Teino Evans, Staff Reporter

Queen Ifrica smiles royally at the Emancipation Park last Tuesday. November 6, 2007. - colin hamilton

From the soulful songs of Garnet Silk, to the encouraging stories from Tony Rebel, Queen Ifrica says those were the main ingredients to have influenced her musical journey.

According to Queen Ifrica, it was as if it was destined for her to form an alliance with Tony Rebel and Flames Production, as she recalled her genesis there in 1998.

"I became a member of Flames Production after meeting Tony Rebel in Montego Bay one December 26, commemorating the death of Garnet Silk.

"Some girlfriends and me went to the show and we didn't even have any money to go in, but we got in. My friends even went and wrote my name down to perform because they knew how much I loved Garnet Silk and when I went up, I did about five of Garnet Silk's songs," Queen Ifrica recalled.

She continued, "after I came off stage, a member of the Flames Production team came and got me and said Tony Rebel wanted to meet me."

A silky sound

When she met Tony Rebel, she recalled him saying, "sis, you sounded so much like Garnet Silk it nuh funny," and I was so impressed, because Garnet Silk was the reason why I started singing.

But is when I went to Flames Production (1998) that I found out the relationship between himself (Tony Rebel) and Garnet Silk. They were friends from in the country and when Silk came to town, Rebel encouraged him to stick it out, because Garnet wanted to return to the country and continue doing welding. But he (Rebel) was determined to make the music work.

So basically, all of my encouragement in music came from the many stories that Tony Rebel told of his own struggles in the business and even how he did cultural music and never changed from it."

Queen Ifrica, who was in Virginia when THE STAR spoke with her, is scheduled to return to the island today.