By: Precious Mills
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Wednesday 6th June 2018)-The Chairman of the Production and Artistes Selection Committee for the St.Kitts Music Festival, Jonel Powell, revealed that the local acts are not slated to start to nightly concerts as has been the norm over the years.
Instead, as outlined by him, for the upcoming three-night festival slated Thursday 28th June to Saturday 30th June- Destra, Chackademus& Pliers and Rhythm of the Beat will kick off the show respectively.
“We want to use the opportunity to encourage persons to come to the Festival on time. We are not going down to 3, 4 in the morning. We have less artistes and in order for you to get your money’s worth and to see the artistes and to see the shows, you have to come on time. We have all headliners ladies and gentlemen and so coming at 10 O’clock fashionable late can mean you’ll miss half to three quarts of the show,” Powell advised while speaking at press conference held on Tuesday 5th June at the Ministry of Tourism located at Port Zante.
This media house understands that the Rhythm of the Beat is a band whose members include musicians of St.Kitts-Nevis roots residing overseas.
For the 22nd annual St.Kitts Music, four (4) homegrown acts are slated to perform namely Nu Vybes Band International (De Sugar Band, the reigning Sugar Mas Road March Champions Small Axe Band, Dejour and Byron Messia.
The official line -up for the respective nights are as follows:
Thursday- Nu Vybes Band International and the Small Axe Band, Spice, Destra, KES The Band and Nailah Blackman.
Friday- SizzlaKalonji, August Alsina, Ishawna, Wayne Wonder, Chackademus&Pliers, Dejour and Byron Messia
Saturday- Fetty Wap, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Patti LaBelle and Rhythm of the Beat
Chairman of the Marketing Committee Val Henry emphasised the call for patrons to be on time saying: “We have given you for all three nights who will be the opening act. What we have deliberately not given to you is who will be the second act and I just want to caution that I remember one year when Third World I think was the one who started off the night and a lot of people came expecting to see Third World and they would have already performed so we have given you some indication that it is critical that you do come early to ensure that you do not miss any of your favourite acts and though we have given you the starters for each night, we are not at this time gonna to give you who’ll be second but it could be one of the acts you are hoping to see and to underline that and to create greater intrigue, the traditional format where all of our so-called homegrown or local acts being the opening acts that is not necessarily gonna to be the case this year so please come very early- the show starts 8 O’ clock- so that you avoid missing anyone that you wish to see.”
Announced by Powell that day also were the hosts and DJs for the Festival this time around featuring six (6) overall, four of whom are well-known local media personalities in the persons of Pinocchio, Sugar Bowl, Sweet Sister Sensia and G-Cue.
Host appearances are as follows: Pinocchio and Sugar Bowl on Thursday, Sweet Sister Sensia and Jabba (from Hot 97 FM in New York and Massive B Sound System) on Friday and CarlyRed (from Love and Hip Hop Atlanta) and G-Cue on Saturday.
DJs for Thursday and Saturday will be one of the two finalists from the Music Festival DJ competition scheduled for June 22nd while on Friday, Jabba and Sweet Sister Sensia will be ‘wearing two hats’ in mixing music also.