Public to vote on Jamaica 50 songs

The Jamaica 50 Secretariat is to fast track the process for public participation in determining the Jamaica 50 musical compilation.

The social media team of the Jamaica 50 Secretariat is working on a possible design of the campaign with discussions initiated with a telecoms provider on a texting platform to enable public participation.

This comes after controversy erupted over the official song for the Jamaica 50 celebrations.

Under the previous administration producer Mikey Bennett was approached to create the song which led to ‘Find the Flag.’ With the change of administration recording artiste Shaggy was asked to compose a song for the marketing campaign which resulted in ‘On a Mission.’

The Jamaica 50 Secretariat earlier this week stated that there was no official song despite several circles laying that title on Shaggy's song due to the amount of airplay it has received in the lead up to the country's 50th anniversary of political independence.

A release from the Jamaica 50 Secretariat says the marketing campaign song was never intended to be nor is it considered by the Jamaica 50 Secretariat to be the official Jamaica 50 celebration song.

The Secretariat states that in this 50th Anniversary year, all talented Jamaican artistes should be able to feel that their creative work has an equal opportunity to be part of the national celebrations.