editorial
With 10 years of editorial experience spanned across print and digital, Sharine has created a body of work inclusive of music and culture reporting, branded content copywriting, cultural criticism and personal essays for publications across different disciplines. Her prose is evidence of a sharp, culturally-sensitive insight and adaptable voice.
Read select clips from her portfolio below.
To view her copywriting portfolio, please visit this page.
Caribbean Carnival
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Caribbean Carnival •
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Party on in 2024: Your Complete Carnival Guide to the Caribbean
Though the histories of the carnival procession differ across the region, what ties them together are their connections to freedom, emancipation, resistance and satire.
InterCaribbean Airline’s Caicique Magazine
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How the Caribbean diaspora exported Grenada’s ‘jab jab’ culture around the world
An emblem of rebellion towards colonial rule and order, it is the pinnacle of Black expression and liberation.
iNews
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Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival Finally Makes Its Full COVID-Era Return
Revelers from across the globe have been making their way to the nation’s capital, Port of Spain, for a long-awaited ancestral celebration that, up until two years ago, had persisted to display the culture and emancipation history of the Caribbean’s twin islands.
Complex
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The Year People Needed Carnival the Most, It Was Canceled.
Loyal enthusiasts on what they missed in a year they needed Carnival the most.
The New York Times
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Soca Revolution
Soca has long been the sound of rebellion and imagination and explores how its qualities can be applied to how we approach the future moving forward.
WePresent
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Here's what it takes to win a Caribbean carnival costume competition
We follow Caneisha Edwards as she competes in the King & Queen showcase.
CBC Arts
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Meet The Designer of the Caribbean's Most Exciting Carnival Costumes
We spoke with Keisha Als before she chipped down di Trinidad Carnival road
Nylon
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Instagram Apologizes for Blocking Caribbean Carnival Content
The popular platform says a "mistake" was made by hiding posts made by festival-goers.
Motherboard
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Jump Up, Turn Up, Dress Up: The Men Playing Mas at Carnival
Wearing colorful costumes at Caribbean carnivals isn’t just for women — but the gender politics are more complicated than ever
Level
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Breaking down the politics of generating a soca hit
Trinidad has long been the great decider of which singles take off, so how do countries on the periphery stake their claim?
On the A. Side
Film & Television
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Film & Television •
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Why Are Caribbean Accents Still So Bad on Film and TV?
If the current state of affairs is an indictment on anything, it’s that many people need to either reconsider their careers or simply leave the Caribbean and its people out of the stories they want to tell
Teen Vogue
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Filmmakers of Caribbean Heritage Address Hollywood’s Lack of Representation
Representative of a new wave, films “Mada,” “Belonging” and “Home” are among the promising depictions of a future where Caribbean voices are elevated.
Variety
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Phillip Youmans
The 20-year-old director talks to Sharine Taylor about walking the tightrope between teen prodigy and award-winning filmmaker.
Kinfolk
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She Paradise explores sisterhood and sexuality via Trinidad's soca scene
Director Maya Cozier and writer Melina Brown explore the nuances of Caribbean womanhood, music and culture in their debut feature.
i-D
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To the Producers of Marvel’s Luke Cage: Enough with the Ja'Faikans
In the latest season of 'Luke Cage', the portrayal of the Cinematic Jamaican falls short.
VICE
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Check It Deeply: The Caribbean From Our Lens
There’s power in reclaiming your voice, and at the current moment, Caribbean filmmakers are claiming control of how the people of the region are seen and heard.
LargeUp
Profiles
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Profiles •
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Shenseea Isn’t Abandoning Dancehall — She’s Just Doing It All
“I don't think that God gave me this much talent to please one type of audience. Why just do one? I should kill the other sides of myself to please [people]? I cannot do that.
Refinery29
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Buju Banton isn’t Interested in Legacy
In the latest season of 'Luke Cage', the portrayal of the Cinematic Jamaican falls short.
OkayPlayer
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A rare interview with Popcaan, dancehall’s past, present, and future
The dancehall innovator discusses his gargantuan new project, FIXTAPE, and the “good energy” he cultivated in his home parish of St. Thomas while recording.
The Fader
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15 years in, Protoje is still sleepless and inspired
On his new album, In Search of Lost Time, the reggae artist takes stock of his remarkable career without sacrificing his desire to lift up the next generation.
The Fader
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Spice Can Take A Likkle Heat
The dancehall superstar premieres her new video “Cool It,” and the ups and downs of being the 'Queen of Dancehall.'
Noisey
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Choreographer Kianí del Valle on healing intergenerational wounds through dance
For Puerto Rican choreographer and performance curator Kianí del Valle, dance is both the vehicle and the destination. It is the connective tissue to our ancestors’ way of celebrating and engaging in rituals, while also being a site for people to reimagine the possibilities of their personhood in today’s society.
Friends of Friends
Dancehall & Jamaican Music
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Dancehall & Jamaican Music •
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Meet the next generation of Jamaica's trap dancehall artists
Photographed by Jeano Edwards, these artists are evolving the subgenre and writing lyrics that speak to being young in 2022.
i-D
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The Genre-blending In.digg.nation Collective Is Pushing Jamaica's Sound Forward
Learn about its all-women signees from Lila Iké to Sevana.
Nylon
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The Essential Guide to Dancehall
Everything you need to know about one of Jamaica’s most influential musical exports.
Red Bull Music Academy
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VP Records: The House That Reggae (and Dancehall) Built
Though they pay close attention to the changing tides of Caribbean music and culture trends, VP Records’ passion for authentic dancehall and reggae has never waned, and it shows because they are now the world’s largest independent record label.
Complex
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Women in Dancehall Turn up for Pleasure Parity
Now as women become the most visible, and arguably, the most successful artists in dancehall, they’re speaking candidly about sex.
Bitch Media
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The Guide to Getting Into Vybz Kartel
To know Kartel is to understand his complexity, so we give you eight entry points to the prolific dancehall artist, whose musical breadth and overall intelligence is often underestimated.
Noisey
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Kingston’s coaster buses rule music on the road
Reflections on the intersection of music and transit in Jamaica.
The Fader
Fine Arts, Architecture & Design
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Fine Arts, Architecture & Design •
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How Jamaican-Canadian Photographer O’shane Howard Is Reframing Diaspora Portraiture
The photographer and director’s newest project YAAD is a nod to the culture around music, style and gestures that people of the diaspora engage with and retain in their new geographies.
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Picha Dis: An Analysis Of Jamaica’s Contemporary Visual Arts And Fine Arts Ecology And A Case For Its Expansion
‘Picha Dis’ is a guest essay part of the fi di gyal dem exhibition.
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Out of Many
Toronto-based photographer Jorian Charlton is building on this work of restoring and reimagining how Black life is portrayed.
Maisonneuve
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The Artists Bringing Jamaican Dancehall to Center Stage
A group of artists are reinforcing the undeniable cultural value of dancehall in Jamaican culture.
Hyperallergic
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See The Mosaic Of The Caribbean Come Together At A New AGO Exhibit
A new exhibition colours in a pale definition of the region’s history and presence.
Chatelaine
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Using Lego, Artist Ekow Nimako is Building on Black Mythology
With sculptures rooted in Afrofuturism and African mythology, the Ghanaian-Canadian artist is creating a new iconography.
designlines
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The Camp Barker Memorial Is a Sobering Look at America’s Past (and Present)
A Jamaican literary renaissance is upon us. Read up.In D.C., After Architecture’s Camp Barker Memorial remembers the unforgotten.
Azure
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Architecture Has Always Been a Part of Hip Hop’s History
“Hip hop culture was created with modernism as the backdrop,” Michael Ford tells us.
Azure
Cultural Criticism
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Cultural Criticism •
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The Grammys Snubbed Jamaican Artists, But Reggae Doesn’t Need Awards To Validate The Genre
Dancehall and reggae artists do not need their work to be validated or legitimized by an institution that has failed to bring itself up to speed. The music is valid and worthy because we made it.
Refinery29
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How Renaming a Toronto Street Glosses Over Racism
Changing a street name is a nice gesture, but Black residents in Toronto and elsewhere need more than commemoration.
Bloomberg: CityLab
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DMX’s Death Has Exposed The Insensitivity That Still Surrounds Substance Use
No matter how you look at it, DMX was a rap legend. But in the same way that his wins were public, so was his substance usage.
Refinery29
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Toronto’s Slang Isn’t ‘New.’ It’s Black
Even when it comes to the so-called rise of our own words, credit often goes to celebrities like Drake or Lilly Singh.
VICE
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Dancehall Is Pop Now, but We Can’t Let Pop Stars Steal Dancehall
Even when it comes to the so-called rise of our own words, credit often goes to celebrities like Drake or Lilly Singh.
Noisey
Literature
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Literature •
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Tajja Isen’s Some of My Best Friends is a perceptive analysis on how Black expression has been stifled
We need a more permissive, expansive sense of what Black writers are allowed [to do].
The Globe & Mail
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Not a ‘Cayliss Gyal’: Telling the Stories of Jamaicans Who’ve Had Abortions
Jherane Patmore founded an online site that shares stories of people who've had abortions in the Caribbean nation, where there's an ongoing debate about its abortion ban.
Rewire News
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Searching for Identity in the Diaspora as an Afro-Caribbean
Toronto’s Little Jamaica finally gets its literary moment.
Zora
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‘It’s More Complicated Than the Grass Being Greener’: An Interview with Alexia Arthurs
The author of How to Love a Jamaican on love in its various forms, finding belonging and mediating identity between and beyond borders.
Hazlitt
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8 Books by Jamaican Authors Every Person Should Read
A Jamaican literary renaissance is upon us. Read up.
Shondaland