Festival song entries now streaming
THE 2022 Jamaica Festival Song album is now available on music-streaming services across the world including Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Spotify, Tidal and Pandora.
The album, titled Jamaica Festival 2022 Song Competition, features the ten finalists in this year’s competition. This is the third-consecutive year that finalists in this competition have been released on global streaming platforms.
Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Olivia “Babsy” Grange, who has been leading the initiative as part of her strategy to revitalise Jamaica festival, is urging lovers of Jamaican music, everywhere, to support the artistes by streaming and downloading the songs.
“It is essential that people hear and get to know the finalists and participate in selecting that one song which will drive our Jamaica 60 Independence celebrations. These 30 or so streaming options are a good medium to expose the music and the performers. It is a good album which represents a mix of Jamaican music genres.”
The winning song will be decided by judges’ scores as well as public voting via text messaging in Jamaica and via the Reggae Jamaica app across the world.
The finalists are I’m A Proud Jamaican by Magic Flute; Rock To Da Beat by Intrestt; Jamaica Sweet Again by Dez I Boyd; Diamond Jubilee by Orkid; Bring Back The Love by Stamp; Jamaica Nice Again by Inspiyah; Out Of Many by Nazzleman, Sixty by One1; Nuh Weh Nice Like Yard by Sacaj; and Defend Jamaica by Nitty Kutchie.
Last week the ten finalists appeared in the first televised performance show ahead of the announcement of the winner on July 28, 2022. There’s a prize of $3 million for the winning song, to be shared among the producer, the writer and the singer.
The festival song competition hit a snag earlier this year when it was announced that no competition would be held due to the poor qualtiy of the entries. Public outcry forced Grange to revisit that decision, however, and a slate of finalists was then released to contest this year’s competition.