Shuga injects fun in Festival Song Competition
Winner to be announced tonight
Published:Saturday | July 29, 2023 | 12:07 AMShanel Lemmie/Staff Reporter
Reggae artiste Shuga is hoping to make the Jamaica Festival Song Competition fun again with her entry Dancing Same Way.
The entertainer, whose birth name is Misty Campbell, said initially she had no plans to join the competition but was encouraged by her collaborators, Donovan Germain and Duane Stephenson.
“Donovan Germain kinda said ‘Shuga why not? Why not write a song?’ And so I was very lazy towards writing a song, so I called Duane Stephenson who told me ‘You know I have a Festival Song already written and recorded’, so me say send it to me and I loved it but I did some edits. I added a third verse to it and we did it on a dancehall beat to give it a more youthful vibes, you know inviting the youths to come because Festival nuh affi always be about the mento sounds or the ska sounds.”
She continued, “Over the years we always feel like the Festival Competition is about old people or people who nuh really have no talent and we wah just sidung and laugh after so you know we just putting a little change in it.”
Among the entrants are Slashe with Best in The World; Mento Tones with Jamaica Mi Born & Grow; Av&ante with Jamaica a Mi Yaad; Lady Donna & the Whole Note Mento Band with Little Paradise; Hot Rod with More Love, N-Rich with Sovereignty, Princess Black with Big up Mama Ja, Prince Fabulous with No Weh Like Yaad, Eric Donaldson with Reggae Jamaica and Expo Levi with Feels like Home.
While Shuga is confident in her own song, she says the others are so good she is unsure where she will place.
“I don’t know, I can’t say because the other songs are also beautiful. I love them to be honest. Every single song highlights the beauty of our culture, the food weh we love fi eat and they are all very very inviting . So I really can’t say where I’m gonna place.”
The finals for the competition is set to take place tonight, where the 2023 winner, who will be selected by a combination of judges’ scores and public votes, will walk away with $3 million to be shared among the singer, producer and writer of the entry.