Not So: Stacious Corrects Critics Who Believe Jamaica Festival Song Competition Is For Amateurs

Dancehall artist and newly crowned Jamaica Festival 2021 Song winner Stacious, has responded to comments being made by her Jamaican compatriots that the competition is for amateurs, and that established artists like herself should be forbidden from entering.

Stacious made her comments during an interview about her winning entry Jamaican Spirit, with veteran journalist Dionne Jackson Miller on Friday evening, during the discussion segment of the Beyond The Headlines programme on Radio Jamaica.

According to the Come Into My Room singer, she, like Jackson Miller, had been seeing has been a flurry of comments by people who erroneously believe that the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission-run competition is exclusively for amateurs and ‘unknown’ artists, but that it was impossible for her to respond and correct “everybody individually”.

“I am going to use your platform now to remind them.  It was never an amateur competition from the inception.  It was always for professional acts to find a song to represent us…,” Stacious said.

“When Toots was doing it for how much consecutive years, he was a touring artiste. Him did deh all ova a perform.   He was never an amateur,” she added.

According to the Good Life artist, over the last two decades interest in the competition had taken a nosedive, due to, among other things, the lack of participation by professional artists, and the fact that all the entries were sounding alike.

“It’s just that the participation just kinda dwindled down.  So I think the new acts that came along tied to mimic what they heard before.  So you find you get more of the same… I think because festival is seen as being kinda old fashioned and not so cool, so you find that not everybody jumps at the opportunity to get involved as especially if you are a quote-unquote established artiste, or a known artiste, if you enter festival basically nuttn naw gwaan fi yuh – that’s how it would be seen prior to last year when Buju entered,” she explained.

During the discussion, Jackson Miller pointed out to Stacious that people were also “saying they like the song but it doesn’t sound like festival”.

The certified fitness trainer responded by saying that this mindset stemmed from the fact that over the decades, people had grown accustomed to festival song being laid on one type of beat, meaning Mento, with hardly any variations, which was to the detriment of the competition.  As a consequence, she wanted to bring the most modern Jamaican genre to the competition.

“As I grew older and I started understanding Reggae and Dancehall, and the transition, I realised that the festival never changed.  So I think that where it started to dwindle, because the first thing that happened was that established acts no longer were sending in entries.  And fi di last 10, to 15 years we really can’t say it was even changed apart from last year with Buju.  And the people had lost interest. And the complaints I have heard and how I feel, is that every year I keep hearing the same song or somebody trying to replicate the song of the previous years,” Stacious said.

“And I think I need something that young people are going to listen and the not so young people like myself can hear a sound that they can identify with.  Not saying that anything is wrong with the Jamaican sounds – the Ska and the Mento sounds.  But I am sure they want to hear something else.   And I am really happy with the variety that this year presented, because there are traditional sounds; there were the contemporary sounds… Reggae, Roots Reggae, Dancehall  – they were all there,” she added.

In addition, Stacious, in explaining to Miller why she opted to pen and record a song which was “motivational and inspirational”, instead of doing the theme which has become the norm – songs saying ‘we love Jamaica’ and which “mention the word Jamaica more than the national anthem”, said she wanted to celebrate the Jamaican people themselves, their resilience, and their creativity.

“First thing is: we know our food is good.  How many times you want to hear how good our ackee and saltfish is?  How many times you want to hear how pretty the beach is?” Stacious quipped.

“Personally for me I didn’t go that side because I think we need to be reminded of the true spirit; the true energy behind Jamaica.    What makes up the Jamaican people.  We are the most creative, the most energetic, the most vibrant, the most resilient.  Yow, wi make the most out of any situation; wi make a career out of some unexpected situations… and we need to celebrate that,” she added.

Continued Stacious: “I don’t think any other country has people like us.  And it’s also a chance for us to pat ourselves on the back and say: ‘hey, we went through a very hard time; we adjusted, yeah we rebelled certain way, but we we celebrated and we survived’.   So I just wanted to celebrate that and just enjoy the time.”

Among her stated aims for entering the competition, was to “widen the audience as “each sound resonates with a different demographic” and popularise the festival song competition”, something Stacious told Jackson Miller that she believes she has accomplished.

“I think I have widened the audience for a couple of reasons.  First, people were used to that Mento kind of sound for festival and I think some people do like that, but then you have people who have grown a little bit weary of hearing the same kinds of songs yearly.  So I gave them an option.   And I love the variety that this year’s competition gave people,” she said.

Stacious, whose given name is Stacey Scarlett, also explained that she is no newcomer to JCDC competitions, having participated and medaled in festival speech and drama categories, whilst at primary school and also was a contestant in the Jamaica Festival Queen parish competition, some years ago where she paced third.

She also told Jackson Miller that she expected that the competition will also highlight her versatility as her Reggae singer, which she has recorded in the past, are oftentimes not showcased, as people tend to gravitate to her raunchier Dancehall recordings.

“I have always kinda been in tune to the cultural side of things and things I know that make people show a little variation and to show the softer side of me sometimes.  I am not as hard core as people would tend to believe that all Dancehall artistes are.  And I think entering this competition would give me that highlight,” Stacious explained.

“Because I do, do Reggae tracks as a Dancehall artiste and I realize that I don’t get the same attention like when mi do a hard core song and they complain and say ‘female artiste, they only sing bout one ting’.  So while I do give the variety, I don’t get that highlight and thankfully JCDC was able to give me the platform to come and showcase that side of me on a wider scale,” she stated.