Etana giving a powerful performance - Mel Cooke

The Jordu Live unplugged, intimate concert, which combines fashion with an up-close and personal performance by a major artiste, also serves as an outlet for new talent.

Auditions take place in the mid-month 'Jordu Showcase', with the top finishers featuring on Jordu Live.

So DJ/singing duo Mahai and Gary (fifth), Shadow Blacks (fourth), Classical Esca (third), Bang Diddy (second) and Iya Shine (first) performed before Etana, who put on an extended show which displayed her vocal range and engaging stage personality, at Jordu, 7th Avenue Plaza, St Andrew, on Saturday night.

stood out

Despite the contest placings, it was Shadow Blacks and Bang Diddy with their obvious easy-going personalities and humorous lyrics who stood out.

Shadow Blacks deejayed "Me haffi rich like Michael Lee Chin/Have house big like stadium a Beijing" to cheers from the audience. And Bang Diddy worked his slow, emphatic style to good effect, asking the audience if they believed a woman had tied him after "me trail har go Back Road" and "de jacket yu gi me no fit me" but he still stayed in a relationship with her.

The women had a very strong presence, designer Jordu taking to the catwalk - defined by simply extending two brightly coloured strips from the small stage to the back of the room - after the models had wrapped up, DJ Amber spinning the pre-show tunes and Heather Grant taking care of emcee duties.

Etana put on a good show, starting with Wrong Address and closing with Money by request, although it lagged a bit close to the end as she put in slower, unfamiliar material instead of going for the strong finale. Working with percussion, guitar and support vocalists, Etana filled Jordu with her big voice, engaged the audience in dialogue and showed every emotion she was putting into her songs on her face.

She blended more familiar material with newer songs, following her hard-hitting opener with the determined "gonna be free, like a bird in the sky."

Blessing

Warrior Love went over well, Clyde moved to centrestage from harmony vocals for Jah Jah Blessing (the first song to get a 'pull up') and Etana connected the haplessness of the helpless across the world with:

"There is a place called Jamaica

Children lose their life in first grade

There's a little place in Asia

Children lose their lives to grenades."

Sometimes she sat, sometimes she stood, asking the gentlemen Don't Let Me Down and telling a man up front "I will be the one".

"We going to change the vibe a little," Etana said, hitting I Am Not Afraid and singing against 'loose talking' and 'bad min' before going into a medley from her elders, starting with Harder They Come, that heralded the end.

And she sang happy birthday to a very happy Paul, who also got a peck on the cheek.