By Latrishka Thomas
‘Yuh nuh ready fi dis yet’ is more than just a song title; it also could signify what may be a major event in Antigua and Barbuda since reggae artist Tanya Stevens has expressed interest in hitting a local stage for a Covid-19 after party, ‘Spice Room’.
The influential Jamaican artist, while speaking on Observer’s sister station Hitz FM said that she’s interested in coming to the twin island as a way to boost morale after the current crisis.
“We’ve just been talking about keeping morale up and I jokingly said, you know what, don’t worry about Covid because the after party ah guh shot!” she said referencing a conversation she had with a friend and local promoter.
“But then I thought about it and why not? He keeps parties, I have time on my hands. When we free up and can do it again we should do an after party just to boost morale because people will need some kind of buffer to get us back [into normal life],” she added.
Meanwhile, Stevens said that one of her concerns during this crisis is that staying at home for the impoverished means that they’d be at home with nothing.
“This is not just something that’s gonna affect your diet, you are not just gonna go home and be hungry if you have no food. Also, if you have no entertainment, this is a psychological challenge for somebody to go home without tv, without Netflix, without radio…how do they go home and lock up inside a 10 by 10 box with no creature comforts,” the 46 year-old lamented.
She further shared that if this crisis struck during her childhood, she would be one of the disadvantaged since she had been living in a 10 by 10 or 12 by 12 house with 6 other people with “no food, no entertainment not even electricity.”
Stevens therefore challenged persons generally saying, “when we are giving that instruction [to stay home]..temper the message to the reality of the worst off, temper the message so you don’t let anybody fall through the cracks.”
The renowned artist has been releasing songs throughout April which she said had started out as an album.
She explained that the releases spurred from “my inability to choose which songs I prefer”.
She further revealed that the songs are very important to her because they are about “me navigating this new era of my life and all the different challenges come with it and also the way I feel about things now from this more mature perspective.”
The ‘It’s a pity’ artist said that she will still be compiling an album which could include other projects.
“I have so many songs and I just wanna get them out there. They serve no purpose on my system,” she said.