Entertainers must be heard on Soca Monarch – DLP

President of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Dr Ronnie Yearwood is standing with artistes who have condemned the National Cultural Foundation’s (NCF) removal of the Soca Monarch competition from the 2023 Crop Over calendar.
Speaking on the topic which has attracted much public attention since NCF’s Chief Executive Officer Carol Roberts-Reifer made the announcement last Friday, Dr Yearwood said he believes entertainers who are against the move must be heard.
Yearwood said the Mia Amor Mottley administration should not be supporting such a move based on the potential negative impact it could have on young people wishing to enter the entertainment industry.
“I stand with the artistes. They have expressed their point. You have Mr Dale Rudder, you have Mr Jamal Slocombe, they have made a case and I think that it should be heard. I stand with them because they are making a point that they should have been consulted, especially the younger, the junior artistes who need and use the competition to help their careers.
“The more mature artistes probably don’t need the competition because they still get appearance fees [and] they could demand what fees they want.
“If you are now coming into the space, the competition is a way to get into that space to create opportunities for young people; especially for a Government that likes to talk about how they care about young people,” Yearwood said during Thursday’s monthly press conference at the party’s George Street headquarters.
On Monday’s edition of the Down to Brass Tacks radio show, Slocombe said that the decision was taken without wide enough consultation with entertainment industry practitioners, especially young people.
He accused the NCF of tampering with the festival in order to fix what was not broken, and insisted that removing the competition from the festival’s event calendar was misguided.
Roberts-Reifer has insisted that the decision was taken following meetings between NCF officials and entertainment and event stakeholders, past Soca Monarchs, artistes’ managers and booking agents.
“What was so worrying for me beyond the specifics of the issue was that the issue is symbolic of the behaviour of this government,” Yearwood said. That is the same issue that they had with the ID card. We had IDB, we had the tourism slogan and there was no consultation…
“We just literally woke up, heard about this, saw it happen to us and then we are forced to respond and when you respond you are vilified because you are seen as against the Government when really you have the interest of Barbados at heart for a Government that seems to think that ‘I have 30 seats so I can do whatever I want whenever I want, however I want,” he said.
(AH)