{"id":5986,"date":"2026-08-17T23:23:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T23:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/17\/four-jamaican-musical-queens-hold-court-at-jamaica-day-event-in-paterson\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T23:23:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T23:23:19","slug":"four-jamaican-musical-queens-hold-court-at-jamaica-day-event-in-paterson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/17\/four-jamaican-musical-queens-hold-court-at-jamaica-day-event-in-paterson\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Jamaican musical Queens hold court at Jamaica Day event in Paterson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sister Nancy, Lady G, Minister Marion Hall and Lila Ik\u00e9 \u2014 four\u00a0 women from four different corners of Jamaican music and culture \u2014 held court during the 10th Annual Jamaica Day Celebration in Paterson, NJ on Aug. 1.<\/p>\n

Dancehall icon Sister Nancy showed up at the event, at Eastside Park in Paterson, clad in green, black and gold, a nod to Jamaica’s Emancipation Day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe opened with \u2018One Two\u2019 and \u2018Ain’t No Stopping Nancy,\u2019 and by the time she wrapped with \u2018Bam Bam,\u2019 it barely mattered that her set was only about 20 minutes,\u201d Jamaican-born, New York-based entertainment publicist Anthony \u201cER Guru\u201d Anthony, told Caribbean Life on Tuesday, Aug. 4. \u201cForty-plus years into a career, she can still stop a park cold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterwards, Turner said Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh gave Sister Nancy the Key to the City, handed over by Bill McKoy, president of the Bill McKoy Foundation, which has been running Jamaica Day at Eastside Park for a full decade now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deeply honored to have Sister Nancy at Jamaica Day this year, as we celebrate her incredible achievements,\u201d McKoy said. \u201cHere, in Paterson, we respect you, we love you, we honor you, and we give you your flowers now, while we can say thank you for your service.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Sister

Sister Nancy performs at Jamaica Day.<\/span>David Warren<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Turner said: \u201cIf Sister Nancy is the foundation, Lady G is proof the foundation never cracked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe came up in the ’90s known for lyrics that hit hard and a real commitment to writing about women’s lives, and her set at Eastside Park played almost like a highlight reel,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Turner said songs like \u201cNuff Respect\u201d and \u201cBreeze Off\u201d \u2014 old duets with Papa San \u2014 \u201cstill got the same reaction they probably got 30 years ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said Sister Nancy \u201chopped on a newer riddim from Stephen McGregor \u2018Hill & Gully\u2019 and told the crowd, plainly, that nothing in her house was dead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen, she went backward again, into \u2018Samfie Lover\u2019 and \u2018A Whole Heap a Man,\u2019 the songs that first proved she could tell a story better than almost anyone on a mic,\u201d Turner said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But he said the biggest reaction of her set came from 10-year-old singer RJ \u2014 the grandson of artist manager Junie Star.<\/span><\/p>\n

Turner said \u201cThank You,\u201d the 1995 gospel record Philip \u201cFatis\u201d Burrell originally produced with Lady G and Chevelle Franklyn, \u201chit the bullseye for both of them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe crowd lost it,\u201d he said. \u201cRJ’s TikTok numbers are impressive. His Michael Jackson covers have racked up more than 14 million views on \u2018I Want You Back\u2019 and another 4.3 million on \u2018Who’s Loving You,\u2019 and even his cover of Kygo’s \u2018Can’t Do It On My Own\u2019 is past a million. A kid who grew up on TikTok singing a 30-year-old gospel song is not something you can plan for on paper. It just has to happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Turner said Dancehall DJ Bruck UP squeezed in a quick burst of energy with \u201cGood Life\u201d before handing the stage back over \u2014 \u201cshort, but it landed.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He said Lila Ik\u00e9’s set \u201cfelt like the bridge between everything that came before her and whatever comes next.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lila

Lila Ik\u00e9.<\/span>David Warren<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Turner said the Grammy-nominated singer ran through \u201cWanted,\u201d \u201cThy Will,\u201d \u201cSecond Chance,\u201d \u201cGood & Great,\u201d and \u201cWhere I’m Coming From\u201d \u201cwith a kind of control that explains why she’s become one of the most talked-about voices in reggae right now.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe didn’t shy away from naming her influences either, working in covers of Beres Hammond’s \u2018Double Trouble\u2019, Bob Andy’s \u2018Too Experienced\u2019, and Freddie McGregor’s \u2018Prophecy\u2019 before closing with \u2018I Spy\u2019, the 2020 single that anchors her EP The ExPerience,\u201d Turner said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He said McKoy, presenting her Key to the City, put it simply, \u201cshe represents where reggae is headed, without losing sight of who got the genre here.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The following day, Turner said Minister Marion Hall rounded out a strong performance, receiving her own Key to the City.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTake away the individual sets and here’s what’s left: a festival that, in its 10<\/span>th<\/span> year, quietly turned into something closer to a coronation,\u201d he said. \u201cFour queens of Jamaican music, each one shaping a different decade, and a 10-year-old getting handed a piece of the tradition in real time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNobody announced it that way. Nobody needed to. That’s the kind of afternoon you can’t really schedule,\u201d Turner added. \u201cEastside Park just happened to host it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sister Nancy, Lady G, Minister Marion Hall and Lila Ik\u00e9 \u2014 four\u00a0 women from four different corners of Jamaican music and culture \u2014 held court during the 10th Annual Jamaica Day Celebration in Paterson, NJ on Aug. 1. Dancehall icon Sister Nancy showed up at the event, at Eastside Park in Paterson, clad in green, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islandflavaradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}