Cherisse Moe

Amer­i­can Hip-Hop stars Drake and Rick Ross, US singer Ali­cia Keys and Bar­ba­di­an R&B songstress Rhi­an­na are among the large crop of artistes nom­i­nat­ed for the 30th an­nu­al In­ter­na­tion­al Reg­gae & World Mu­sic Awards (IRAW­MA) to be held at The Na­tion­al Acad­e­my For the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) on May 28. Sev­er­al lo­cal and re­gion­al per­form­ers such as JW and Blaze, Nigel Lewis, Iw­er George, Bee­nie Man and Queen Ifrica are al­so vy­ing for awards in var­i­ous cat­e­gories.

Top­ping the list are reg­gae sen­sa­tion Gypt­ian, who is nom­i­nat­ed in eight cat­e­gories, and so­ca star Machel Mon­tano and reg­gae heart-throb Dami­an Mar­ley, with sev­en nom­i­na­tions each. It's the first time that the red car­pet af­fair will be held on lo­cal soil and or­gan­is­ers as­sure it would be one to re­mem­ber. Be­tween 3,000-5,000 guests are card­ed to at­tend the show. Tick­et prices for the event cost $190 out­door, $320 VIP in­side and $1,280 VIP Plat­inum. Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence at the House of An­gos­tu­ra, Laven­tille, on Wednes­day, Pro­duc­er/Pres­i­dent, Ephraim Mar­tin said T&T was cho­sen over 30 coun­tries in­clud­ing Ja­maica, Ghana, Nige­ria and Guade­loupe, as both so­ca and chut­ney mu­sic were gain­ing in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion.

Mar­tin said the "growth" of so­ca heavy­weight Machel Mon­tano, who has been among the awards top win­ners for three con­sec­u­tive years, was al­so a key fac­tor in choos­ing this is­land over its com­peti­tors.

This year's in­stall­ment, which Mar­tin not­ed costs "a few mil­lion dol­lars" to stage, will al­so see the in­tro­duc­tion of the Chut­ney So­ca cat­e­go­ry. The win­ner, he said, would be cho­sen based on text votes via lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al fans.

At a lat­er date

Stat­ing that steel­pan mu­sic "did not get the recog­ni­tion it de­served," Mar­tin said he was dis­ap­point­ed that a "pan cat­e­go­ry" could not be in­tro­duced but he sim­ply was "not get­ting enough re­quests for pan mu­sic." He promised, how­ev­er, to en­sure that the na­tion's na­tion­al in­stru­ment re­ceived its just due at the event in the near fu­ture. When asked about the readi­ness of the IRAW­MA team to pull off the up­com­ing show, Mar­tin told the T&T Guardian that every­thing was "falling in­to place" and that prepa­ra­tions were "com­ing to­geth­er."

How­ev­er, dur­ing the con­fer­ence, the team was vis­i­bly un­pre­pared to an­swer ques­tions posed by the me­dia, in­clud­ing which lo­cal artistes were booked to per­form, and whether in­ter­na­tion­al nom­i­nees would be in Trinidad for the event. "We'll an­swer that at a lat­er date," Mar­tin re­peat­ed­ly replied. He did di­vulge, how­ev­er, that more than 1,000 tourists would be com­ing to Trinidad to at­tend the cel­e­bra­tion, and that tick­ets would be dis­trib­uted on a "first come first served ba­sis." He added, "There will be large screens for those choos­ing to get the out­door tick­ets and NA­PA would be de­signed in such a way as to ac­com­mo­date every­one."

Eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits

Mean­while, Rhon­da Lee Yhapp-Lewis, man­ag­er, Events and Spon­sor­ship, TSTT Cor­po­rate Mar­ket­ing De­part­ment, said host­ing the event would do well to boost the econ­o­my and help show­case T&T's cul­ture to the world. "Peo­ple will be see­ing us on a world stage. We will have a very cap­tive au­di­ence as we are ex­pect­ing a lot of for­eign­ers for this event." And IRAW­MA of­fi­cials added that US mu­sic tele­vi­sion sta­tions, MTV or BET, would broad­cast the show in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, but Mar­tin said the cho­sen chan­nel would be re­leased "at a lat­er date."

OTH­ER NOM­I­NEES

Best Male Vo­cal­ist

Beres Ham­mond

Gypt­ian

Jah Cure

Tar­rus Ri­ley

Ro­main Vir­go

Best Fe­male Vo­cal­ist

Etana

Alaine

Mar­cia Grif­fiths

Queen Ifrica

Tanya Stephens

Most Pop­u­lar Hip Hop En­ter­tain­er

Rhi­an­na

Rick Ross

Nic­ki Mi­naj

Black Eye Peas

Drake

Song­writer of the Year

Ker­nel Roberts

Gypt­ian

Machel Mon­tano

Dami­an Mar­ley

Vy­bz Kar­tel