The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Honourable Olivia Grange, has announced that the Jamaica 60 Festival Song Competition will go ahead.

During the meeting of the Cabinet on Monday (yesterday) it was decided that the competition should go ahead under amended rules which will see the re-opening of entries.

The panel that usually selects the finalists for the Jamaica Festival Song Competition had said that it was unable to choose ten suitable songs from among this year’s entries.  The panel gave the nod to three entries, which was not a sufficient number for a competition.

Minister Grange said entries will re-open for a limited period of one week starting today as the panel seeks to identify an additional seven songs for the finals.

Minister Grange is encouraging people with a good song that they believe can rally the nation to submit their entries.

“We are looking for that catchy, infectious, or inspirational song set to a Jamaican beat that will be on the lips of every man, woman, and child this Independence,” said the Minister.

“We are waiving the entry fee and we look forward to receiving entries by Tuesday, June 21 at midnight via the online entry portal at the JCDC website (www.jcdc.gov.jm).”

The Minister has urged entrants to pay attention to the comments of members of the selection panel who found that earlier entries contained inaccurate lyrical content, infringed copyright, was off key, was poorly recorded, and even contained lyrics that glorified another country and culture.