Life Continental Lager Beer, a brand of Nigeria Brewery Limited, on Sunday night in Asaba organised a talent hunt to discover and promote budding talents in traditional highlife music.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the programme, tagged: ‘Hi-Life Fest’, was held at the prestigious Sandy Gold Hotel auditorium in the Delta capital.
The Brand Manager, Mr Chidi Egwu, disclosed to NAN that the event was the South-South regional elimination contest.
He said the contest was in two categories – traditional African cultural troupe and individual highlife artiste.
According to Egwu, the musical talent contest was designed to promote traditional highlife music.
“The Hi-Life Fest is a talent hunt designed by Life Continental Lager beer brand to discover and promote budding talents in our traditional highlife music.
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“We want to give talents in the highlife music a platform to rediscover themselves and promote their carrier.
“The talent hunt is a competition where talents are identified, the best is picked and support is given to them to achieve stardom.’’
“We have a four-man panel of judges who will assess the performances of the contestants and pick the winner at the end of the day.
“It may interest you to know that the panel is chaired by foremost highlife music maestro, Mr. Bright Chimezie.
“Life Continental Lager beer is committed to the promotion of our local culture through talent development programmes like this,’’ Egwu said.
He disclosed that the grand finale of the contest would be held in Enugu at a later date where the overall winner in each of the two categories would go home with a cash price of N5 million.
The contestants in the individual highlife artiste included, Kingsley Otoya, Okoye Uzor, Chimaraoke Chimex, Stanley Ojogwu, Charles Chukwukere, Chukwurah Agbom and Obiora Emmanuel.
In the traditional African cultural group category were Anioma Dancers, Egwusinachi Cultural Troupe and Akamaranma Cultural Dancers.
NAN reports that in the cultural group category, Akamaranma cultural dancers emerged winner while in the individual highlife artiste category, Charles Chukwukere emerged winner and Kingsley Otuya, the first runner-up.
The trio were declared winners of the Asaba elimination contest and would be contesting in the grand finale to be held in Enugu. (NAN)
