An award show that has since been dubbed unimpressive by many in T&T, has been reviewed by one of its co-ordinators as "very good." The International Reggae and World Music Awards was held on Saturday at the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port-of-Spain. After the event, many offered their views on the production of the 30-year-old award show, most of which indicated that the event left much to be desired. Despite this, however, show's co-ordinator, Ephraim Martin, told the T&T Guardian that the possibility exists that the awards will be held here again, in 2012.
Awarded but empty-handed
With numerous awardees mentioning that they were yet to receive the actual awards, as their categories had not been mentioned on stage on Saturday night, the T&T Guardian sought an explanation from Martin. He said: "We had several local artistes who received awards. Some were there and some were not there. All the categories could not be announced on stage. "Much like the Grammy Awards, you can't, due to time constraints." He, however, indicated that committee members were attempting to reach out to those awardees who did not collect their awards backstage on the night of the show.
"We've been calling those whose numbers we have and e-mailing others," he said. The Boss - A comeback artiste? On another topic of great concern to many who witnessed the show, the T&T Guardian questioned the award presented to soca boss, Neil Iwer George. George, who for 25 years has provided a catalogue that epitomises the culture of T&T, was nominated in the category of Comeback Artiste of 2010. George's subsequent win left many asking: "Where did Iwer George go?"
Martin had an explanation for this, too. "While he has been performing consistently over the years, he made a big stride musically in the last two-three years, especially last year...He made a great improvement," he said.
A will to promote T&T
Based in Chicago, Martin said he would be back and forth between the US and T&T in the months ahead. "We are doing some work here and we'll be back and forth," he said, "Trinidad and Tobago is a great tourism country and people fail to realise that. "We want to help people realise that this is one of the islands that they can come to for tourism...We want to help internationalise the island to tourists around the world." With plans to host the awards for two consecutive years in Trinidad, Martin highlighted that the initial aim of hosting the show here was to expose the various music that embodied the island's culture and internationalise the genres that existed a little more. "Chutney soca has been making strides and overall, with the improvement of the soca entertainers over the years, we thought out of the all the countries that requested us to come, T&T was the best choice," Martin said.
He said a request for the awards to be hosted here was first made by promoters and supported by the Government. "More and more countries have been asking us to come, but we may want to come back to Trinidad," he said. "We did not get enough time to really do for Trinidad what we wanted to do.
"I think with the late change in Government and the various boards having not been in place, we did not get to discuss and finalise things as they should have been." The awards show has been held in Jamaica several times and according to Martin, Jamaicans thought it would have been held there this year as well. Much to their surprise though, T&T was chosen. Unfortunately, however, the show's production has since been criticised by many who argue that more could have been done to make it a better award showcase.