Beenie Man has moved to calm a fresh Caribbean culture row, releasing a video message to clarify comments in which he claimed Jamaica started Carnival before Trinidad and Tobago. The clarification, posted to his Instagram page, follows days of pushback from Trinidad and Tobago and a round of fact checks that went against the King of Dancehall.

The Grammy winning entertainer, born Moses Davis, insisted his words were never meant as disrespect. “I don’t speak with Trinidad with hate,” he said in the video, stressing his love for the country and its people.

The clarification video was shared on Beenie Man’s official Instagram page.

What He Said In The Interview

The controversy started during a radio interview with host Shani Kulture, reported by World Music Views. Pressed on Carnival’s origins, Beenie Man stood his ground and credited Jamaican bandleader Byron Lee with starting the celebrations.

“Remember, Trinidad Carnival was Jonkonnu and all of them things there,” he said, according to World Music Views. “Yeah, Byron Lee started them things there.” He suggested Lee’s contribution dated back “some 60 years ago” and told listeners, “If you do your homework, you’re fine. I’m not telling a joke thing.”

The Caribbean Reacts

The reaction in Trinidad and Tobago was swift. The Jamaica Observer reported on October 24 that Beenie Man was facing Trinidadian backlash for the second time in just under two years and was seeking to clear the air. Commentators and historians in Trinidad and Tobago rejected the claim outright, pointing to a Carnival tradition documented since the late 1700s.

World Music Views, in a detailed fact check, concluded plainly that the claim “Jamaica started Carnival before Trinidad” does not hold up against the historical record.

What The History Actually Says

According to Trinidad and Tobago’s National Carnival Commission, the country’s Carnival tradition dates to the late 18th century, following the arrival of French settlers in 1783 and their pre-Lenten masquerade celebrations. After emancipation in the 1830s, formerly enslaved Africans reshaped the festival with their own music, dance and masquerade traditions, building the street Carnival the world knows today.

Jamaica’s Jonkonnu tradition is genuinely old, with roots in the early 1700s according to the National Library of Jamaica. But historians treat Jonkonnu as its own masquerade tradition, tied largely to Christmas, and distinct from the pre-Lenten Carnival that developed in Trinidad.

Byron Lee’s real legacy is different, and it is still major. After years performing at Trinidad Carnival, Lee announced Jamaica Carnival in 1989, and the first big road celebration rolled out on April 22, 1990. He built modern Jamaica Carnival into a fixture of the island’s entertainment calendar. What he did not do, historians say, is start Carnival before Trinidad: Carnival activity existed at the University of the West Indies, Mona, from the 1940s, carried by students from Trinidad and the Eastern Caribbean, decades before Lee’s road march.

The Clarification, And What It Did Not Say

In his video, Beenie Man explained that he was speaking about the Jamaican Carnival he grew up with: the music trucks, road marches and street celebrations that Byron Lee helped popularize. He acknowledged that Trinidad Carnival started long before the celebrations he was describing and asked fans not to misunderstand his intentions.

The message has been described by some as an apology, but reporting on the video notes he stopped short of explicitly retracting the original claim. That open question, whether the King now accepts the record as historians state it, is why the conversation is still running.

One Caribbean, Two Proud Histories

Strip away the rivalry and both islands keep their honors. Trinidad and Tobago built the Carnival the world flies in for. Jamaica guards Jonkonnu, one of the oldest masquerade traditions in the Americas, and Byron Lee turned an imported celebration into a Jamaican institution. Beenie Man’s olive branch may close the personal row. The history books were never really in doubt.

Photo: press image, Beenie Man.

Sources: World Music Views, “Beenie Man Claims Jamaica Started Carnival Before Trinidad, But History Tells a Different Story,” October 21, 2026; Vincypowa News, “Beenie Man Trinidad Carnival: Singer Clarifies Remarks,” October 24, 2026; Jamaica Observer, “Beenie Man faces Trinidadian backlash again, seeks to clear air,” October 24, 2026.