When Singer Irie first heard the Young Lion \u2018riddim\u2019 from British producers Young Lion Production one year ago, he felt a patriotic urge. The veteran artist said it was if the beat begged for a song about Jamaica.<\/p>\n
Singer Irie obliged, and \u2018Mamma Jamaica\u2019<\/em><\/strong> was born. It is one of seven songs in the final of the Jamaica International Independence Foreign Song Competition (JIIFSC), scheduled for Snelville, Georgia on July 30.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I hear the beat, I said to myself, \u2018I neva write a song about Jamaica\u2019 an\u2019 I wrote the song same time,\u201d Singer Irie recalled.<\/p>\n \u2018Mamma Jamaica\u2019<\/em><\/strong> was initially scheduled for release on a Young Lion compilation album, but Singer Irie had a change of heart and pitched it for the second JIIFSC which is founded and organized by Atlanta-based Jamaican, Garfield McCook.<\/p>\n As much as he would like to win the contest and its US&8,000 first prize, Singer Irie stated that \u2018Mamma Jamaica\u2019<\/em><\/strong> transcends a patriotic salute to his country.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not jus\u2019 a festival song. This song will be played long after the competition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Kingston-born Singer Irie (previously known as Patrick Irie) is based in New York City. He is one of five entrants representing the United States in the JIIFSC, with two contestants carrying the flag for Canada including Lavie Lujah, winner of last year\u2019s inaugural competition.<\/p>\n As Patrick Irie, he did the sound system rounds during the 1980s and 1990s as well as recording for producers in Jamaica and the United Kingdom. After moving to the United States in 2002, he gave the music business a break before returning in 2013.\u00a0 Four years later, he evolved into Singer Irie and has recorded a number of songs since then.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Singer Irie first heard the Young Lion \u2018riddim\u2019 from British producers Young Lion Production one year ago, he felt a patriotic urge. The veteran artist said it was if the beat begged for a song about Jamaica. Singer Irie obliged, and \u2018Mamma Jamaica\u2019 was born. It is one of seven songs in the final […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3897,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895\/revisions\/3897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}