ON Saturday night at the Excellence in Music and Entertainment Awards, held on the East Lawns of Devon House, Orville ‘Shaggy’ Burrell during his acceptance speech for being named Artiste of the Decade implored fellow artiste to support the EMEs.

Reminding that it’s our own, he urged that more support should be given. His plea was echoed by both Etana and Wayne Wonder.

The statements were made amidst the poor turnout by artistes to the seventh staging of the awards show conceptualised by broadcaster Richard ‘Richie B’ Burgess.

Award after award was announced with the winners nowhere to be seen. Deejay Bounty Killer was seen at the venue, yet he never appeared on stage to accept his award for Best Stage Performance, which he shared with Beenie Man.

With international faces such as Eve, Trina, comedian Rayzor, Soul Food star Rockmond Dunbar, it should have been a treat for all those who turned out, instead the event was plagued with poor sound quality, hitches in the presentations and even an incident where one of the co-host had to be corrected by the presenter about his name.

Commenting on the poor support from the artistes Richie B stressed that he does the show out of a passion and love for the music industry. “It is sad when international acts like Trina or Eve adjusted their schedules and made the commitment to travel to Jamaica, just so they could be here to collect their awards, while our own reggae stars choose to stay home. It is difficult to comprehend.”

Burgess reminded that when he decided to host the EME Awards, his motivation was “simply to honour and recognise the accomplishments of our own reggae and dancehall stars. If they don’t see the need to attend or participate in the process, what does it say about the state of our music…what does it say about our reggae industry?”, he questioned.

“We keep complaining about the Grammy Awards and the fact that they don’t give reggae the primetime exposure we think it deserves. We complain that it does not accurately reflect the industry, yet we do not support an event like the EME Awards which truly belongs to us. How do we expect it to grow and garner the international recognition that it truly needs?” Burgess stressed.

Glitches aside, there were some bright sparks to the evening which started off with an enjoyable dance routine from Dance Xpressionz.

Dub poets Nomaddz, with a piece A Suh Dem Seh, would have been perfect except for the expletive injected into their performance. The classy affair did not call for that.

Andrew Tosh from the first notes of Equal Rights one his father (Peter Tosh) hits had the crowd cheering.

Things heated up when international act Trina took the stage. She had them going with Here We Go Again and Single Again.

Etana’s classy performance made way for Lady Saw and Eve. The two injected some high energy into the show.