The Festival Song Competition since 1966
has been recognized as the first step in the careers of many
prominent Jamaican artistes who have gone on to international
success. The competition over the years has become a showground
for aspiring artistes, songwriters and producers to showcase
their talents. Toots and the Maytals, Eric Donaldson, Desmond
Decker and Stanley Beckford are a few of the past winners
of this historic competition, who went on after winning to
leave their marks on the world and in the cultural history
of Jamaica. Since the inception of the competition there have
been several changes, including a name change, with the competition
being re-structured and re-branded as the Jamaica Popular
Song Competition, just after 2003. There have also been several
changes in the emphasis, structure and focus of the competition.
This year, in an effort to re- capture and re create feelings
of excitement and patriotism that were once associated with
Independence celebrations in Jamaica, the Jamaica Cultural
Development Commission has decided to re-introduce what was
known as the National Festival Song Competition .The year’s
competition aims to identify a new and original song that
is reflective of the spirit of the Jamaican people and to
provide a musical back drop for this year’s celebration
of Jamaica Festival.
Entries opened in December 2007 with just over 50 entries
being submitted to JCDC parish offices across the island.
From there, a listening session was held with a panel of judges
to conduct preliminary eliminations, based on originality
and lyrical content. All the successful participants were
then invited back to a live elimination held in April and
from this session the top ten finalists were decided.
Since then, the finalists have been involved in the production
of a compilation album produced by Clifton “Specialist”
Dillon. Each finalist was also assigned a top Jamaican director
to produce music videos for each song. A series of road shows
will be held across the island starting on June 14 and will
culminate on July 12 at the National Indoor Sports centre.
The winner of the competition will be decided via public
voting, a popularity poll as well as via the judges decision
at the final show. The winner of the competition will walk
away with 1 million dollars as well as other prizes.
See a list
of our past Festival Song winners
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