Minister of Entertainment, Gender and Sports, Olivia Grange has announced that the Jamaica Festival Song Competition is back on.
The Minister made the announcement during the opening session of the Jamaica 60th Diaspora Conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade on Tuesday, June 14.
The Minister added that she will be working with players in the entertainment industry for the competition.
“I have been networking with the entertainment industry to get good producers, songwriters and performers on board, so we can come up with 10 songs.”
Earlier this month, Minister Grange announced that the competition was omitted from this year’s Jamaica Festival package due to unsatisfactory entries.
The Minister in her speech emphasized the importance of this year’s competition and reassured the Jamaican diaspora that the competition will have quality entries.
“So, I want to say to the diaspora and to the Jamaicans here at home that we will have a festival song competition and we will have quality entries.”
She added that the competition is in addition to the Jamaica 60 commemorative album which will feature artistes including Shaggy, Koffee, Freddie McGregor and Marcia Griffiths.
Entries for the competition will reopen for one week from June 14 to 21 to select seven new songs. These will be added to the three songs already identified by the selection panel from the previous 123 entries.
A panel that was established to select the finalists for this year’s competition, advised that it was unable to choose ten suitable songs from among the entries despite extending the entry period.
The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) will be ramping up the Jamaica Festival Competition workshops over the next 12 months to ensure that there are improved entries for next year.
