THE Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston took on the atmosphere of a reggae concert on February 10, as a programme to train inner-city youth in music performance and management came to an exciting conclusion.

Some 35 young persons graduated from the Diageo Learning for Life Project Artist, a year-long programme sponsored by the parent company of Red Stripe beer.

Several of the young artistes captivated the audience with their performances during the graduation. It may be a short time before the likes of Kenroy “Slim” Henriques, who sang Self Praise, Tomoy “Ikanjie” Gayle, who sang World Wide Love, and Layton “Honormosity” Simms, who sang Busy Making Money, make their debut on the international stage.

In the words of the Grammy-award-winning deejay and guest speaker Shaggy, who flew into the island especially for the occasion, “From what I can see the future of reggae is in good hands.”

With record sales dwindling across the globe, Shaggy told the graduates that the future of the music business lay in concerts backed by the sponsorship of corporate brands. He cautioned that homophobic and violent lyrics would isolate Jamaican music from the business.

The platinum-selling artiste also related how in 1993 he turned down £60,000 to do a concert in the United Kingdom in favour of performing one song for free on a BBC radio road show with listenership exceeding the five-million mark.

“Needless to say, I took ‘free’ but that 2,000-capacity venue could never mek up fi the write-up me get inna de morning dat wort’ more than any money me coulda get,” he explained.

Al Barnes, managing director of Red Stripe, said the programme was the first of its kind in Latin America and the Caribbean. Participants received more than 1,400 hours of instruction in the project, equipping them to work as soloists, band members, backup singers, as well as music, stage, artiste and road managers.

Diageo/Red Stripe partnered with the HEART/National Training Agency and the Edna Manley College for the Performing and Visual Arts’ School of Music to deliver the project.

Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange, in congratulating Diageo/Red Stripe for the project, said the cultural and creative industries will lead the way to Jamaica’s economic recovery.

“As we see the fallout in traditional industries like bauxite, the cultural and creative industries present several opportunities for new earning,” she said.

The minister encouraged the graduates to write positive lyrics and not to sing “anything that is demeaning of a woman”. Grange also urged them to pay attention to rights and royalties issues “because that will be your pension”.