Roughly a decade ago artistes, musicians, music producers and lovers of local music marched through Port of Spain calling for greater radio airplay for local music. Rapso artiste Wendell Manwarren of the group 3Canal observes today, that many things have changed since.

"Andre Tanker who was forefront in the march has since passed away and calypsonian Winston "Gypsy" Peters who was also part of the movement for fairer airplay for our local music is now the Minister of Arts and Multiculturalism. Many things have changed, yet we are still waiting for more airplay," Manwarren said.

Manwarren with 3Canal and the Cut+Clear Crew will today, Emancipation Day, make a vibrant call for better a quota for local music through their show titled Freedom.com: Free the Music – Free Yourself. This is the fifth edition of the annual concert that is usually held close to the Emancipation holiday. It takes place at the poolside of the Carlton Savannah Hotel, Cascade from 6 p.m.

The concert will be presented in a radio station format where the music acts will be punctuated by brief explorations of where local music stands today. Manwarren said this idea was initiated some time aback in the days of D'Yard, which was the name given the home of the Rituals recording studio, which produced music from rapso artistes and other local acts.

"We had a little project called MLF meaning Music Liberation Front in which we asked ourselves what would we sound like if we had our own radio station and if we did, what would the quotas be like. The problem with airplay is a perennial thing that needs to be addressed because this is all about identifying who we are," Manwarren said.

Manwarren pointed out that during a recent symposium on entertainment one of the panelists suggested that Carnival may be detrimental to the entire cultural landscape because everything seems to be locked into the season. Manwarren said he can understand such concerns because, "We fixate on Carnival and forget we have an entire year to engage. We used to hear a lot of new music playing during the August holidays, but not these days. We did not stop making music, we just stopped playing it."

Freedom.com: Free the Music – Free Yourself will feature performances by 3Canal as well as rapso artiste Ataklan. Also in the line-up is 12 the Band and Kin Sibling Rivalry, which performs what they define as Caribbean rock. The event is being described as a festival of music towards the libration of the music as 3Canal and the other artistes involved again call for a quota of at least 50/50 on radio.

"The People is the music and the music is the people. If radio will not play local music we have the podcasts and will just go viral on the internet and iPhones," Manwarren said. Tickets can be purchased today at the Carlton Savannah hotel.