Da Family Takes Da Bahamian Ting Song Competition by Storm
After beating out 138 entries, Da Family was named Da Bahamian Ting Song Competition’s first winner at the finale of the competition held at Fort Montague on Friday, April 21, 2017. In true Bahamian style, the top ten finalists performed their songs live in a dynamic concert and the song, “Das Da Bahamian Ting” was selected as the winner after receiving the most votes from the online competition.
Da Family is truly a family effort and consists of family members Sammi Star, Ossie Andros, Lady Shema, Sealy Hayley Simone, Caleb and Kamiah.
Sammi Star said the prize money of $25,000 will go to investing in the group.
“We believe in doing the best that we can, 100 per cent effort in everything whether that’s production or singing so we’re glad about the outcome and proud to be the first winners. It’s been a long time coming in terms of us recording together so we’re probably just going to go in the studio and do more music and of course look forward to working with Tourism and other ministries just to take Bahamian music, rake n’ scrape and junkanoo to the world,” Starr said.
Fourth-place winner Bodine Johnson said the competition gives artists the platform to assist in enhancing the tourism product.
“We have a number of persons that are now sharing their Bahamian experience through music. Of course, we know if you want anyone to know anything put it to music and it’s easily learnable and so our tourism product is enhanced by the fact that somebody from Cat Island submitted a song and they spoke about the Cat Island experience. What happens now is people are more interested in finding out what happens on each of those islands and that’s what we want them to do, we want them to island hop and enjoy all of The Bahamas” she said.
The finale on Friday attracted hundreds of Bahamians who had one thing in common, their love for Bahamian Music.
One attendee, in particular, Claudette Nixon said although the competition is in its first year, it has potential.
“We came to give our support to Lady E but we’re also real good fans of Bahamian music and so we’re here to really support the event in its entirety and big up Bahamian artists who are “biggin” up Bahamian music. I think the competition is a creature in the making, I don’t think they’ve finalised exactly what it is they want to do but they’re well on their way,” Nixon said.
Rik Carey, Coordinator in the Department of Culture and Heritage at the Ministry of Tourism said Tourism will play a part in Da Family’s success in the future.
“Behind the scenes, I try to tell the artist to be encouraged and take this money also and try to invest into your craft at the same time. Things like videos, social media and all the marketing elements cost money. But Tourism has also provided that vehicle and we will see the music being played here tonight will be played in various tourism ports all around the world so this will only help to elevate the product at the end of the day,” Carey said.
Second place went to Lady E with the song “Down Home”, third place was awarded to Nathaniel Bailey and Dale Knowles with the song, “Gimmie Dat Dilly and fourth place is Bodine with “You and I.” Apart from first through fourth, every competitor received $1,000.