Singers ready for National Song Competition

At least twenty songs were submitted for the National Song competition and the artists are getting ready to take over the stage at the Memorial Park. That’s where the big showdown happens on Saturday at seven p.m., when a show of love for the country or a song that can move a crowd is worth thousands of dollars in prizes. The tunes range from patriotic to carnival songs—some with powerful messages addressing current social problems as well. News Five caught up with a couple of the participants today for a glimpse of what’s expected tomorrow.

Ernestine Carballo, Participant, National Song Competition 2010“My song is called “On Dis Yah Carnival Day” and it’s all about carnival, it’s all about our patriotism, it’s all about Belizeans; as Belizeans what we all went through, what we’re going through and moving forward.”

Leroy “Bass” Castillo, Participant, National Song Competition 2010

“My song focuses on education and enlightening the youth and the children of Belize. So the name of my song is Teach the Children.”

Ernestine Carballo

“They told me that it has to be patriotic, it has display patriotism and pride for Belize. So that’s how I came up with it and it’s all about carnival and the Soca madness and the Soca excitement so I had to come up wid dat so dat di carnival bands and massive could get ready and have dehn rags and dehn flags and yeah!”

leroy castillo

Leroy “Bass” Castillo

“I went with a slow kind of calypso kind of beat because I didn’t want anything that would be too fast and too upbeat that people will tend to miss parts of the message. I wanted enough time for the lyrics to flow and that people could absorb the message in the lyrics.”

Ernestine Carballo

“I decided to enter this year’s Soca and patriotic competition to not only, be in the competition but also to show Belizeans and every talented Belizean that noh only Jamaica or Trinidad or other Caribbean countries could do it, we also have dah talent and we also could do it and we could send it to di international market.”

Leroy “Bass” Castillo

“The inspiration came from the escalation of the violence and the other social problems that we’ve been having lately and I decided that in my opinion, I thought that educating the youth and the children would be a big step towards some kind of solving of the problem.”

ernestine carballo