The Play Center Nigeria in partnership with the Ondo State Government, on Friday, unveiled 12 Upcoming Artists comprising a gospel group, a gospel singer and 10 hip – pop artists that would perform at the Sunshine Countdown 2022.
“D’ Asset Crew; Nwafada Micheal; Ogundare Henry; I.K Nelson; The Vince; Saint Jay Bobo; Chizoma Sufficient; Fayisanmi Raphael; Joshua Eric; Simmy Fire and Sammy Kay”
About Fourty Upcoming Artists across the 18 Local Government Area gathered at Adegbemile Culural Centre, Akure in their numbers to feature at the talent hunt for the event.
The event slated for December 31st this year at M.K.O Abiola Democracy Park, Akure, will feature celebrities such as Innocent Idibia also known as 2face Idibia; Saheed Osupa; Potable (Zazzu), Kenny Blaq, Lanre Teriba, Funmi Aragbaiye; Danny Young among others.
Others on the list include; Ayo Rawlings, Adunni, Bisi Manuel, and other talented musicians.
The Sunshine Countdown 2022 is to showcase the social economic and cultural potentials of Ondo State to the global community, and also aimed at empowering youths, exhibition and tourism across the council areas of the State.
For adequate preparation towards the event, a two days talent hunt was organized by the state government aimed at selecting some of the upcoming artists in the state to perform with popular artistes and share the stage with them.
The Senior Special Assistant to Governor Akeredolu on Youths Empowerment, who was one of the Judges, Mr. Lincoln Ojo said the talent hunt is a prerequisite to the main programme tagged “SUNSHINE COUNTDOWN 2022” to bring expertise in entertainment industry to showcase and celebrate youths hence to make Ondo State an entertainment hub for all citizens of the State.
“This programme is baby of the main event which is the countdown into 2022, which the state government is doing in partnership with a private company”
“They want to do countdown concert bringing artistes from everywhere in Nigeria to come and play music both hip pop and gospel over night on 31st December”.
“Then we thought that we can’t do something this big without involving the people of the state, so we decided to do an audition for upcoming youth artists that they would join the super artists on the main stage on the 31st December”.
He said it was necessary to gathered upcoming artists across the state to perform and pick the best among them for the event saying over 40 artists participated in the talent hunt show with a gospel group, a gospel singer and 10 hip – pop artists were picked after rigorious session to perform on December 31st this year
“We had close to Fourty people who participated and we cut them down to about twenty and we wanted to have only ten of them, it was soo difficult and we ended up having 12 of them who will perform on stage with 2face among others”
Mr. Ojo appreciated Governor Akeredolu for giving the youth a chance in the state to perform on stage with the super stars.
Also, Mr David Justice popularly known as Oracle Dave was also one of the Judges, said the criteria used to the pick the 12 Upcoming Artists were stage performance, dance and lyrical contents among others.
“Criteria in picking those we picked that would be performing on the 31st December are stage performance, dexterity as a singer, song, lyrical contents among others”
The event is set to encourage and empower the youth in the state who has talents In singing, dancing among others to develop themselves the more.