KTV the Remix: The Top 13 Take on Inspirational Songs
KTV, the Remix gets underway at eight-thirty live from the Bliss Center for the Performing Arts. Tonight, inspirational music will fill the auditorium as the competition enters round two with thirteen hopefuls. From the original batch of the youthful fifteen singers, two will be eliminated. All have been fine-tuning to bring their A-game to the voting public and inspire the panel of judges. We caught up today with Judge Rohjani Perriott, who explains the voting criteria and gave useful tips on how to survive on stage.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Season Two of Channel Five’s KTV the Remix got off to a huge start last Tuesday with fifteen singers from across the country taking to the stage inside the Bliss Auditorium. They all performed a song of their choice to impress the judges and the viewers at home—showing why they should be voted to the top and win the bragging rights as KTV Champ and the grand prize of ten thousand dollars. It’s an interesting pool of artists because even though they are individually talented, many are rookies to the performing arts. In the end, four persons mustered twenty-five points each of a maximum of thirty in the first round of the competition.
Rohjani Perriott, Judge, KTV the Remix Season II
Rohjani Perriott
“We have a really good list of really good singers. This season I am really excited to see people who we’ve never heard before, absolutely new singers just come on and discover themselves, become and open up and really perform for the crowd.”
Duane Moody
“We saw them last week for the first time. Talk to us about your overview of what we saw on stage.”
Rohjani Perriott
“Generally, I was a little disappointed. In the auditions, some of them performed flawlessly and then they got on the stage and then there were lights and persons and the audience and it was just…some of them really choked; they had a hard time.”
Rohjani Perriott is no stranger to music enthusiasts and performing on stage. She returned to the panel this year along with Jenny Lovell and newcomer to Channel Five, but definitely not the music industry, Chris Bradshaw. But was it simply ‘nerves’ getting the best of the contestants and how do they shake it?
Rohjani Perriott
“You psyche yourself up. You are like okay, I can do this, we are going to go on, we are going to perform and then you get there and the lights go really in your face and then you see all those people and you are just like frozen. And it doesn’t matter if you are new to the stage or if you are old because it happens to me—I can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgotten words. I get on there and I am like yes, let’s do this song and they are playing and I cannot remember.”
Duane Moody
“So what’s the advice for them as performers?”
Rohjani Perriott
“First of all, you gotta be really calm before you go on. Just find a quiet place, reflect on what it is that you need to do; think about your performance and what it is that you want to convey with the song that you’ve chosen and just go on there and talk to us. Let us feel what the song you are doing is talking about.”
At the close of last week’s show, one of the top scorers Inez Welcome from Dangriga chose the Inspirational genre of songs for which thirteen advancing contestants will perform tonight at the Bliss Center of the Performing Arts in round two of KTV the Remix. So what can you expect?
Rohjani Perriott
“I am hoping that someone does one of those hype inspirational songs. I really want to get up out of my seat and wave the Baptist hand; I am telling you it is going to happen so I am really looking forward to nice inspirational songs. As music evolves, there have been so many different genres of inspirational music and goes from gospel straight through now to something like Kirk Franklin and Yolanda Adams. So I am really looking forward to the range of inspirational songs that can be brought.”
The creative team here at Channel Five is again engaging our online viewers during the local programming. While the commentary can be constructive, some posts are negative. Perriott chimed in on the pressures of social media.
Rohjani Perriott
“it is disheartening even for me to see some of the things that people have said or posted about what they believe the song is or the artist is or whatever is happening that day, even for the judging. People don’t understand that we don’t arbitrarily pull a ten out of the air. There is a criteria; you have so many points for voice, so many points for performance, so many points for audience participation or reaction and these are things that make up that ten. It is not just a number that we come up with. And things like performance and audience participation, those are on the spot. So you can have the best voice in the world, but still only five points.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
