‘State of Emergency’ hits Japan’s biggest digital download site

Vincentian songwriters Candy Gloster and Mark Cyrus continue to make waves on the international music scene, Invest SVG said in a release recently.{{more}}

The song, “State of Emergency”, co-written by Gloster, Cyrus, and Shazelle in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), debuted at the number two spot in Japan less than two weeks after it was launched on Japan’s biggest digital download site, Recochoku.

“State of Emergency” is sung by Canadian-based pop artiste Shazelle and features dancehall king Beenie Man.

The single out-charted Nicki Minaj, Chris Brown, Usher, Flo Rida, LMFAO, Rihanna, Pitbull and, among other top ranking international artistes, Maroon 5.

The Vincentians were the first two writers signed to publishing company, C2W.

Gloster and Cyrus now tour as international songwriters participating in writing camps around the region and the wider world.

They have recently returned from a Sony camp in Anguilla and are packing their bags for Jamaica, where they will participate in another camp from August 1 to 8.

Gloster and Cyrus were catapulted into international stardom after Invest SVG, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, hosted the Caribbean’s first-ever international songwriters camp in 2011.

Invest SVG, the nation’s investment promotions agency, undertook the initiative “in an effort to bring much needed attention to the pool of untapped talent that our creative industries hold”.

Executive Director of Invest SVG, Cleo Huggins, expressed congratulations to both writers.

“This is certainly something to be celebrated, not only because this is testimony of the international appeal of the work of Vincentians, but it is also proof that we have achieved the objectives of Invest SVG by diversifying the songwriters from their core writing of soca, dancehall and ragga-soca to now the international music that most people throughout the world appreciate,” Huggins said.

C2W has been launched on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, and will be launched here in SVG on August 10, with several such launches to follow throughout the region.