Krista Henry, Staff Reporter

Mr Perfect

Getting a United States visa is a daunting process for the average Jamaican, but for Jamaican entertainers a viable career without a US visa can be virtually non-existent.

Travelling to the United States is not only beneficial for performance purposes but also in making links with American producers, record companies and spreading the Jamaican music to another lucrative market.

Some artistes have been denied access to the US market and its booming entertainment business for various reasons.

Singjay Mavado, whose real name is David Brooks, is the most recent Jamaican artiste to be denied a visa. In April, The STAR reported that Mavado, who had been apprehended in Jamaica recently on gun-related charges, was denied entry into New York City by the police.

In a previous interview with The STAR, Mavado claimed that he was told his visa was cancelled because he was wanted in Jamaica - which subsequently caused the artiste to miss three shows in New York.

Brooks was charged in connection with an incident where two persons were shot and injured on July 27 last year. Mavado is scheduled to return to the Gun Court on May 27. Currently, the remix of Mavado's On The Rock, which features top US rapper Jay Z, is heating up the airwaves, but whether the two will perform together or make a video for the song is questionable based on Mavado's present inability to travel to the US.

A perfect song

( L - R ) Kartel, Mavado

In Amerimaka Mr Perfect turned his denial of a US visa into a song. Perfect defiantly sings "Da one yah dedicated to the United States of America Embassy in Jamaica/Uno keep it an guh weh", he continues "They denied I a visa to travel to the USA/They say that I'm not qualified and I might run off and stay." At the time, Perfect had to miss 13 shows in the United States as a result of the denial.

Deejay Vybz Kartel is another entertainer who has been

constantly denied a visa to the United States. While Kartel has been in and out of court, his reasons for not getting a visa, according to the artiste, are not criminal.

The last time Kartel performed in the United States was on March 13, 2005, in Washington D.C. Yet, according to the deejay, this has not affected his career. "It hasn't affected me, it's just travel. Humbly speaking I'm the hottest deejay. I would put myself in the top three deejays in Jamaica," he told the STAR.

Kartel emphasised that his songs are still getting rotation on American stations and he is willing to have the patience to see his next flight to the US .

Meanwhile, he says he is a Jamaican artiste and is focused on his career in Jamaica.

However, he does have upcoming tours in Europe and the Caribbean.

According to Jerome Hamilton of Headline Entertainment, a top- flight booking agency, while the US market is an important one, not being able to travel there will not have a crippling effect on an artiste's career. "The US, is our nearest market with a strong ethnic presence of first and second generation Jamaicans, but the beautiful thing about our music is that its bigger than the US with a strong market in Central America, the Caribbean and Japan," Hamilton said.