Dancehall Soul singer/songwriter Cherine Anderson walked away with the award for Best Female Vocalist at the 2008 Caribbean Urban Music Awards held on Saturday, April 26 at Sugarmans Beach in Jamaica. Anderson, who was up against Tami Chynn, Lady Saw, Macka Diamond and Queen Ifrica for Best Female Artist, was also nominated in the category of Best Newcomer. The striking 5 foot 3 soulstress gave a powerful performance of her prolific hit "Kingston State of Mind" and was asked by the appreciative crowd to "sing some more, another song, sing anything". Totally impromptu, Anderson then asked the host of the show, Spragga Benz, if he would join her on her hit collaboration "Coming Over", a duet she originally recorded with Chuck Fender. The two stars unleashed what could easily be considered the performance highlight of the night, both singing and then free styling DJ lines to the loud applause from the crowd causing them to 'pull up' the song from the beginning.
When asked about her win Anderson responded, "It's a blessing to be recognized for doing something I love, my music. It's very humbling to be awarded the Female Artist of the Year amongst such an accomplished group of deserving women artists. I'm so appreciative to my fans in Jamaica and worldwide for their votes and support. I intend to continue making good music, and receiving this recognition from my fans and the CUMA is truly motivating and rewarding."
In response to how she felt about performing with Spragga Benz, Cherine burst into a huge smile and added, "Oh my God, that was so much fun. I was kinna nervous having only prepared one song, but when the audience asked me to sing something else, I looked over and saw Spragga Benz and decided to just take a chance. He was wonderfuI, he even knew all the words."
The Caribbean Urban Music Awards is the brainchild of the producers of the Urban Music Awards, which is one of the biggest international awards ceremonies held in the USA, UK, France, and Germany and broadcast worldwide to an audience of 14.5 million viewers annually. It was born out of the need to build a worldwide and independent awards ceremony to recognize the achievement of 100% urban based artists, producers, night clubs, dj's, radio stations, record labels and artist who are apart of the Urban music scene. From the inception of the Urban Music Awards all nominations and voting have been left for the public to decide, with over 3 million urban music fans nominating and voting on the official UMA website internationally per year.
For the past 5 years, the prestigious Urban Music Awards ceremony has been covered by: CNN, Vibe Magazine, BET, MTV, The BBC World Service, Hot 97, VH1, BBC Radio 1, BBC Entertainment Online, Invincible TV, Evening Standard, The Metro Newspaper, The Independent, The Guardian, Invincible, Channel 4, CD: UK, London Tonight, Choice fm, Daily Star, New York Daily, New Nation, The Voice, and many more.
