The trio of Ja­maican-born reg­gae artistes Christo­pher Oteng Mar­tin, Miguel Or­lan­do “Siz­zla Kalon­ji” Collins, and William An­tho­ny “Su­per Cat” Ma­haraj were the first of five in­ter­na­tion­al acts to ar­rive for the ninth edi­tion of the Re­demp­tion The Con­cert: The Way For­ward.

The event is sched­uled for to­mor­row at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, from 7 pm.

Host­ed by Tropix En­ter­tain­ment, John­ny Q Lim­it­ed and Ja­va Na­tion, the con­cert will al­so fea­ture Bermu­da’s reg­gae sen­sa­tion Col­lie Bud­dz, the leg­endary British-based Gram­my award-win­ning roots, reg­gae band Steel Pulse and T&T’s very own Jamelody and Mr King.

Speak­ing at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Tues­day night, an up­beat Mar­tin, a for­mer win­ner of the Dig­i­cel Ris­ing Stars ti­tle in 2005, said he plans to make love the or­der of the day, or night more specif­i­cal­ly, when he hits the stage.

With hits that in­clude Ma­ma, Look On My Face, Big Deal, Let Her Go, Cheaters Prayer, Jah Light and Is It Love among his cat­a­logue, Mar­tin said he was look­ing for­ward to shar­ing the stage with the finest in his field.

“I’m so ex­cit­ed to be here for an­oth­er Re­demp­tion Con­cert and an­oth­er big deal busi­ness and an­oth­er big vibes.

“It’s go­ing to be an awe­some show and it’s go­ing to be amaz­ing and I can’t wait to see the mass­es out in their num­bers on Sat­ur­day.”

A jovial Mar­tin, 37, who hails from St Cather­ine, Ja­maica added he was ex­cit­ed to share the stage with so many tal­ent­ed per­form­ers.

Re­flect­ing on his mu­si­cal jour­ney, Mar­tin said he grew up lis­ten­ing to mu­sic from a wide range of artistes in­clud­ing Fred­die Mc­Gre­gor, John Holt, Beres Ham­mond, Ghost, Ste­vie Won­der, Sam Cooke, Otis Red­ding, and Al Green. He said be­ing born on Feb­ru­ary 14, which is known as Valen­tine’s Day, it seems as though he was or­dained to sing love songs.

But with his re­cent ven­ture in­to the so­ca are­na with lo­cal so­ca star Farmer Nap­py for the smash hit Gyal Like Rain, Mar­tin said he would like to tap in­to oth­er mu­si­cal gen­res.

“I feel like this gift I have in singing should not be caged or I should feel like I should do one type of mu­sic on­ly. So when an op­por­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed it­self to do an­oth­er genre I did the col­lab­o­ra­tion with Farmer Nap­py,” he said.

Mar­tin not­ed that in his mu­si­cal ca­reer, he has al­ways tried to spread the mes­sage of pos­i­tiv­i­ty and love.

Mean­while, 58-year-old Siz­zla Kalon­ji or Siz­zla, one of the most crit­i­cal­ly and com­mer­cial­ly ac­claimed reg­gae artistes said it was a plea­sure to be in T&T.

He added he was look­ing for­ward to a great con­cert.

“I’m so ex­cit­ed to be here and I’m feel­ing sprite­ly, en­er­getic and joy­ful and I’m hap­py to be here once again with my Fire House Crew and we plan to give a good show on Sat­ur­day.”

Siz­zla Kalon­ji al­so had a mes­sage for T&T, say­ing, “Know your roots, re­mem­ber your cul­ture, repa­tri­a­tion is a must and keep de­fend­ing the poor all over the world.”

Yes­ter­day, vet­er­an dance­hall artiste Su­per Cat, 60, ar­rived ahead of to­mor­row’s con­cert while Col­lie Bud­dz was due in last night. The world-renowned Steel Pulse is due to ar­rive to­day.