Jamaica Festival Song Competition

Well supported

Launched in 1966 and run by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, the Festival Song Competition is the longest-running original song contest on the island and the closest thing Jamaica has to an annual national songbook. The brief — a song for Independence season, in a Jamaican idiom, written for the whole country rather than a scene — has produced records that outlived the competition entirely: The Maytals took the first title in 1966, and Eric Donaldson's 1971 winner became a standard covered far beyond Jamaica. The competition also tracks the changing sound of the country: mento and ska inflections in the 1960s, roots and rocksteady in the 1970s, and later entrants working in dancehall and gospel. Winners are recorded here year by year; the roll is being completed against the JCDC's own records.