Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

When host of Saturday's Heineken Green Synergy Deejay Competition finals, FAME FM's François St. Juste, announced the second place votes at Weekenz on Saturday night, he quickly cut to the first place total without saying who was second.

The gap between the votes, 1,826 for third placed DJ Trinity and 1,923 for second placed DJ Jerry, compared to 6,139 for winner DJ Nicco, was huge and there were cheers when the Montego Bay-based selector was announced the winner. Still, after the official presentations to Nicco, whose prizes included deejay equipment, a trip to the Bahamas for the regional Green Synergy finals and internship on FAME FM, were made, a rhythmic chant of "Jerry, Jerry, Jerry" went up from some persons at Weekenz, just as they had before he even started playing that night.

Result

The result rested solely on public vote by text message.

In the final round of selections, when the deejays played five rounds of one song each, before playing his 'song in the fourth round, dubbed 'Culture', DJ Nicco had paid respects to DJ Jerry. "Jerry gwaan good, me naa tell no lie. Give de yute a roun' of applause," he said and the large audience at the free event duly did so. And in an on-stage interview at the end of the second round of 10 minutes each, FAME FM deejay Boyd had said "DJ Jerry pulled a hattrick tonight", to cheers from the audience.

The finals of the competition had started with the three deejays playing 25 minutes each, Trinity going first and wrapping up with hip-hop, Chamillionaire's Ridin' Dirty, Sizzla's Ultimate Hustler then Jr. Gong's Beautiful among the tunes. DJ Nicco, who played next, took time out to 'big up' Trinity. "He has managed to learn everything I did in the last two rounds (previous play-offs)," Nicco said, setting out to party with the ladies, Roll It coming in a segment of soca.

Placards and all

The cheering for DJ Jerry, placards and all, started as he was announced and he opened with a fiery Fantan Mojah before bringing Greetings from Half Pint.

On the 10-minute round Trinity addressed previous problems with the sound, demanding "engineer, tun up de mic. No sabotage ting like de firs' time". He opened with Notorious on dub plate, Nicco's opening song in that round was Rise To The Occasion and Jerry went disco to good effect with Freak Out.

And in the final round of one song each, Jerry dropped a thunderous dub plate of Culture's Conqueror, Nicco wrapping up the competition with a dancehall dub that took the house apart.