BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – LOCAL acts slated to perform on the St. Kitts Music Festival 20 stage are given further incentive to put their best foot forward with the Minister of Tourism the Hon. Lindsay F. Grant indicating that a scout would be in attendance of the event in search of local talent.
Grant made this pronouncement yesterday (Jun. 15) at the Music Festival 20 press conference held at the Ministry of Tourism’s Conference Room.
He was however guarded and chose not to reveal the name of the scout or the name of the institution that he represents.
“I want also to tell you that this year is one of the years that we are going to have more local artistes than normal. Over the last 20 years we’ve been growing our local artistes and featuring them, and this is what we want to do to continue that trend. I’m not gonna announce a name or an institution, but this year in particular we have an individual who’s going to come to St. Kitts next week, who represents the music industry internationally; very well-known and he’s coming like how people come to scout.
“You know sometimes you are in baseball and you have the coach going around scouting for players? Well, he’s scouting local talent in St. Kitts that he might be able to market internationally and on the international world stage. So I won’t announce who he is, I won’t announce the institution that he comes from, but he is going to be here looking at our local artistes and seeing what he can capture from…”
Making mention of international pop sensation Rihanna who hails from Barbados, Grant suggested that this is a great opportunity for the local artistes.
“Rihanna is just across the road in Barbados… my colleague [Ambassador Jonel Powell] would tell you when he was in Barbados studying and she came, she wasn’t anything at the time. Now she is one of the biggest international acts. So you know there are so many possibilities and so many opportunities, because the world is so much smaller and this is why we want to make sure that our people get that opportunity.”
The local acts who would be performing on Thursday (Jun 23) night at the St. Kitts Music Festival 20th edition are Shanna, Nicha B, KJah, KES the Band, Nu Vybes Band International and the Small Axe Band; while Dejour, Mod Stoney, I-Mark, Rodney and Crucial Bankie are scheduled for the following night.
