What to know
- Freetown Collective returns to Toronto’s Phoenix Concert Theatre on Aug. 1 with its immersive Welcome to Freetown live experience.
- The Trinidadian band says its music is rooted in a little-known history of a freed community in Trinidad that inspired its name and philosophy.
- Founders Muhammad Muwakil and Lou Lyons hope to challenge stereotypes about the Caribbean by sharing stories of resilience, culture and identity.
- The group says its live performances are designed to build community, bringing audiences together through music and shared Caribbean experiences.
A popular Trinidadian band returning to Toronto for a second year is paying homage to a historic moment in their country’s history, while sharing the stories of Caribbean communities.
Well-known for sharing stories from Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean, Freetown Collective is returning to Toronto with Welcome to Freetown, an immersive live experience celebrating Caribbean storytelling, community, and culture.
Freetown Collective: More than music
Freetown co-founders Muhammad Muwakil and Lou Lyons explain that their music has never just been about entertainment.
When the musical collective, which is made of six artists, takes the stage at Toronto’s Phoenix Concert Theatre on Aug. 1, local audiences won’t simply be attending a concert. They’ll be stepping into “Freetown,” what Muwakil and Lyons describe as a philosophy rooted in freedom, community and the power of Caribbean stories.
“Each person that comes and listens to the music becomes, in and of themselves, a Freetown,” Muwakil shared in an interview with Now Toronto. “They can go on and free other people.”
The idea traces back to what the bandmates refer to as a little-known chapter of Trinidadian history.
Freetown, Trinidad
Muwakil explained that the inspiration behind their group dates back to the mid-1800s, when a group of West Africans who arrived in Trinidad as indentured labourers purchased land and established a settlement they called Freetown. The lead singer shared that residents of the area pooled their resources to buy the freedom of enslaved people, who would later repay the community while helping continue the cycle.
The settlement was eventually renamed, becoming part of what is now known as Belmont, and much of its history has faded from public memory. As a young man in Trinidad, Muwakil says discovering the story transformed how he viewed both his neighbourhood and himself.
“I found out about this history when I was in my early 20s, and it was just so amazing to realize that the history had been almost wiped out,” he says. “The way Belmont is now couldn’t be what these ancestors had intended. So how do we reignite that idea at this time?”
That question ultimately became the foundation for Freetown Collective.
Co-founded by Muwakil and Lyons, the soulful Trinidadian band has built a devoted following across the Caribbean by blending soca, reggae, spoken word, calypso and other influences into music that refuses to fit neatly into one genre. Their six-member live lineup also features vocalists Shanna Joseph, Tishanna Williams and Malene Joseph, collectively known as “The Trinity”, alongside DJ and bassist Jayron “Rawkus” Remy.
Rather than chasing labels, the group embraces the Caribbean’s long tradition of musical evolution.
“We don’t put the music in a cage,” Muwakil says. “It’s very difficult for us to say that we’re reggae artists or calypsonians. We draw from the wider world and make it uniquely our own.”
For Lyons, that fusion is deeply connected to calypso’s history as a storytelling tradition.
“Through calypso, our stories are told,” he explained to Now Toronto. “It is a vehicle to tell our stories… it doesn’t feel strange to present a fusion of what we are inspired by because calypso is the DNA that came straight from the continent.”
Caribbean artists telling Caribbean stories
That commitment to storytelling extends well beyond Carnival. While the annual celebration often serves as an entry point for international audiences, Lyons says the band’s work is ultimately about exploring what it means to be Caribbean today.
“Carnival is a platform for the stories of how we, as a people, thrive and survive,” he explained. “It’s only through telling our stories, where we’ve come from, what we’ve had to endure and our continued value to the world, that you can feel purpose.”
Muwakil agrees, arguing that Caribbean narratives have too often been reduced to beaches, sunshine and vacation imagery.
“We’re not a place outside of time for people to escape,” he says. “It’s not just a yellow bird and a banana tree or somebody playing steelpan on a cruise ship. It’s so much more than that.”
Those themes come alive during Welcome to Freetown, the band’s signature live production.
Originally launched during Trinidad Carnival, the concert has grown into a widely celebrated live music experience. Rather than focusing solely on performance, the concert intends to create a space where audiences can connect through music, conversation and shared experience.
“It is [important] to be able to set up safe spaces where this music and these ideas could take root,” Lyons shared. “We’re telling people you can come experience what it means to be a Freetown, then go and start your own.”
That philosophy is also why Toronto has become an increasingly important destination for the band.
Bringing Freetown to Toronto
Toronto loves the Caribbean, and the Caribbean loves our city right back. In recent years, artists from the region, particularly Trinidad, have been making waves across the GTA. Trini group Kes the Band has now sold out RBC Amphitheatre twice, and artists like Nailah Blackman, Destra and Lady Lava have performed to adoring crowds at venues across the city. So another group from the country coming to Toronto makes sense.
The co-founders explained that the decision to bring their show to our city extends beyond the city’s large Caribbean community and its status as home to North America’s largest Caribbean Carnival. Muwakil and Lyons explain that streaming data revealed a significant audience waiting for them here. After drawing hundreds to a previous Toronto performance, returning felt like a natural next step.
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And seeing the show live is important. The duo shared that live music gives listeners something that streaming, listening on a CD, cassette tape, or vinyl simply cannot.
Muwakil describes concerts as spaces where strangers become connected through shared emotion.
“When people come together, something different happens,” he says. “The music is tuning your vibration, and thousands of people are feeling the same thing. It makes you realize we’re probably all going through the same human experience.”
While Lyons explained that it also fosters community with the artists themselves.
“You could have a personal relationship with the music and not even know what the artists look like,” Lyons says. “But it’s a different experience to see the artists live, hear where the songs come from and meet like-minded people.”
While Freetown Collective is gearing up for their second Toronto performance, they are already beginning to plan their 2027 Carnival season back home, and their ambitions remain expansive.
“We want to continue changing the landscape of art and culture in the Caribbean,” Muwakil says, adding that he hopes audiences for all of their shows, be it in the Caribbean, locally in Toronto, or as far as London, England, leave with a broader understanding of Caribbean creativity itself.
The singer also added that in their mission to share stories, they are also looking to connect communities. He urges Caribbean people to stop arguing and creating divides between countries and cultures, as they share more similarities than differences.
“I’d really like Caribbean people to stop the division,” he explained. “Whether it’s reggae, bouyon, soca or calypso, it’s us. We’ve managed to rock the world through music, philosophy and culture. If we as Caribbean people would just realize that, we’d continue to change things.”
Freetown Collective performs Welcome to Freetown on Saturday, Aug. 1, at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto. They also have a July 26 show in Ottawa, a July 28 show in Montreal, and a July 30 performance at Toronto’s Roots & Riddim, located at The Bentway. Tickets for Welcome to Freetown are $35 and are available through TicketGateway, while Roots & Riddim tickets are priced at $100.
