Battle of the Drums hold Garifuna Song Contest

The Battle of the Drums Secretariat hosted the third Belize Garifuna Song Competition. An award ceremony was held on Friday in Belize City. Songs entered for the competition were judged on originality, melody, composition and lyrics and all songs had to be in the Garifuna language. President of the Battle of the Drums, Darius Avila spoke to Love News about the contest.

One of the most important goals of the organisation is to promote Garifuna culture through music, language, dance and oral history. We asked Avila how this competition meets this objective.

The winner of Song of the Year won 7,000 dollars in both tangible and intangible prizes, the Single Genre winner won about 4,400 dollars and the Budding artist received about 3,900 dollars. The judges for this year’s competition were Lucio Enriquez, Aurelio Martinez and James Lovell.