THE Jamworld Entertainment Complex in Portmore experienced a tremor at 5:50 on Sunday morning when MC Nuffy announced his next act on the Sting stage. In a night that proved to be long and taxing, this was to be the first and perhaps only unanimous reponse to an artiste.

She was billed as one of the night’s major acts. Since an explicit photo of her appeared on the Internet, Lisa Hype’s popularity has soared beyond measure. She rode this popularity straight to Sting. Dressed in gold from head to toe, the petite artiste burst onto the stage on the shoulders of a burly black buck, she immediately began taking on her many detractors and left them for dead. However, her most biting lyrics were saved for fellow female artiste, Stacious. Both acts have been battling it out in the studios and the media and this was Lisa’s first time to vent live. She went about it in a no-holds-barred fashion highlighting Stacious’ tongue ring, compared to her small lip piercing. Lisa Hype is clearly a young artiste who has been thrown in at the deep end, and although she battled to stay afloat at times, she is definitely a fighter with a big heart and therefore drowning was not an option. Her 10-minute set was punctuated with salutes and forwards which only helped her with her confidence. At the end of the set she could proudly strut off stage — mission accomplished.

Another moment of excitement on the Sting stage was Kip Rich. He is one of those artistes who has literally grown up on the stage, from a shy young act, to a full-fledged heavyweight. At last year’s staging of Sting he showed exactly what he was made of and this year he was cemented his position. At 7:00 am Monster Hemp Higher’s General B was on stage and it was at this moment that ‘Kippo’ decided to roll on and launch his attack. Dressed in black from head to toe, Kip Rich was ready for war. What ensued for the next 8-10 minutes was an entertaining classic dancehall clash. Both aristes went head-to-head, no holds barred and at the end of it, Kippo stood tall. A dejected General B was spotted leaving the venue shortly after.

Twin of Twins injected their brand of humour, throwing words at fellow artistes. The crowd loved their jabs at Busy Signal for his reference to ‘Gary’ in the track One More Night. They too, like quite a number of artistes took a ‘swipe’ at Lisa Hype.

The major acts — Merciless, Mavado, Bouny Killer and Vybz Kartel, arrived in that order, in a blaze of glory accompanied by their entourages. However, despite the fact that their introductions were greeted with a fair amount of hype, the fireworks from past performances was definitely missing by sunrise on Sunday.

In the early segments of the show it was DJ Face who brought the first spark of life to Jamworld. She too took on her fellow female artistes including Lisa Hype (of course), Tifa, Macka Diamond and Queen Paula. The early birds inside Jamworld enjoyed this. The Living Fire — the artiste formerly known as Chuck Fenda would also inject life into the show with a stinging set. However, like so many acts past and present, he committed the sin of running off stage and then ran out of steam by the time he was called back.

The other sets which were memorable, were Etana, whose performance could have been ruined by a power outage on stage, she instead ket the vibe going performing without music or microphone to those up from and involving them in the act. Veteran Lady G was short and spicy, but still managed to use her experience to woo the Sting crowd. G-Whizz gave a decent account of himself and had it made by the time he got around to performing his hit tune, Life. Chino is proving to be quite the performer the crowd inside Jamworld loved it. What more can be said about Flippa Mafia, the money tossing, champagne popping, Flossing King. He did his thing and a few people were all the richer for it. Then there was Pamputtae. The black lace body suit and strategically place sequins gave an indication of what was to come and she delivered.

Reggae stage shows, the magnitude of Sting, have a formula — clash, ‘throw wud’, ‘bag a young artistes’ and stand out performances. When all these elements come together, in their correct proportions, what you have is undiluted success.

Saturday’s staging of Sting all these element, however the proportions were oh so wrong. This year’s formulation was ruined by an overdose of the ‘bag a young artistes’. One patron remarked, “Is a talent show Laing a put on.” Another was equally scathing and noted that the major acts did not begin to surface until after 4:30 am.