BCJ Digital Media Presentation Deemed a Success

The Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica’s (BCJ) recent digital media literacy presentation at Mona High School, St. Andrew, has been hailed as a major success by several students who participated.

Representatives of the Commission, led by Executive Director, Cordel Green, delivered wide ranging presentations on several topics during sessions held with Grade 10 and 11 students and their teachers.

These included: the impending digital switchover process; cable channel ratings and the children’s code for programming.

Two of the students indicating the benefits they derived are Cedric Moodie, whose stage name is ‘Militant’, and Iokoyi Ellis, both budding deejays, who are keen on pursuing careers in the entertainment industry.

At the end of the presentations, Cedric, who performed one of his songs for the Executive Director, told JIS that he was appreciative of the information, which has greatly enlightened him.

“It was a great presentation because it taught me a lot that I didn’t know about. I want to be a musician, so it has given me more knowledge about the music world,” Cedric said, while contending that every student should be afforded the opportunity to learn more about the digital media landscape, as well as the role of the Commission.

Cedric advised that, to date, he has recorded two songs. One, he said, is titled: “Guidance”, which he said currently enjoys a fair amount of airplay on local radio stations and overseas.

“I have a song playing on Hitz 92 FM and it is also playing in England and the USA,” he revealed.

The Grade 10 student, who comes from a musical family, said he has been singing since age nine, and decided that he wanted to do music compositions when he entered high school, citing this as “my passion, and my heart and soul”.

“I do a lot of thinking and writing. For me, I have to put all my thinking into my music. I don’t write just for the sake of writing. I have to think about it first and see what connects and what makes sense,” he reasoned.

Iokoyi Ellis, whose stage name is ‘Yokie’, said her father, who is now deceased, was instrumental in her decision to take up singing as a career, noting that he would always sing with her. For that reason, singing became a regular activity for Iokoyi after her father’s passing, when she was eight years old.

Noting that she sings every day, Iokoyi intimated: “that’s the first thing that I do; in the bathroom I sing. I would be singing and then take a pen and paper and just start writing. It just comes naturally.”

“I took to singing more because I wanted to make my father proud and because I have a good voice,” she proudly declared.

Iokoyi currently uses the YouTube social media channel to market her song: “Broken Heart and Soul”, written after her father’s passing. Despite the sad memories the song conjures, Iokoyi is excited about the response the single has been receiving from persons on the social network.

“Since January it has gone over 1,000 hits and that is very, very good. I am so thrilled about that and a lot of people know me. It is very very nice,” she said.

Iokoyi said, in the future, she wants to study music at university. However, for now she will continue to study hard in order to obtain high grades in Religious Education, Home Management, Mathematics and English, the subjects she plans to sit in the upcoming Caribbean Secondary Examination Council (CSEC) examination.

By E. Hartman Reckord, JIS Reporter