Barbados Today

Soul singer, Chrisette Michele, left it all on stage during the second night’s performances at the Naniki Barbados Music Festival last Saturday.

Under the theme Sounds of the City, the smooth-singing Chrisette brought the house down as she belted out many hits from her five albums.

They included Black Girl Magic, Golden, Couple of Forevers, Epiphany and Blame It on Me.

Adoring fans enjoyed the hour-long performance and not even intermittent showers could stop them from flocking to the front of the stage to get a closer view of the Grammy Award winning American artiste.

During her performance which focused heavily on celebrating love, Chrisette told many personal stories over the last ten years and what each song meant to her.

Her rendition of Golden moved many in the crowd to tears, and the singer’s silky smooth vocals added to what was overall an amazing performance.

Her rendition of Edge of the Bar gave goose pimples. Not just because of Chrisette’s great vocals but also the lyrics and the message the song delivered.

It spoke of being able to love whomever one wanted without any judgment at all.

Chrisette, who was in Barbados a few weeks prior to the festival to celebrate an anniversary with her fiancé, expressed her love for the island and the Bajan people and said she couldn’t wait to be back.

Local band, 2 Mile Hill, also gave a thrilling performance Saturday night and had the capacity crowd eating out of the palm of their hands. In Bajan parlance, they simply showed up and showed off. Chrisette noted that she was impressed by their performance.

The band, with lead singer Mahalia, sang many covers and some original music much to the delight of adoring fans. If you didn’t come as a 2 Mile Hill fan, you definitely left as one following the performance.

Keyboardist and musical director Andre Clarke also impressed with his vocals and uncanny similarity to incarcerated reggae superstar Buju Banton as he sang Untold Stories.

New artiste Ch’an opened the show and did a good job, setting the tone for the night. The crowd enjoyed her.

Her original song, Body, was a hit. She was backed by the Energy Band and supported on vocals by Alicia Yarde-Collins and Cherish Maynard who too were superb.