Join the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival on Friday, September 5, for What We Sing When We Are Far From Home, an inter-generational conversation with legendary music producer Rawlston Charles, soca artist and cultural innovator Erphaan Alves, and ethnomusicologist Dr. Danielle Brown. As an an offering for those who understand that in the Caribbean, even in displacement, the divine still arrives on a riddim. this conversation will explore how music acts as both a sacred inheritance and a site of reinvention for diasporic Caribbean identities.

From Charles’ visionary impact to Alves’ genre-bending compositions that channel tradition through the aesthetics of now, this conversation will examine the body as instrument, the studio as altar, and the stage as portal. The Caribbean imagination is punctuated by rhythm and enveloped with sound. The entire Caribbean experience from birth is a sonic continuum; the bellies of her people swell with the sweet noises that have birthed the most important musical revolutions in modern history. From reggae, zouk and kompa to calypso, bachata and punta, sound – music and the upswing of accents from across the region – continues to be one of its people’s most enduring archives.

Hosted by Danielle Brown, this event takes up the role of music in shaping cultural memory, spiritual practice, and political expression across generations and geographies. What does it mean to carry the beat of an island into unfamiliar lands? What does it mean to sing the sacred in a strange place? What does it mean to carry the beat of an island into the world? What does it mean to listen back?

WHAT: Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival: What We Sing When We Are Far From Home

WHEN: Friday, September 5,  2025

TIME: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

LOCATION: MOCADA Culture Lab II, 10 Lafayette Avenue, 2nd floor, Brooklyn, NY 11217

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About the Guest Speakers

A Trinidad & Tobago immigrant and longtime Brooklyn resident, Rawlston Charles is a pivotal figure in the international rise of calypso and soca. Through his record shop Charlie’s Calypso City, his label Charlie’s Records, and his Brooklyn-based recording studio, also foundational to hip-hop’s earliest recordings, Charles helped shape the soundtracks of multiple diasporas. Charlie’s Records distributed Caribbean music around the globe, and Charles himself produced genre-defining hits like Calypso Rose’s barrier-breaking Tempo, Superblue’s sacred/secular blend Soca Baptist, and Explainer’s Lorraine, which made its way into the UK Top 40.

Erphaan Alves, known for his unique, melodic, husky-toned voice and electrifying stage presence, has steadily carved out a place in the canon of modern soca. A University of the West Indies graduate with a B.Sc. in Musical Arts, Alves was awarded Best New Male Soca Artiste at the International Soca Awards and named MTV IGGY Artist of the Week in the same breakout year. He made his debut appearance in the finals of the Trinidad & Tobago National Calypso Monarch in 2019 and has written for major soca acts like Kes the Band and Machel Montano. In addition to collaborating with top regional and international producers, he is a dedicated philanthropist and youth advocate, bringing the spirit of the Caribbean not just to the stage, but into community spaces across the diaspora.