The winner of the Roc the Mic Song Search 2007 will be announced on Sunday afternoon.

Organiser Jonathan (JT) Talbot said www.thaunderground.net had almost 80 songs entered in the competition.

“The songs were from all different types of musical genres,” he said.

“They ranged from Gospel to Rap, R&B and Reggae.”

To thin down the number of entries to just over a dozen, an independent group of industry judges were brought in to make selections.

Among the judges were: Keevil (The Captain) Burgess, DJ Jay Radigan, DJ Kaos, Earl Basden, Gita Blakeney, Donald Robinson, Lamone Woods and Keetha Lowe.

“We also had judges from overseas,” said Mr. Talbot. “It was the judges’ task to narrow the 76 songs down to 15.”

The final selections were then uploaded onto www.thaunderground.net earlier this month and on March 12 the voting began.

“It was up to the public to listen to the songs and vote for which songs they felt would make a hit,” said Mr. Talbot.

“They were also able to text their votes, from their cell phones, for their favourite artist.”

All artist voting numbers are listed on the website and one can also listen to the songs on the site.

On March 18, ten singles were chosen, this number is now down to five and the lucky winner sits among them.

Power 95 will be playing these five songs throughout the week, but the voting stops on Friday night at midnight.

“The winner will get to fly to New York and will get a free recording session at the newly built Roc the Mic Recording Studio,” said Mr. Talbot.

“This studio is owned by (recording artist and hip-hop mogul) Jay Z and his partner the Juan Perez, co-owner of the 40/40 Club.

“The (winner) will also receive a high-end cell phone from our sponsor CellularOne, who set up the text voting systems that allowed the public to text for the artist of their choice.”

Once the winning song is selected, the artist will soon become a familiar name in Bermuda. “That song will be put on the regular radio play rotation on Power 95 and we will also help the artist in getting the song ready for retail sales and marketing,” said Mr. Talbot.

“We will also help get air play of the song in other radio markets in the US, the UK and Europe.”

[box] The songs still in competition are: ‘Dead Soldiers’ (Jasmine Hendrickson), ‘Three Strikes’ (Jonae Smith), ‘Never Felt This Way’ (Kaylah Dowling), ‘Sweet, Sweet Love’ (Mitchelle ‘Live Wire’ Trott) and ‘Gotta Let You Know (Wesley Hall).