Coordinates: 13°10′N 59°33′W / 13.167°N 59.55°W / 13.167; -59.55

Barbados (ⁱ/bɑrˈbeɪdɒs/ or /bɑrˈbeɪdoʊs/) is a sovereign island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is 34 kilometres (21 mi) in length and up to 23 kilometres (14 mi) in width, covering an area of 431 square kilometres (166 sq mi). It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about 168 kilometres (104 mi) east of the islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and 400 kilometres (250 mi) north-east of Trinidad and Tobago. Barbados is outside of the principal Atlantic hurricane belt.

Barbados was initially visited by the Spanish around the late 1400s to early 1500s and first appears on a Spanish map from 1511. The Spanish explorers may have plundered the island of whatever native peoples resided therein to become slaves. The Portuguese visited in 1536, but they too left it unclaimed, with their only remnants being an introduction of wild hogs for a good supply of meat whenever the island was visited. The first English ship, the Olive Blossom, arrived in Barbados in 1624. They took possession of it in the name of the British king James I. Two years later in 1627 the first permanent settlers arrived from England and it became an English and later British colony.

Lars Magnus Carlsson (born June 24, 1974 in Borås, Sweden) is a Swedish singer and former member of the bands Alcazar and Barbados.

Magnus Carlsson grew up in Fristad, outside Borås. He attended comprehensive upper secondary school for 2 years with a focus on musical training, and four further years at the Faculty of Arts in Gothenburg University, where he studied to be a music and song/voice teacher.

Carlsson was first a singer in the Swedish dansband Barbados. Though near the end of 2002, he left Barbados and joined the pop-dance group Alcazar.

Carlsson participated in Melodifestivalen every year between 2000 and 2007 inclusive, except for 2004, either with Barbados, Alcazar or as a solo act.

At the end of 2002, Carlsson decided to leave Barbados, and on December 13, 2002, Carlsson became an official member of the pop group Alcazar. On January 24, 2003 he performed his last concert with Barbados.

In February 2006, he was a contestant in Melodifestivalen's semi-final in Karlstad with "Lev Livet!", composed by Anders Glenmark and Niklas Strömstedt, and qualified for the final in Globen.