{"id":5852,"date":"2025-11-05T18:22:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T18:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/05\/music-with-a-mission\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T18:22:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T18:22:43","slug":"music-with-a-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/05\/music-with-a-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Music With a Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Prince Forde, a proud Barbadian cultural advocate and co-founder of the Caribbean Music Awards, and Keenan \u201cSpecial\u201d Bristol, a Guyanese-American artist and activist, are using their platforms to save lives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Marie Driven, the Haitian-American managing partner of the Brooklyn-based entertainment company, PlaybookMG, told <\/span><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Caribbean Life<\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> on Monday, Nov. 4, that Forde and Bristol are doing so through \u201cMusic Brings Life,\u201d a nonprofit, \u201cmerging music, culture, and advocacy to raise awareness about the urgent need for blood donations across Black, Caribbean, and Latino communities.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Driven said, \u201cMusic Brings Life,\u201d and the Sickle Cell Consortium has partnered with the Boys &amp; Girls Club to launch this fall a three-state film screening tour for the new documentary, \u201cStudents Are Heroes: A Sickle Cell Warrior\u2019s Story.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u201cThe film highlights the courage of students and families living with sickle cell disease and how community action, particularly within the Caribbean Diaspora, can create life-saving change.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_78370\" style=\"width: 710px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-78370\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-78370\" src=\"https:\/\/www.caribbeanlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/caribbean-cultural-advocates-use-platforms-to-save-lives-2025-11-06-nk-cl02.jpg?quality=51&amp;w=700\" alt=\"Prince Forde, co-founder of the Caribbean Music Awards.\" width=\"700\" height=\"467\" title=\"\"><p id=\"caption-attachment-78370\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"image-caption\">Prince Forde, co-founder of the Caribbean Music Awards. <\/span><span class=\"image-credit\">Photo courtesy \/PlaybookMG<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">She said the tour launched successfully at the<\/span> <span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Worley Brown Boys &amp; Girls Club in Norcross, Georgia, will continue through New York City and New Jersey, with a nationwide expansion planned for 2026. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Driven said Prince and Keenan both share deep Caribbean roots. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">She said Prince Forde (Barbados\/Brooklyn) is the cultural producer, co-founder of Caribbean Elite Magazine and the Caribbean Music Awards, and COO of Music Brings Life. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Keenan \u201cSpecial\u201d Bristol (Guyana) is the founder of Music Brings Life, who has helped collect over 5,000 units of blood since 2009 through music-driven campaigns and outreach, Driven said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u201cTogether, they are on a mission to educate and inspire Caribbean and Latino families about the importance of blood donation and awareness for sickle cell disease, which disproportionately affects people of African and Caribbean descent,\u201d Driven said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u201cThis collaboration represents a powerful cultural moment, one where Caribbean creativity meets community health to drive awareness and action.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prince Forde, a proud Barbadian cultural advocate and co-founder of the Caribbean Music Awards, and Keenan \u201cSpecial\u201d Bristol, a Guyanese-American artist and activist, are using their platforms to save lives. Marie Driven, the Haitian-American managing partner of the Brooklyn-based entertainment company, PlaybookMG, told Caribbean Life on Monday, Nov. 4, that Forde and Bristol are doing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}