Music streaming service, Pandora, on Tuesday released its ‘Artistes To Watch’ lists for 2022 and eight Jamaican artistes have been featured among their Caribbean picks.

Unlike last year when only Jada Kingdom landed on the coveted list, this year saw the likes of LaaLee, Yaksta, Bella Blair, Kacique, Projexx, Indie Allen, Klassik Frescobar and Joby Jay being named as artistes to watch out for.

Pandora, in a bid to “dig into a wide range of genres”, has this year sought to include Latin and  Afropop in addition to their Caribbean choices.

In a post made to his Instagram page, Pandora’s Reggae/Caribbean programmer and curator, Diego Herrera, said the Caribbean is a “whole universe of stars” and dubbed their top 10 picks as ones to “shine bright in 2022.”

Herrera added that this year’s picks “represent diversity of sound and style” and said “the boundary-breaking spirit of their music speaks for itself” as he urged social media users to go and check out Pandora’s specially curated playlist with the top 10 artistes

First up on the ‘Caribbean Artistes To Watch 2022’ playlist is Projexx, with the song Sidepiece, followed by Joby Jay’s Deception; Laa Lee with Tip Inna It and Klassik Frescobar with Zessiando. Yaksta made the list with his hit single Ambition, Bella Blair made the list with Famous; Hey Choppa with Love Trip; Indie Allen trips in with Wanted; Kacique and Romieikon represent with Knock It, and Melly Rose ends the list with Amazing.

All the artistes included on the list have expressed excitement and gratitude for being chosen.

In a release, Pandora stated that the company chooses a wide range of artistes who show great promise for the following year.

“By leveraging a combination of human insights and sophisticated data analytics based on listener behaviour, Pandora and its Artiste To Watch programme have recognised a diverse range of artistes years before they broke through and became stars, such as Post Malone and Blackbear back in 2016, Lizzo and Dua Lipa in 2017 and H.E.R., Phoebe Bridgers and Greta Van Fleet in 2018,” the release stated.