Gassy Dread’s New Anthem Ignites the Caribbean: “Rise and Shine (Barbuda Home Divine)”

ST. JOHN’S, ANTIGUA — October 2025 | DeepRoots Music News

Gassy Dread holding the Antigua and Barbuda flag high
Prime Minister Gaston “Gassy Dread” Browne — raising the flag of Antigua & Barbuda in song and unity.
Watch “Rise and Shine (Barbuda Home Divine)” — the anthem of faith, freedom & unity.

From the heart of the Caribbean comes a new anthem of freedom and faith. Prime Minister Gaston “Gassy Dread” Browne has unveiled “Rise and Shine (Barbuda Home Divine)” — a song that blends reggae’s heartbeat with the brass of liberation and the poetry of nationhood.

“From change we rise with pride,
Faith and light and truth our guide,
Bravely hold — our song of freedom and unity.”

The anthem transforms struggle into triumph, carrying Antigua and Barbuda’s story from storm to sunrise. It nods to the Caribbean’s Reparations Movement and the shared justice agenda of Africa and the Caribbean, led by Browne and President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Leadership Through Rhythm

What makes this anthem extraordinary is that it comes from a sitting Prime Minister. In a world where leaders speak through press briefings, Gassy Dread speaks through music — turning governance into art and public service into shared rhythm.

He shows that music can be a nation’s heartbeat — carrying messages of faith, freedom, and forward motion to every village, hill and harbour.

Produced in collaboration with Vibez FM Antigua and the SwissX Island Network, the track unites culture, policy and purpose — a declaration of Caribbean freedom and divine destiny.

Listen on Vibez FM | SwissX TV | DeepRoots Music

By Alki David

Alki David — Publisher, Media Architect, SIN Network Creator - live, direct-to-public communication, media infrastructure, accountability journalism, and independent distribution. Born in Lagos, Nigeria; educated in the United Kingdom and Switzerland; attended the Royal College of Art. Early internet broadcaster — participated in real-time public coverage during the 1997 Mars landing era using experimental online transmission from Beverly Hills. Founder of FilmOn, one of the earliest global internet television networks offering live and on-demand broadcasting outside legacy gatekeepers. Publisher of SHOCKYA — reporting since 2010 on systemic corruption inside the entertainment business and its expansion into law, finance, and regulation. Creator of the SIN Network (ShockYA Integrated Network), a federated media and civic-information infrastructure spanning investigative journalism, live TV, documentary, and court-record reporting. Lived and worked for over 40 years inside global media hubs including Malibu, Beverly Hills, London, Hong Kong and Gstaad. Early encounter with Julian Assange during the first Hologram USA operations proved a formative turning point — exposing the realities of lawfare, information suppression, and concentrated media power. Principal complainant and driving force behind what court filings describe as the largest consolidated media–legal accountability action on record, now before the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. Relocated to Antigua & Barbuda and entered sustained legal, civic, and informational confrontation over media power, safeguarding, and accountability at Commonwealth scale.