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Saturday, May 3, 2025

Fantasia breaks down at birthday concert

by

20120701

An emo­tion­al Fan­ta­sia Bar­ri­no broke down in tears in front of hun­dreds of ador­ing fans dur­ing her per­for­mance at the Truth Is con­cert staged at the Am­bas­sador Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, on Sat­ur­day night. Al­low­ing the tears to flow freely, the Gram­my Award and 2004 Amer­i­can Idol win­ner had the crowd awestruck, as she cried while de­liv­er­ing her hit song Even An­gels, from her third al­bum Back To Me.

The star who was in Trinidad to cel­e­brate her 28th birth­day told fans she had been through many ob­sta­cles in her life but had emerged stronger with the help of God. "No mat­ter what you've been through, know that you can fly. I have to tell God thank you be­cause he has blessed me. Just when I thought it was all over, he kept bless­ing me," said Fan­ta­sia. "He's al­ways been there. I made it through be­cause of God...Every­thing I went through is my tes­ti­mo­ny."

Not­ing that the mu­sic in­dus­try is "very snak­ish," Fan­ta­sia said it got very tough some­times, as she had to deal with a lot of neg­a­tiv­i­ty dur­ing her ca­reer. She said, "This year, we lost Whit­ney Hous­ton...They just wouldn't leave her alone. They did not un­der­stand that she was on­ly hu­man. We lose fam­i­ly, friends, all for the love of mon­ey. The on­ly per­son who will nev­er leave you is Je­sus."

Known for her en­er­getic per­for­mances, the mul­ti-tal­ent­ed artiste, who sold more than two mil­lion al­bums, did not dis­ap­point. Dressed in an or­ange en­sem­ble with sil­ver ac­ces­sories, Fan­ta­sia graced the stage around mid­night, singing her 2010 track It's All Good. She was greet­ed with loud screams and cheers from her fans. She was backed by her band, which in­clud­ed one male and two fe­male singers.

Fan­ta­sia's voice was crisp and clear, and pa­trons sang and danced along dur­ing her hour-long stint on stage. Her reper­toire in­clud­ed hits from past and cur­rent al­bums in­clud­ing Truth Is, When I See You, Free Your­self, Col­lard Greens and Corn­bread, and Bit­ter­sweet.

Fan­ta­sia lat­er ripped off the bot­tom part of her out­fit which trans­formed in­to a mi­ni dress, re­veal­ing her tat­tooed legs. She boast­ed that she had learnt how to wine dur­ing her short stay and called on the crowd to "help me work it." "I didn't come here to be cute," Fan­ta­sia said, as she kicked off her sil­ver heels. "I came here to give you your mon­ey's worth." Fan­ta­sia then sent the crowd in­to a fren­zy when she sang hits of yes­ter­year, in­clud­ing Prince's Kiss and Tina Turn­er's I Can't Stand the Rain.

Fans, who came dressed to im­press, showed their ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the singer with loud ap­plause and screams. One over-en­thu­si­as­tic male fan kept shout­ing, "Ah love yuh girl! Oh Gosh!" Fan­ta­sia ac­knowl­edged him with a smile and a wave. An­oth­er male pa­tron got the chance to join her on­stage where he took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show the star his dance moves.

To end her set, Fan­ta­sia sang Amer­i­can gospel artiste's VaShawn Mitchell's pop­u­lar track No­body Greater. With hands out­stretched, the teary-eyed singer led the crowd in a wor­ship ses­sion, as fans, young and old, put their hands in the air and sang along. "The on­ly per­son who will nev­er leave you is Je­sus," Fan­ta­sia said, as she knelt on stage, be­fore mak­ing her ex­it short­ly af­ter 1 am.

Be­fore Fan­ta­sia's per­for­mance, there were many tech­ni­cal glitch­es and the show did not pro­ceed smooth­ly. The DJ had dif­fi­cul­ty keep­ing the mu­sic flow­ing be­tween sets and pa­trons were seen stand­ing around the venue look­ing bored. Big Brown and the LE Fam­i­ly opened the show but de­spite en­joy­ing him­self on­stage, he failed to move the crowd. Amer­i­can singer Ni­na Foxx didn't fare too well ei­ther as she de­liv­ered a lack­lus­tre per­for­mance, singing two hip-hop tracks from her reper­toire.

Trinidad-born Ifa Sayo (Su­san For­son) raised the tem­po a bit when she sang Adele's Some­body Like You and Rolling In The Deep. Fans were pleased with so­ca artiste Kim­ba Sorzano who gave a good per­for­mance and man­aged to ex­cite the crowd with his in­fec­tious tracks, in­clud­ing Over You and Put It On Me.


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