NIGEL CAMPBELL
From early in the day on May 13, the picnic vibe was prominent at the St Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival, as evidenced by beach chairs, blankets and a general vibe looking for entertainment.
But African excellence was dashed by a report of an “altercation” between event organiser St Lucia Tourism Authority (SLTA) and one of the Afrobeats stars backstage, cutting their performance short and resulting in the non-performance of both Joeboy and advertised headliner Kizz Daniel.
Reports from an SLTA official said after hearing an Afrobeats artist, the DJ/hype man for the Afrobeats stars, freely used expletives to exhort the crowd, “Make some f---ing noise,” a high official of SLTA gave a stern warning to stop cursing onstage, since children were present at the family-oriented event.
[caption id="attachment_1016458" align="alignnone" width="683"] Afrobeats star Ayra Starr -[/caption]
The DJ apologised to the audience, admitting he had been unaware there were children present.
But after a second Afrobeats act cursed onstage, the official pulled the plug on the rest, including Joeboy and Kizz Daniel, who never left his hotel room.
A subsequent Instagram post from Joeboy offered an explanation: “We were not given a memo that we couldn’t use any curse words on stage...I was willing to perform but I was told I couldn’t and one of the promoters threatened to call security on us and also get us arrested.”
Up to the time of writing, no statement from SLTA was forthcoming.
Drama aside, the continued diversity of music made this event a grand experiment in building audiences. The main stage for world music featured Venezuelan band Alfredo Naranjo Quintet to add a Hispanic element to the Kwéyòl atmosphere of zouk and the African modernism.
World Beats night was a draw, as initial counts estimates more than 10,000 people were in Pigeon Island National Landmark park. Two stages graced the park to handle the number of acts appearing, with the second stage, dubbed the Bacchanal Stage, allowing popular local DJs Hollywood HP and Scady to accompany a number of Dennery Segment and bouyon artists. This focus effectively branded this stage as a kind of sales point for the upcoming St Lucia Carnival in July, with costumed dancers supporting, and featured carnival ads on the video screens.
St Lucians Kayo and Michael Robinson brought a popular and chauvinistic Lucian vibe as a precursor to the Africans and Kassav'. The modern R&B of Kayo may have been lost on the throngs beyond the front of stage yearning for zouk and original Afrobeats, not an inferior clone born in the West Indies. A relatively flat response was the result.
Robinson, however, was a hit, despite some onstage and offstage petulance. His onstage rant making the point of the live-performance editing of St Lucian artists was noteworthy. Music industries need indigenous talent to grow. Themed nights can be overdone by generic descriptives like “World Beats,” when every genre is thrown in to satisfy segmented niche markets. Collectively,
