Entertainment

The first wild card revealed

Nathaniel 'Natel' Hewitt is the first wild card selected for the Rising Stars finals. - contributed

AFTER SEVEN WEEKS of auditions in six locations and thousands of contestants vying for a chance to be the next Rising Star, the judges whittled down the contestants to 60. These were then allowed to perform and the public chopped that number down to 12. Then the judges were allowed to introduce their wild card from one of those in the reject pile.

Sutherland's hand came back with the charmingly confident Nathaniel Hewitt who also goes by the name Natel. On Sunday, the first of the live performances, he was the first wild card, revealed. The other two will be revealed next Sunday when the additional eight contestants perform. Though they had not been initially selected by the audience, the wild cards can be confident in their future as last year's winner Cavan had been a wild card.

At the previous day's rehearsal Natel experienced a potentially deadly hiccup when his track was not being picked up by the player. The show's music director Peter Ashbourne had even jokingly said, "It hard fi find eh. Yuh burn dis pon a stove?" Fortunately, Sunday night's performance was flawless.

Indeed, Natel proved to be more talented than the audience might suspect as not only were the lyrics his, but the backing tracks had also been created by him, as he revealed to Ashbourne.

The 18-year-old had wowed Sutherland with his lyrical content. He also packs quite a voice and seems to bode well for the judges' selections so far. When his performance of his original composition, Music is a Healing ended, all three judges showered him with praise. They noted that he had great currency, fitting into the niche carved by the likes of Turbulence and Mr. Perfect. The studio audience was also quite wowed by his delivery. "It touch mi bad," said one woman in the audience after his performance.

T.B-S.