The sight of Trini­bad artistes Kashif “K Man” Sankar and Meschach “Plumpy Boss” Em­manuel per­form­ing to­geth­er, bump­ing fists and shar­ing the stage, has been wel­comed by res­i­dents of com­mu­ni­ties long di­vid­ed by gang vi­o­lence, who say the mo­ment sig­nals a re­turn to a time when peo­ple could move freely with­out fear.

The two artistes, who had been bit­ter ri­vals, ap­peared to­geth­er at Sum­mer Stage in Port-of-Spain on Sat­ur­day, af­ter meet­ing ear­li­er that day at the con­stituen­cy of­fice of Tu­na­puna MP and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der.

For res­i­dents, the sig­nif­i­cance went be­yond the mu­sic.