As you saw in our interview with Nello Player, he told us that he didn't think that his performance was the winning piece for the night in Patriotic Song competition.
And he's not the only one who has that opinion; when the winners were announced, there was a large portion of the audience who disagreed, believing that the two best performances came from Wilson Grinage and Reecie Pollard.
Pollard spoke to us today and pointed to several issues which she says suggest a clear slant against to the unknown faces in the competition.
Wilson Grinage - 2nd Place, Patriotic Song Category
"It wasn't fair, honestly. I'm being real here and I'm sorry for whoever might hate me for this but if I had come in second to Reecie Pollard I would have been so happy. But second to someone whose stage performance wasn't up to par as comparisson to Reecie and myself, I'm not hating people - I'm really upset because it's really unfair."
Reecie Pollard
"I was really disappointed because it hurt me so much to know that you go out there and you put your all for a performance, you do everything that was required for the performance and how could somebody with that performance win you when you've given your all? I'm not the best singer in the world, but I know myself - I know I can sing better than anybody because anybody can be selfish. People out there can agree with me, view for yourself - go over and look at the performances and tell me which performance deserved to be first. Also I feel the same way that Wilson feels, I thought the competition would have been between him and I and when Nello Player got it, it was just wrong so I just think it was unfair."
Daniel Ortiz
"Tell us about all of these requirements that you fulfilled that you thought you did excellently on?"
Reecie Pollard - Contestant, Patriotic Song Category
"Costume, my stage performance - I made sure the judges heard clearly, the clarity of my voice - I did what I was supposed to do. We should not judge a competition by how well you hold your audience because Nello Player is a well known artist around Belize City and I am just Reecie Pollard - some people might know me from Karaoke, some don't. But if it goes for the audience screaming out, of course he will win because he's more popular than I am. All in all I just want answers from them - what made his performance so much better than mine. The other thing is they made you pick numbers for the competition, I had two picks. I picked the number which was for carnival and he told me to put it back and I picked the other number and I got number 10 and there were only 9 of us in the competition so that would make me the last person. So several contestants didn't show up, if you weren't there - you automatically lost your turn. When it was my turn, I was rehearsing with my dancers then they came to me and told me to go up and I told them I was the last performer. Why I had to on before? Because Nello Player's backup singers didn't get there yet. Most of us use the same back up three singers and if anybody viewed his performance - he didn't have extra backup singers with him on stage - so what made him so special that I had to take his turn and he took mine?"
The judges were Kellie Cadogan, Colville Young Jr., Orson Picart, James Sanker, and Cindy Crawford.
