Pan­nist Joshua Re­grel­lo has of­fi­cial­ly been named a Guin­ness World Record hold­er for the longest marathon play­ing steel­pan, mark­ing a his­toric achieve­ment not on­ly for him­self but for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment and cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty.

Re­grel­lo con­firmed the news yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing months of an­tic­i­pa­tion af­ter his record-set­ting per­for­mance.

In an emo­tion­al state­ment, he said, “Months ago, we came to­geth­er with one mis­sion: to make his­to­ry through the pow­er of steel­pan and uni­ty. To­day, that dream is a glob­al record.”