Although the public and dancehall insiders have been lambasting the organisers of Sting, at least one artiste has come out in robust defence of the year-end show.
“It is true that there were organisational problems at Sting, just like with any other major show, but at the end of the day, Sting plays a major role in our dancehall community. Over the years, every up-and-coming artiste wanted to come on Sting; but now that those same artistes are established, they don’t want to support the show that gave them their first start and that is selfish,” she reasoned.
She pointed to what she said is a “conspiracy to kill the show”.
“The popular artistes just want to do international shows, they don’t want to do local shows. yes, you make more money a foreign, but we have to remember where we are coming from. Sting is one of those shows that highlight artistes at this time of the year, so why try to kill a part of our culture?” she asked.
She made an impassioned plea for artistes not to allow an integral part of dancehall culture to die.
“It cannot benefit the industry to kill Sting. Who is going to benefit the most if Sting dead? They don’t care about the continuity of the industry; if Sting dies, another major platform to buss artistes also dies. Artistes must ask themselves: why perform for free for other organisers but stick up Sting when they have no major sponsors? It is almost like they are deliberately trying to kill this event, and that is wrong!” she argued.
Source: JamaicaStar