For Jamie Wilmott, Friday night at the Blues on the Greens concert was an unforgettable experience.
A student of the Edna Manley School of the Visual and Performing Arts, he got the chance of a lifetime when he was invited on stage by Rhythm and Blues star Fantasia Barrino to sing with her.
Fantasia, who had arrived in the island on Thursday ahead of her highly anticipated performance on Friday night, told the thousands gathered at Emancipation Park, St Andrew, that she had met Wilmott earlier in the day during her visit to Edna Manley.
She explained that there was a lot of singing during her visit, but revealed that Wilmott stood out because of the way he sang with feeling. She described him as a singer with a soul and praised him for his vocal abilities. She then went on to say that she wanted to sign him and take him on the road.
When The STAR interviewed Wilmott back stage, he said: “It was an awesome feeling to actually sing with the great Fantasia. Yes, I was a bit nervous but when I started singing I forgot about the nerves. I was just thrilled to have had such an opportunity”. He recalled his encounter with Fantasia. “I was at Edna Manley and we all knew that Fantasia was coming, so we put together a little performance for her, it was about four of us,” he said. “Then I performed a song by Joshua Ledet called City Fall, and she was impressed.”
He said the R&B singer then extended an invitation to join her on stage later that night. “She said she wanted to talk to me, and she invited me here tonight to sing with her,” he said. “I was trying to contain myself. It was a really a good experience, and I don’t even have words to express how I felt.
One of the time, she said sing a Change is Gonna Come for me and I sang one line and she was like ‘Oh my God, dude your vocals are really stupid’. She said to me ‘You know there is something about you, you have a soul’ and that was great because we all look up to Fantasia. She has an amazing voice, an amazing soul.”
When asked if he took the singer seriously when she said she wanted to sign him, Wilmot said, yes. “I take her seriously, but I know we would have to sit down and talk about it some more.”
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