分类： entertainment

After 10 years of delivering high-end lifestyle experiences along Jamaica’s iconic north coast, one of the island’s most beloved event brands is stepping into an exciting new chapter. Originally launched as Cabana Beach Daze, the beloved entertainment staple has rebranded into the reimagined Cabana Day Club, with its milestone 10th anniversary celebration scheduled for Jamaica’s Labour Day, Monday May 25, 2026. The landmark event will be hosted at the breathtakingly scenic Gardens at Dunn’s River Falls in Ocho Rios, St Ann, offering guests a lush, immersive backdrop unlike the brand’s traditional beach settings.

The official preview launch for the anniversary event was held on Friday, May 8 at Ocho Rios’ Plantation Smokehouse, where key stakeholders got an exclusive first look at the brand’s evolution. Attendees included Tova Hamilton, State Minister for Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism, Michael Belnavis, Mayor of St Ann Bay and local councillor, representatives from the Jamaica Constabulary Force, as well as long-time brand partners, loyal supporters and industry stakeholders. The launch event featured brunch bites curated by the Plantation Smokehouse team, with emcee duties handled by Thais-Alexis Morrison, junior publicist at Broad Axe Communications.

For a decade, Cabana has built a fiercely loyal community of guests across Jamaica and the global tourism market, earning a reputation for its infectious vibrant energy, world-class premium cuisine, and stylish, inclusive crowd that draws both local patrons and international visitors. The decision to rebrand and shift away from its core beach-focused format comes as a natural response to shifting audience expectations, according to Warren Clarke, founder and CEO of Ascend Innovations, the event production company behind Cabana.

Clarke explained that while the brand’s original beach settings offered natural beauty, they created unforeseen limitations on the types of elevated experiences the team wanted to deliver. “Our audience has grown and evolved alongside us over the last 10 years,” Clarke noted. “What they want now is more intentionally curated brunch-style experiences, deeper luxury, more immersive atmosphere, and greater opportunities to connect with the brand while enjoying their day out. Rebranding to Cabana Day Club gives us the flexibility to deliver exactly that, without being confined to the constraints of a fixed beach environment.”

The 10th anniversary staging at Dunn’s River Tranquility Gardens is built around six core pillars that define the new Cabana experience: unbeatable location, expertly crafted cuisine, premium beverage selections, world-class entertainment, photo-ready aesthetic design, and unforgettable, high-energy party atmosphere. Guests can look forward to an expanded food court featuring 10 individual stations serving a diverse range of global and local cuisines, top-shelf liquor and craft beverage offerings, cutting-edge immersive decor installations, and premium lounge spaces designed for comfort and connection.

One of the most anticipated new additions for the anniversary event is the exclusive luxury cabana lounge experience. Each private cabana will come with its own dedicated in-cabana chef and personal host, who will attend to guests’ needs throughout the entire event. Clarke emphasized that the 2026 staging will elevate every single guest touchpoint, noting that early arrival is encouraged to fully enjoy the curated brunch service that kicks off the day’s celebrations before the full party gets underway.

Beyond the event itself, the anniversary celebration also marks a major milestone for Ascend Innovations, the production company behind Cabana Day Club. Clarke shared that the company was actually born out of the Cabana brand’s own operational journey. When he first launched Cabana Beach Daze a decade ago, there were no local production companies equipped to deliver the premium, high-quality services the event required. To fill that gap, Clarke invested in building his own production firm, which now services Cabana and a wide range of other premium events across Jamaica.

As Jamaica’s tourism sector continues to rebound and expand following global disruptions, the launch of the reimagined Cabana Day Club signals growing demand for high-end, experiential entertainment offerings that attract both local guests and international tourists, solidifying Jamaica’s reputation as a top global destination for luxury leisure experiences.

For emerging Jamaican singjay Denam, songwriting has long served as a raw, cathartic outlet for processing life’s hardest moments. His latest January 2025 release, *Depression*, dropped via his independent label 1Denam Music, and bears a title that directly reflects the dark emotional headspace he occupied when crafting and recording the track. Unlike many polished pop releases that distance artists from their personal truth, this single draws directly from deeply personal, intimate experiences that have shaped Denam’s life and career.

In discussing the track’s origins, Denam opened up about the profound betrayal that sparked the song’s creation: trauma inflicted by close friends and family members he had welcomed into his inner circle, a betrayal that pushed him to the brink of death. Far from keeping his pain private, Denam crafted *Depression* as a beacon of connection for others who have navigated similar dark periods of betrayal and mental struggle, aiming to let listeners know they are not alone in their suffering.

Denam’s drive to build a career in music is rooted in the challenging conditions of his upbringing in one of Jamaica’s most violence-plagued communities. Hailing from Raymonds in Hayes, a neighborhood in Clarendon widely known for persistent violent crime, Denam has carried a lifelong goal to escape cycles of hardship and build a meaningful legacy through his craft. Even now, years into his artistic journey, he describes that work as ongoing—and *Depression* marks a key milestone along that path.

The artist’s passion for music was first ignited by iconic Jamaican artist Bounty Killer, the self-styled “Poor People Governor,” whose gritty, authentic tracks documenting urban life in Jamaica left an indelible impact on a young Denam. Now a decade into his professional recording career, Denam has built a discography that includes earlier well-received tracks such as *Blessing*, with *Depression* representing his most vulnerable and personal work to date.

Veteran dancehall performer Spragga Benz is not settling for a standard private birthday party to mark his latest milestone. Instead, the Jamaican entertainer has built an ambitious multi-city tour experience titled ‘Journey to Kingston’, designed to honor his decades-long career, his closest collaborators, and the cultural roots that shaped his iconic sound.

The cross-continental event series will launch its first stop on May 30 in Miramar, Florida, before moving to a second showing in Philadelphia, and wrapping with a star-studded flagship showcase in Kingston, Jamaica — the city that the artist says remains the heart of both his personal identity and artistic practice. In a lighthearted interview, Spragga Benz teased that the opening Florida event will feature a stacked lineup including fellow dancehall greats Wayne Wonder and Agent Sasco, with surprise guests making unannounced appearances throughout the night. He framed the opening stop as an energetic ‘Camperdown takeover’, nodding to his Jamaican artistic origins.

Beyond the fanfare of a birthday celebration, Spragga Benz emphasized that the core vision for the series centers on reflection and gratitude for the community that has supported his career across more than 40 years. The tour is designed as a tribute to the peers, mentors, and fans who have walked alongside him throughout his evolution as an artist. ‘It’s going to be a celebration of my journey in music to this point; people who I met along the way, great friends who always support each other, and we’re getting the opportunity now to showcase it in a really clean and classical manner,’ he explained.

The final Kingston showcase will carry unique cultural and personal weight, with a innovative format that reimagines traditional dancehall performance. Spragga Benz plans to blend decades of reggae and dancehall nostalgia with full orchestral arrangements, transforming the event from a standard concert into a one-of-a-kind cultural experience. The lineup will include appearances from multiple members of the iconic Marley family: Stephen, Damian, and Ky-Mani Marley will share the stage alongside rising young talent including Mystic and Yohan. Orchestral accompaniment will be provided by musicians from the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts School of Music, one of the Caribbean’s most prestigious performing arts institutions, a choice Spragga Benz says aligns with his goal of framing Kingston as a culturally rich classical city. ‘We have Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts School of Music, which is one of the top schools of music in the Caribbean, so we are supposed to showcase the thing, and not just in a boogu-yagga way,’ he noted.

The performances will pull heavily from what Spragga Benz’s longtime collaborator and friend Wayne Wonder playfully calls their ‘lion-logue’ — a sprawling, decades-spanning catalog of beloved hit tracks that sets veteran industry artists apart from newer acts. Spragga Benz noted that even he could perform for a full two hours drawing just from his own most iconic work, and the combined lineup would have no shortage of fan favorites. Instead of rushing through dozens of tracks to fill time, the team has curated a tight setlist of songs that hold deep personal meaning from across their collective journey in the industry. ‘Each of us combined, it is going to be something special. We won’t be doing every song from our catalogue, just specially chosen songs that mean a lot to us along our journey coming up,’ he said.

The celebratory tour also mirrors the remarkable evolution of Spragga Benz’s career, which has expanded far beyond the boundaries of dancehall music. From starting out as a young emerging artist to expanding into film and other areas of the entertainment industry, growth has been a consistent throughline in his decades-long career. ‘My career has moved a lot from where it started from, definitely, because now I’m even involved in movies and other aspects of entertainment as well. And, for a person who never even saw themselves as an artiste or deejay, it’s been a good ride for me,’ he reflected. ‘I see a lot of growth along the way for me.’

That same theme of gratitude, maturity, and growth is central to Spragga Benz’s newest single, *Hallelujah*, a track born from a period of deep personal introspection. He explains that the song centers on the importance of giving thanks for life’s blessings, and reflects the perspective he has gained with age. ‘Yuh haffi give thanks inna everything and give thanks for the giving of thanks. As we are talking about the journey and growth in life. I see a lot of growth in myself, and Hallelujah kinda talk about a lot of that,’ he said. ‘At one stage, as an entertainer, I was definitely out there, but now, at this age, I see that I don’t need to be certain places or do and say certain things. And we have enough experience now to try impart knowledge to others and show them certain things never work and advise them to regroup when things aren’t working.’

For Spragga Benz, the track captures the quiet peace and balance he has found in this stage of his life, a far cry from the chaotic pace of his earlier career. ‘I can kick back inna mi pajamas right now and be a better father, that’s what Hallelujah is for me,’ he said. He added that the track’s concept was inspired by his longtime friend Banka, who helped shape the song’s core narrative, and that the track’s music video was filmed on location in Barbados, capturing the laid-back, grateful energy of the song.

As anticipation builds for the Journey to Kingston series, the event is shaping up to be far more than a retrospective of a legendary career. Instead, it offers a carefully curated look at an artist who continues to grow and evolve, honoring his Jamaican roots, celebrating the community that lifted him up, and sharing the hard-won wisdom that comes with decades in the entertainment industry.

In a surprise Friday release that sent shockwaves through the global hip-hop and dancehall communities, global rap superstar Drake dropped three full-length studio albums simultaneously, opening up major spotlight opportunities for three talented Jamaican music creators, including a rising young Montego Bay producer.

The 25-year-old beatmaker Justin “Mvssivh” Junagadala, who hails from the West Gate community of St James, earned not one but two production credits across the new project slate: one on *Ran to Atlanta*, a high-profile collab from the 18-track album *Iceman* that also features Atlanta rap heavyweights Future and Molly Santana, and a second on *New Bestie*, a track from the 11-song *Maid of Honour* that includes a lyrical shoutout to iconic incarcerated dancehall artist Vybz Kartel. Well-known Jamaican dancehall star Popcaan also landed a feature spot on *Amazing Shape*, another track housed on *Maid of Honour*, marking the latest in a long string of high-profile cross-Atlantic collaborations between the Jamaican star and Drake.

Sharing his excitement with fans on Instagram following the drop, Mvssivh opened up about the years of grind that led to the career milestone. “Still can’t process this…constant sleepless nights for the last three years to make this play happen. God is the greatest…the show keeps going,” he wrote in a caption alongside the official *Maid of Honour* album art. For his *Iceman* credit, he confirmed he split production duties on *Ran to Atlanta* with two of the industry’s most in-demand hitmakers, Wheezy and Southside, writing “produced by yours truly and the guys.”

A lifelong music producer who started crafting beats as a teenager, Mvssivh is an alumnus of both Heinz Simonitch and Hillel Academy, and the new Drake placements mark one of the biggest breaks of his young career so far. He is far from the only Jamaican creative tapped for the new album rollout: Toronto-based Jamaican super producer Matthew “Boi-1da” Samuels picked up a co-production credit for *National Treasures* on *Iceman*, while Jamaican artist-songwriter Tyshane “BEAM” Thompson — son of legendary gospel recording artist Papa San — earned a songwriting credit for *Which One*, the 11-song track from *Iceman* that features UK rap star Central Cee.

A slew of other top commercial artists also appear across the three album drops, including rising American rap star Sexyy Red, Grammy-nominated R&B artist PARTYNEXTDOOR, and UK drill trailblazer Central Cee, alongside the other collaborators. The simultaneous triple album release marks one of the most ambitious drops of Drake’s decade-plus career, and the inclusion of multiple Jamaican talents highlights the ongoing massive influence of Caribbean production and vocal talent on mainstream global hip-hop and pop.

One of reggae music’s most exciting rising stars, Immanuel ‘Ras-I’ Kerr has formally launched his highly anticipated third full-length studio project, *Heart of Love*, which made its official global debut on Friday, May 15.

Kerr, who previously earned critical acclaim and fan favor for the fan-favorite tracks Kingman Ting and Crazy Over You, has crafted this new 12-track collection as a curated selection of upbeat, soul-warming reggae designed to lift listeners’ spirits. Three cuts have already emerged as early standout selections from the album: Somewhere Wonderful, Reggae Mountain, and the collaborative track Oya, which features a guest verse from popular dancehall artist Govana. Industry observers note the new release further solidifies Kerr’s growing reputation as a consistent hitmaker, with the cohesive, well-crafted project standing as proof of his evolving artistic range.

Ahead of the official street date, Kerr hosted an album launch celebration on Thursday, May 14 at Kingston’s popular Janga’s Soundbar & Grill. The event drew a packed crowd of enthusiastic fans, music industry stakeholders, and fellow artists, all gathered to honor Kerr’s career milestone. Many of Kerr’s peers in the Jamaican music scene turned out to show their support in person, including prominent reggae and dancehall acts Christopher Martin, Turbulence, Bugle, Naomi Cowan, Joby Jay, Royal Blu, and Jah Lil, among dozens of other attendees.

As of the official release date, *Heart of Love* is available for both streaming and digital purchase across every major global audio platform, allowing fans anywhere in the world to access the new record.