Barbados Today

The ladies who will be featured in this year’s HoneyJam showcase were revealed last Thursday night in an intimate setting at the Hilton’s Careenage Restaurant.

The artistes are Zoe Armstrong, Quissa Baptiste, Ieashia Browne, Kathleen Cothran, Ann-Marie Devonish, Kamilah Ellis, Mikki King, Jamie Leacock, Valentine Meniaud, Ashleigh Phillips, Jenn Proverbs, Ashlene Rahman, Dawn-Mari Springer and Tonieka Thompson. They will be joined by a few alumni from previous years and also Melissa Megan, a Canadian artiste who won a prize sponsored by the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI) to travel to Barbados and perform.

Those ladies, over the next few weeks will benefit from a series of songwriting workshops, the first of which was hosted last weekend at Santosha in St Andrew.

The girls benefited from the expert advice of stalwarts in the industry, soca queen Alison Hinds, two-time calypso monarch Ian Webster, Chrystal Cummins-Beckles and David Kirton, among others.

Alison, a big supporter of the programme, and someone who paved the way for many female Caribbean artistes, spoke  to the ladies about the challenges in the industry and the hard work involved in having a long career. She encouraged all of the artistes to take advantage of the workshops being provided and learn as much as possible about the business end
of entertainment.

The showcase comes off on November 14 at Frank Collymore Hall. (DB)