Cherisse Moe

One of the world's biggest fe­male hip hop artistes, Nik­ki Mi­naj, is com­ing to Trinidad.

Mi­naj, 25, who has Trinida­di­an parent­age, will be the head­line act at a con­cert to of­fi­cial­ly launch the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs "Lo­cal­ize Itt" Cam­paign. Mi­naj, whose re­al name is Oni­ka Maraj, will touch down on lo­cal soil on Sep­tem­ber 21. The show, card­ed for Sep­tem­ber 23 at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, al­so would see a cast of lo­cal sup­port­ing acts.

Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts made the an­nounce­ments on Mon­day dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad, Port-of-Spain.

Roberts said the cam­paign was aimed to, among oth­er things:

* Cre­ate an aware­ness of lo­cal goods and ser­vices avail­able to the pub­lic;

* re­cy­cle rev­enue back in­to the econ­o­my;

* pro­vide the pub­lic with a broad­er range of prod­uct choic­es and com­pet­i­tive pric­ing; and,

* pro­mote pa­tri­o­tism among the youth.

Roberts stat­ed it was Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and his min­is­te­r­i­al col­leagues who had in­spired him to pur­sue the cam­paign, which, he said, was in the mak­ing for about a year. He said: "Min­is­ter Vas­sant Bharath said 'buy lo­cal, eat lo­cal, think lo­cal, be lo­cal...' Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er said, 'I have vis­it­ed over 193 coun­tries across the globe and none is as sweet as T&T...' Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma said, 'Re­al Gov­ern­ment is lo­cal,' "Lis­ten­ing to my friends and col­leagues in our Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment speak­ing pas­sion­ate­ly about their in­di­vid­ual vi­sions for the re­spec­tive port­fo­lios has in­spired me to act." Roberts added that the cam­paign could serve to help re­duce crime, youth delin­quen­cy and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence by cre­at­ing "a more car­ing and com­pas­sion­ate so­ci­ety."

He said: "The change that will take place in T&T will call for all our re­sources. It will re­quire the sup­port of every cit­i­zen. "It will re-ig­nite pa­tri­o­tism and ex­ude a con­fi­dence and self be­lief which many of us might have for­got­ten ex­ist­ed." He said the mul­ti-faceted cam­paign would in­clude a tele­vi­sion se­ries, school tours and food and trade fairs. Roberts said the ini­tia­tive al­so would pro­mote pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment and en­cour­age lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers to "step up their game" in the pro­duc­tion of goods and ser­vices.

Mi­naj an 'ob­vi­ous choice'

Mean­while, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Hypro Ltd and D Project Records, Dar­ryl Brax­ton–the man re­spon­si­ble for bring­ing the artiste to Trinidad–said Mi­naj was an ob­vi­ous choice, giv­en her strong Trinida­di­an roots. He said Mi­naj would per­form for "about 35-45 min­utes." How­ev­er, Brax­ton said, the cost to bring the "Your Love" singer was still "be­ing worked out." He al­so shied away from di­vulging tick­et prices for the up­com­ing event but promised that all would be re­vealed soon. "I have high hopes that the show would be a suc­cess. I start­ed a buzz. Even be­fore we an­nounced it my phone has been ring­ing off the hook. I'm con­fi­dent it will be suc­cess­ful," he added.