The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Honourable Olivia Grange, has announced that the process for selecting the finalists for the 2022 Jamaica Festival Song Competition is now completed.

Minister Grange said the selection panel has decided on the 10 finalists.

Minister Grange said:

“We will remember that initially, the panel selected three songs, which was not a sufficient number for a competition.  After that we decided to re-open entries and we received 209 new entries during the course of a week.  After reviewing all the entries, the panel has selected 10 finalists.”

The finalists are:

Grange said she was “pleased" with the response to the re-opening of entries.  “We have never received so many entries in one week”.

The Minister said the songs are being mastered and the recordings will be released soon.  She has called on broadcasters “to play the songs so that the public will get to know them and be able to choose their favourite for Jamaica 60”.

The Ministry through the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission is making arrangements to put the finalists on social media and on global music streaming platforms. 

The winning song will be selected following two televised shows on July 14 and 28.  The song will be selected by a combination of judges scores and telephone voting by members of the public.

There’s a prize of three million dollars for the winning song to be shared among the producer, the writer and the singer. 

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Veteran dancehall deejay Spragga Benz is featured in a new film titled Second Chance.