Abijah... It's a very important award because it shows that my work has not gone in vain

Singer Abijah made real his assertion in the title of his latest album, Moving 2 the Top, when he was on Monday declared winner of the Airplay Direct World and Reggae Music Contest.

"The winner of the Airplay Direct All Things Digital Reggae/World artiste contest is Abijah," screams the headline of the release posted on the Internet Radio's website.

Airplay Direct has 7,000 artistes using its service, and throughout the months of September and October, Airplay Direct has its first All Things Digital Reggae/World Artiste contest for its members. No entry fees are required for the contest. To be a contestant you must be an Airplay Direct artiste, your music must fall into the Reggae/World beat genre and entry must be submitted prior to the deadline of October 25.

"Abijah is one of the most versatile artistes to come out of Jamaica in years," the Airplay Direct website also asserted.
The grand prize package is valued at US$23,800, and included an artiste development/promotional campaign by KRucial Agency, a 12-week global PR/media campaign by Fly On The Wall Media; a song remix package from Many Moods of Music; an advertising and promotion package from Big Up Radio, and a custom brand T-shirt package from Artshirt Company.

We are ecstatic that Airplay Direct has selected Abijah as the winner of the All Things Digital World/Reggae Contest currently being announced to over 30,000 industry members of all genres," stated an email sent by KRucial Agency, Abijah's Boston-based US management outfit.

The diminutive, folksy roots singer born Andrew Smith, was naturally quite elated and spoke in a satisfied tone about this his latest triumph that has been added to his string of accolades since he first went into the studio with producer Mikey Bennett.

"It's a very important award because it shows that my work has not gone in vain," enthused Abijah in his interview with Splash when he was asked to comment on his winning the award which has consolidated even further his already thriving recording career.

"I was not up against amateurs or in a talent search, the contestants were all professionals, and you have rock; R&B; jazz and blues; reggae and all of that. And out of all of that, they felt that Abijah's music was different and it appeals to a wider audience," added the singer who has been steadily climbing the musical ladder since making a first impression with Revelation.

With some mildly successful follow-ups like Where Is That Love, Love Can Change The World (in collaborration with Nadine Sutherland), Overcome (along with Tevin Campbell), and I'm Bound In Zion, Abijah, for some time now, has been getting a lot of serious attention internationally.

"This Airplay Direct is Internet-based and it's above Sonic Base which a lot of people would be familiar with. And also Big Up Radio would be doing serious promotion on it, so already I was told that over 200 hits have been made to the website congratulating me on the award, and they felt that we deserved it because of the kind of music that we do."

Not to be left out of the celebration of his achievement, is Call The Planet (CTP), the Internet Telecommunication company for which he is the spokeman.

"I also got congratulations from our own phone company here. CTP's president, John Eitel, was very happy about my winning the award because it shows that we are doing justice to the investment the company has made in our career and even though Jamaican people probably have not heard much about Abijah, he is working very hard and his music is reaching different parts of the world."

"I've had awards for different things in music, but then I got the informatiom from management that I'm the winner of the Airplay Direct World Music Competition in which over 30,000 CDs for both professional (artistes) and celebrities submitted for the competition and I won," Abijah said. "I'm very excited about that because it's not a local talent thing, it's an international competition and you have to be an established artiste and have over three hit songs in your career. So my management has submitted the music and we got selected and we won for the last album, Moving 2 the Top."

Apart from acknowledge- ment of his enormous gift of music, Abijah was also cognisant of the flip the award has given to his image as an entertainer of international significance.
"Even though there is no hard cash to be gained, I welcome the reward because it comes with extensive publicity service, inclusive of newsletters, bios, T-shirts, new web page, airplay around the world and the album Moving 2 the Top will be remixed in the languages of different countries, places like Japan and Thailand and it will enjoy worldwide distribution.

"And basically, we're currently working very hard and we are looking at some tours again to promote this album...We just released the Moving 2 the Top video which has been getting a lot of rotation locally and we're presently going to be working on a new video called Be Happy, for the New Year. So that's the focus right now."

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