[Cham rocking the Queens crowd at 2006's Irie Jamboree; Usain Bolt rocking the Beijing crowd at this year's Olympics]
The 6th edition the Irie Jamboree Festival, considered to be the American Northeast equivalent of the likes of Reggae Rising or the Chicago Reggae Festival is set to kick off at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday at Roy Wilkins Park in Queens, New York City, New York, featuring top performers from around the Carribbean, with a particular emphasis on Jamaican performers and musics, specifically reggae and dancehall, from the country.
With the Labor Day Weekend date of the 2008 festival so conveniently (almost a week exactly) placed after the end of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, it's organizing head made the extremely wise decision to announce that the festival's theme for this year would be "Celebrating Caribbean Athletes Representing the Region at Beijing '08."
Considering the athletes participating in events falling into the track and field category as the Caribbean's "strongest" in history, Louie Grant, the vice-president of one of the co-producers of the Irie Jamboree, the Irie Jam Media Group, made the announcement and his decision on July 30th, in the aftermath of Caribbean phenom Usain Bolt's breaking the world record for the 100 meter men's sprint at a track meet in New York in late May and about a week before the Olympics kicked off. While he stressed the accomplishments of athletes from around the Caribbean, including 1996 Atlanta 200m silver medalist Ana Quirot of Cuba and 2000 Sydney 100m silver medalist Ato Boldon, Grant put an emphasis on Jamaica in his planning for the festival.
According to the initial announcement by the production executive, Bolt, who's since dominated the headlines of sports and front sections of newspapers around the world for his notably nonchalant breaking of Olympic records at the '08 games, will have a VIP Tent in his name at this year's Irie Jamboree. The festival's Media Booth will be dedicated to another Jamaican track gold-medalist, Veronica Campbell-Brown.
Nevertheless, the festival's area for exhibitions and vending by artisans will be named in honor of not just Jamaican, but all Caribbean athletes. The name for the area will simply be "the Caribbean Olympic Village."
The 2008 Jamboree, which is being produced by Irie Jam Media in association with its longtime partners, Black Emperor Entertainment, had included mainly Jamaican reggae and dancehall stars, including Sizzla, Beenie Man, and Coco Tea in the initial lineup set out by Grant. However, Trinidadian artist Alison Hinds, a performer of the Trinidad and Tobago-borne Soca genre, is included in an updated version of the lineup, which includes 14 main acts in addition to house bands Black Emperor and Road International and MCs DJ Roy and Dubb Master.
Tickets to the festival can be purchased in advance either online at the co-producers' website or at various ticket outlets located in all five boroughs of New York City and other outlets within the Tri-State Region. General admission tickets are $59 each, while VIP tickets are $99 each.
Fore more information on the 2008 Irie Jamboree Festival, go to www.iriejamboree.com.
