?Cherisse Moe

Trinidad-born, hip-hop mega star Nic­ki Mi­naj failed to at­tract a large crowd for Sat­ur­day's much-talked about Lo­cal­ize Itt con­cert. Or­gan­is­ers es­ti­mat­ed that just over 3,500 fans turned up for the event held at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain. Staged by D Project Records in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, the con­cert was the launch of the min­istry's Lo­cal­ize Itt cam­paign, in which Mi­naj was the head­line act. The gen­er­al and VIP sec­tions, which cost pa­trons $250 and $450, re­spec­tive­ly, were vir­tu­al­ly emp­ty.

The Kids Zone which cost $200 for adults ac­com­pa­ny­ing chil­dren, and $100 for chil­dren was prob­a­bly the most pop­u­lat­ed. The VVIP and the MTV Zones, mean­while, cost $900 and had a good crowd. Mi­naj, whose birth name is Oni­ka Tanya Maraj, made her grand en­trance on stage at about 10.55 pm in a styl­ish white top, red tights, leop­ard-print an­kle boots and a blonde wig. Her ar­rival was greet­ed with screams and cheers from ex­cit­ed fans–some of whom opt­ed to wear bright-coloured wigs and high heels, two of Mi­naj's trade­mark styles.

Ac­com­pa­nied by pop­u­lar fe­male DJ, Di­a­mond Kuts, and her "hype man" SB, Mi­naj opened her per­for­mance with the smash hit, It­ty Bit­ty Pig­gy, in which she gave fans a taste of her over-ex­ag­ger­at­ed vo­cal in­flec­tions. Mi­naj al­so dis­trib­uted T-shirts with the words Pink Fri­day to lucky pa­trons and took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sign au­to­graphs. She then in­vit­ed some of her fans to join her on stage to dance to so­ca songs. She end­ed her per­for­mance at 11.35 pm. Ear­li­er, lo­cal acts Ter­ri Lyons, Neb­u­la 868, 3 Suns and Ju­dah, all of whom are part of Dar­ryl Brax­ton's D Project Record La­bel, opened the show and were well re­ceived by the crowd.