And the winner is – the 35 nominees who turned out to the fourth annual Underground Awards at the weekend all anticipated hearing their name called in hope of taking home a top honour.

But it was international recording artist Brandon Kane, of Los Angeles, who was the top winner taking home three awards – Best Male Vocalist, Best New Artist and LA Virgil Artist of the Year.

The 15-year-old heart-throb is dubbed to be the next Chris Brown.

Brandon already has a fan base of more than 265,000 fans and more than 100 fan sites around the world.

With more than 4.2 million music plays in eight months on his website, he holds the title of 'Artist Of The Year' in numerous teen magazines and is a recipient of the Youth Star Award presented at the Las Vegas Music Awards in August, 2007.

He said: "I am so honoured to be winning these awards. Especially because this is another country. I am very honoured."

The other winners for the night were all locals and included R. Will for Best Producer, who said of his win: "I feel good about winning again for the second time.

"Because of the tight competition, I didn't even expect to win. I knew that whoever won the award deserved it, because I know the amount of work I put in so, I guess I deserved it."

Best Female Vocalist and The People's Choice award went to Cajalae Taylor, who said: "I am very grateful that everybody likes me. This is the start of a happy high."

Best R&B Song by male or female went to Twanee Butterfield for her song 'Holla' in addition to Song of the Year award.

Twanee said that she is honoured just to be nominated but would be really excited to win song of the year — which she did win.

Best Female Rap Artist was won by Scandalous, with Best Male Rap Artist being Joe Dirt.

The award for Best Rap Song also went to Joe Dirt for his song, 'Lights, Camera, Action'.

In the reggae category Troy Anthony won best Reggae/Dancehall Artist and Slanger, who is currently incarcerated, won Best Reggae song for 'Hard Life'.

Tha Underground Awards were started as a way to promote unsigned artists. The awards are open to anyone worldwide, but the promoter, JT Talbot, tries to stick to a 60/40 rule – so 60 percent of the nominees are from the Island, in order to promote Bermudian artists.

See tomorrow's Royal Gazette for full coverage of Tha Underground Music Awards in The Scene, a special supplement for young people in Bermuda.