In a night that demonstrated the essence of what it means to be Jamaican, Pepsi-Cola Jamaica officially launched its Blast Your Jamaican Flava campaign for youth empowerment across the country.

The company made the announcement on Tuesday, August 22, on the lawns of the Hope Gardens.

Pepsi-Cola Jamaica’s Commercial Manager Luz Tejada shared that Jamaicans can expect a number of initiatives over the coming months that will provide real opportunities for young people to be empowered and to passionately express themselves.

“We are embracing the talents that exist here in the Jamaican youth and providing a platform for empowerment. We will be doing scholarships in different skills-based areas, engaging our arts-based schools to design labels for us, and doing our community mural projects,” expressed Tejada.

With the help of the company’s youth ambassadors there will also be a road tour visiting select town centres across the island and encouraging everyone to “blast their Jamaican flavour”.

Meanwhile, the endeavour has already been kicked off with the concurrent launch of the official Blast Your Jamaican Flava video commercial which features all six new Pepsi youth ambassadors — singjay Romario “Laa Lee” Ricketts, Pink Apron Catering’s Charissa Henry-Skyers, augmented reality artist Benito “Don Dada” Thompson, hairstylist Angel- Lee Morgan, dancer Raquel Monteith, and footballer Devon Williams.

Laa Lee, whose voice can be heard crooning in his self-ascribed Amapiano and dancehall flair was amongst several of the ambassadors who were on location expressing their gratitude for the opportunity to join the campaign and spread their own unique flavours.

The singjay performed a chorus of hits after sharing: “I always see the big artistes like Shenseea and Busy Signal get to do these types of campaigns and, as a ghetto youth from Jungle, this is a big thing for me. And if I can do it, you can do it.”

And founder of the Pink Apron Jamaica Limited catering company Charissa Henry Skyers also got to use the launch as a platform for her own talents, providing a menu of tantalising hors d’oeuvres with Pepsi on the side. She shared: “I really hope that this campaign encourages other young people out there to just know that they can blast their Jamaican flavour. So just do your thing. At the end of the day you can’t do anything until you actually try. Just be bold, step forward, be yourself, blast your flavour.”

Minister of sstate in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Alando Terrelonge lauded the company for celebrating “the extraordinary creativity and diversity inherent in our culture”.

The Blast Your Jamaican Flava campaign is one avenue which Pepsi-Cola Jamaica will use to continue investing in Jamaica and comes on the heels of the successful “Jama-I-CAN” campaign, where the focus was set on celebrating the cultural heritage of the country.