2 million in reported cash equity, while a $32.473 million request reported no cash equity contribution. Some applicants also reported having no audited financial statements.
The findings suggest that the challenge confronting Caribbean businesses may not simply be finding institutions willing to lend. Businesses must also arrive with financial structures capable of satisfying institutional lending requirements.
Being Ready To Pitch Isn’t Being Ready For Capital
Data from ACE’s Capital Readiness assessment reinforces that conclusion. Among Caribbean respondents seeking financing of $1 million or more, roughly 9 in 10 reported either no annual revenue or less than $500,000 in annual revenue. Yet approximately two-thirds said their pitch deck was ready.
That distinction has become a central part of ACE’s capital-readiness message. A pitch deck can communicate an investment proposition, but institutional debt decisions typically depend on considerably more: revenue and repayment capacity, sponsor equity, collateral where applicable, financial statements and the underlying structure of the transaction.
Debt, Equity – Or Both?
The findings also highlight a persistent source of confusion among businesses seeking capital: the difference between debt and equity. Early-stage businesses without sufficient operating revenue may be better suited to equity capital than conventional institutional debt. Larger projects may require sponsors to raise equity before lenders will finance the remaining capital requirement.
Other transactions may require a combination of the two. Similar mismatches are appearing in submissions from outside the Caribbean. ACE has observed African expansion financing requests of as much as $5 million against annual revenue as low as $150,000, while Capital Readiness data from Latin America includes seven-figure financing demand from businesses reporting less than $500,000 in annual revenue.
The emerging data suggests that capital readiness could therefore be a broader challenge across developing and emerging markets.
From Capital Access To Capital Readiness
The findings raise an important question for Caribbean economic-development programs. While considerable attention is devoted to expanding access to finance, connecting businesses with lenders may accomplish little when businesses have not first been taught how institutional capital works. That includes understanding appropriate debt levels, sponsor equity, financial documentation, repayment capacity and whether a business needs debt, equity or a combination of both.
Invest Caribbean executives argue that closing this knowledge gap should become part of the region’s broader conversation about SME development and investment. Read the full Invest Caribbean Intelligence analysis on the Caribbean capital-readiness gap at Invest Caribbean.
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Beenie Man’s Eminence Snatches No. 1 on U.S. iTunes Albums Chart
Beenie Man
Move over, everybody—the King has entered the chart.
Dancehall heavyweight Beenie Man is sitting atop the U.S.
Ayra Starr Surprises Fans at Moxy London Stratford Ahead of All Points East Festival
Multi-award-winning Afrobeats pop superstar Ayra Starr gave fans the ultimate surprise on Thursday, August 20, 2026, when she made an exclusive pop-up appearance at Moxy London Stratford.
One Month After MV Barima Sank, Search Operations Have Ended, No Salvage Contractor Named, And Questions Remain
By NAN Staff Writer, NewsAmericas Now
News Americas, GEORGETOWN, Guyana, August 19, 2026: One month after the MV Barima capsized off the Essequibo coast on July 18, killing at least 73 people, the government’s active search for the 30 still missing has already ended, and despite an August 14th deadline for salvage bids, no contractor has been named to actually recover the vessel.
Search and recovery operations formally concluded on August 5th, less than three weeks after the sinking. Thirty people remain unaccounted for, while five recovered bodies still remain unidentified. For now what remains is a wreck sitting untouched in 13 to 15 meters of water, 28 nautical miles off Guyana’s coast, and a salvage process now five days past its own bidding deadline with nothing publicly resolved.
A deadline that’s come and gone
MARAD’s Expression of Interest window for salvage contractors closed August 14th. As of this week, no company has been publicly named with the Guyana President saying shortlisted companies will now be invited to submit financial proposals for the salvage of the vessel.
Opposition MP Mahipaul, who warned as early as August 3rd that “actual salvage operations are unlikely to begin until late August or even early September,” is still demanding that the government release basic information: the names of every company that submitted a bid, their proposed costs, and their technical approach. He called the delay itself “a cruel, insensitive, and entirely unacceptable delay” that risks destroying forensic evidence and prolonging grieving families’ anguish.
The pre-selection question MARAD never actually answered
The delay sits alongside an unresolved controversy over whether a contractor was effectively chosen before the public process even began. Kaieteur News reported that a Netherlands-headquartered firm, Koole Onshore and Koole Offshore (KMS), with a base in Suriname, submitted a 13-page proposal to raise the vessel dated July 28, five days before MARAD’s competitive bidding process officially opened on August 2. The leaked proposal reportedly stated KMS had been “invited by the Government of Guyana, through MARAD” to submit it.
MARAD issued two separate statements denying any company had been “selected.” But neither statement denied that KMS was approached beforehand, and MARAD never explained the five-day gap between the company’s dated proposal and the tender’s official opening. “MARAD wishes to clarify that no individual, company, or entity has been selected to undertake the salvaging of the MV Barima,” the department said in an August 7 statement, without naming KMS directly.
A month of unanswered questions, on more than one front
The stalled salvage process is only one thread in a month that’s raised repeated questions about the government’s handling of the disaster and its aftermath: an insurance admission that the vessel was uninsured, a $12.7 million replacement ferry that sat unused for three years, disputed millions in unresolved Exxon audit money, and now a salvage tender that missed its own deadline amid unresolved questions about whether the process was genuinely competitive from the start. Meanwhile on Tuesday, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali said the anxiously awaited Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the sinking of the MV Barima ferry will begin next month.
“In relation to the CoI, the team is in place. They have started looking at their procedures, settling their procedures, and working all their workplan, and from what I’m told in early September, the actual work would commence here on the ground,” he told a news conference. The President also dismissed calls by multiple opposition parties, civil society activists and individuals for minister responsible for public ferries Juan Edghill and minister responsible for Maritime Administration (MARAD) Deodat Indar to be removed from office.
“I believe that if we honestly and fully want an independent analysis, a transparent analysis, then the CoI, having been established, provides that opportunity. That is why the independence of the CoI was critical and important to us. The CoI, having been established, will conduct its work, make its determination, its recommendation, and then we’ll take it from there. I will not prejudice any action save and except those that are essential in the period from now to the end of the CoI, which include looking at the safety,” he said.
For the families of the 30 still missing and the crew sitting in jail while their bosses remain free, the practical reality one month later hasn’t changed: the wreck remains where it sank, and no one has told them when that will change.
NewsAmericasNow will continue tracking the MV Barima salvage process and its outcome.
Bahamas Tourism Investment Pipeline Hits $3.5 Billion As Visitor Arrivals Reach Record High
By Nan Business Editor
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. August 20, 2026: The Bahamas is seeing a major surge in tourism investment, with approximately $3.5 billion in announced and active projects across cruise infrastructure, luxury resorts, and destination development, according to the latest Caribbean Economics Quarterly from the Inter-American Development Bank.
The pipeline includes about $1.5 billion in cruise infrastructure in Grand Bahama, a $200 million Royal Beach Club Paradise Island development, and more than $1.3 billion in luxury resort projects across Eleuthera, the Exumas and Abaco. The investment wave comes as The Bahamas records historic visitor numbers. Tourist arrivals reached 12.5 million in 2025, up 11.4% from 2024 and about 72% above the 2019 pre-pandemic peak. But the visitor mix remains heavily skewed toward cruise tourism.
Approximately 85% of all arrivals were cruise passengers, a segment that tends to generate lower per-visitor economic value than stopover tourism. Meanwhile, stopover arrivals fell 2.6% to 1.82 million in 2025, continuing a recent softening in higher-value overnight tourism. That contrast raises questions about how effectively the country’s growing tourism infrastructure can translate record visitor volumes into deeper local spending, stronger employment and higher economic returns.
Foreign direct investment prospects remain positive. The report cites expected net FDI inflows of approximately $209 million in 2026, $263 million in 2027 and an annual average of $339 million between 2028 and 2030. Several of the projects are already under construction or operational, supporting construction and employment even where visitor trends fluctuate. The Bahamas therefore enters the second half of the decade with one of the largest visible tourism investment pipelines in the Caribbean.
The scale of the investment pipeline also underscores how central tourism remains to The Bahamas’ wider economic outlook. Large resort and cruise infrastructure projects can generate activity well beyond the properties themselves, creating demand across construction, transportation, food and beverage, professional services, entertainment and other tourism-linked businesses.
But the divergence between cruise and stopover arrivals will be important to watch. Record headline visitor numbers do not necessarily translate into equivalent increases in tourism receipts or domestic economic activity. Stopover visitors generally require accommodation and tend to spend across a wider range of local services, while cruise visitors spend less time in the destination.
The challenge for The Bahamas will therefore be converting the current investment cycle and unprecedented visitor volumes into greater value retained within the economy. New tourism infrastructure that encourages longer stays, greater local purchasing, stronger linkages with Bahamian businesses and increased visitor spending could determine how broadly the benefits of the investment boom are ultimately distributed.
What The Investment Pipeline Could Mean For The Wider Economy
Beyond the headline tourism numbers, the scale of planned investment could have implications for economic activity across multiple sectors. Major hotel, resort and cruise infrastructure projects require construction services, building materials, transportation, professional services and workers during development, while completed properties create ongoing demand for suppliers, hospitality workers and local service providers.
The geographic spread of the projects is also significant. With major developments extending beyond Nassau and Paradise Island into Grand Bahama, Eleuthera, the Exumas and Abaco, the investment pipeline has the potential to distribute tourism-related economic activity across several islands rather than concentrating new development in the country’s traditional tourism center.
For policymakers and investors, however, the key measure will ultimately be the economic value created from that expansion. Continued investment combined with stronger stopover tourism, increased local procurement and greater participation by Bahamian businesses could help turn today’s multibillion-dollar construction and development pipeline into longer-term economic gains.
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