Soca Awards A Joke! - Open Letter from JT Jackson

by JT Jackson
(Niger)

Open Letter / press release to the Soca Awards Supporters, Governments of the Caribbean, and Media.

The Soca Awards is an award show with no creditability and is a show to promote one person only. It has even reach as far as embarrassing the government of Trinidad & Tobago.

The people of St. Kitts and the Government, and the supporters of the soca awards need to know the facts before buying a ticket, promoting the event or giving money.

1. In one of the pass awards the head of the organization which is a socallmsoca artist nominated himself for an award his own awards show.

2. More than 80% of the artist that get nominated do not care of such awards. This is shown in the fact that such information is not listed in their press releases, their bio, and all of the major acts in soca are no show even if money is paid to them. simply ask who are the top names in soca and when was the last time they went to the soca awards.

3. Since few artist attend the show most times the winners of the awards go to the artist that show up regardless of online voting results which is a scam to get peoples email addresses. It would look embarrassing to have an award show where more than 80% of the winners are no show. so new artist try to get on the performing cast to get their name out.

4. Winner and nominations also go to family and friends

5. Point 3 & 4 can be discredited simply by and audit. of the votes and the organization releasing the names and numbers of the nominating committee, country of origin and home base. Most of the Calypso/ soca monarch in the Caribbean have auditors what makes the soca awards special. This process is not fully disclose. As sponsors we ask you to sponsor this aspect to ensure you are not getting yourself in a scam which you can see it is.

6. This awards has nominated the same song and artist for 2 consecutive years. Yes it did happen and there was no remix or re-recording of the song. Jah in Your Life - Benjai

2006 list
Category 30 - Gospelypso of the Year
Benjai - Jah in My Life
Jadee - Baptize
Maximus Dan - God Army
Shurwayne Winchester - Heavenly Father

2007 List
Category 26 - Gospelypso of the Year
Altar Call - Jadee (TNT)
Arise O Lord - Sean Daniel (TNT)
Jah in Your Life - Benjai (TNT)
Lift Up His Name - Christopher 'Tambu' Herbert (TNT)
To the ceiling - Isaac Blackman (TNT)

7. The Goverment of Trinidad & Tobago is still waiting on the SAO for the statement below

The awards' organiser, Soca Awards Organisation, Inc. (SAO), has accused the government of Trinidad & Tobago of pulling their financial support of the show at the last minute, forcing the event to be moved to a secondary location.

Because the cost of US$100,000 from the Trinidad & Tobago Ministry of Culture, for using the theatre was not paid to the Apollo cleared its stage and closed its doors three hours before show time.

8. let us Look at a few Categories in the soca awards this year

Favorite Soca Info Website why is islandmix not listed. Why is a clone like socaordie nominated when information is copy, why is Trinijungle Juice, and Bajanforlife nominated when they mainly promote Trinidad and Barbados respectively when it is an international awards or so the the owner of the award say. Tropicalfete and Torontolime are the only site that needed to the in there with islandmix because they promote all islands but is it because tropicalfete deletes bad comments and Torontolime do not allow any comments but Islandmix let the voice of the people be heard.

Soca Awards Nominees Announced

Why is Nu vibes Band in Over All Soca Band of the Year when the did not tour much this year because their member was sick.

11th Hour Cancellation Of The 2006 Soca Awards
islandevents.com

The soca music fraternity has received a heavy blow when the 2006 International Soca Awards was on Friday 08th September cancelled at the last minute because the producers failed to make a US$40,000.00 payment to the management of the Apollo Theatre, New York where the gala event was scheduled to take place.

At the time of the cancellation specially invited guests, patrons and members of the international press had already arrived at the Apollo for the Red Carpet event that preceded the show.

Although an alternative venue; Club Tobago in Queens was found for the show at the very last minute the damage had already been done as the entire scenario proved embarrassing for Soca Awards founder, Colin Jackman as well as for the people and Government of Trinidad and Tobago. A representative of the Soca Awards Organisation said that the management of the Apollo informed Jackman that unless he immediately paid the money owed the show would not go on. The representative further stated that the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Culture had agreed months ago to pay for the venue, but up to yesterday Jackman had not
received the money.

After pleading with the Apollo Theater management for some measure of leniency, Jackman decided that he had to save face and salvage what remained of the event. In a last ditch effort, Jackman secured Club Tobago and the show was rescheduled to get on the way at that venue at around 8:30pm. This is at least the third time that Jackman has hit a brick wall in the production of the Soca Awards driven there by the Ministry of Culture. In 2004 Jackman came close to having to cancel that year's edition of the Soca Awards because the Ministry also failed to pay for the venue at Flushings, Queens and only came through at the very last minute after Minister of Culture, Joan Yuille-Williams intervened and sent through the funds mere minutes before the deadline set by the owners of the venue.