Burning Flames Delivered As Promised. 

Gregory A Lewin
glewin@bluefieldspulse.com

Nov. 9, 2004- Oneness Entertainment Group (formerly SLC Inc.) and Burning Flames delivered as promised on October 16, 2004. Though the crowd expectation was not met, Burning Flames set the Plaza Inter on fire with their rump-shaking, waist wining, hot and contagious Soca music from Antigua.

The day of the event it rained like nobody’s business, as we would say, but when night fell upon the city, the sky was clear and blue. You could see the stars and count them one by one. A cool refreshing breeze was blowing in from the lake to make it nice and cool. DJ Easy Lover was jamming while the small but significant amount of spectators mingled with each other.

The show started at approximately 9:30PM. with Philip Montalban. But it wasn’t until the Obayom dance group headed by Marvalee Hodgson took center stage that everyone started shouting and jumping. Their job was to get the crowd in heat and prepared them for what was coming next. The Obayom dance group has been a part of every show put on by Oneness Entertainment Group. The members are: Susie Joseph, Shanee Green, Shanda Cayasso, Abby Green, Tasha Hodgson and Ricky Hodgson.

This is a group of young talented children who love to do what they do best, dance!

After the Obayom dance group was done the crowd was ready for Burning Flames. You could feel the heat flowing when Mr. Chin and Jerome, both engineers for the group started to hook up the equipment. The temperature started to rise when Oungku started tuning up his keyboards and Crokus oiled his based guitar. Osmond was making sure his guitar could talk while Ronne “Foxx” assured the rhythms coming from the drums would make you jump and shout. Behind the speakers hidden from the crowd was the queen of Soca, the beautiful Onika Bostic dress in white and pink waiting to take center stage.

Wow, all of a sudden the crowd, which sounded like fifty thousand strong, started screaming when Oungku started the show in a teasing fashion with the familiar and most popular song by the group in Nicaragua “Workey, Workey.” It was all Burning Flames from there on, like I’ve seen them so many times before. It seems they never get tired. After a few cuts by Oungku, Onika took center stage and took the crowd to a level of Soca experience they’ve never been before. Crokus, the bass player and brother of Oungku, the man I refer to as “the man that just cannot keep his shirt on” went wild and as expected took his shirt off two minutes into the show.

Have you ever seen a bass player play the bass with one hand before and don’t miss a beat? I know Crokus is one of the best but he went beyond being one of the best when he was in the middle of his rendition of Zukla. You see, a group of young ladies were invited on stage to dance with the group, each one took a member of the group and Crokus had no choice but to play his bass one handed while holding on to the young lady. The crowd was in awe to see such skills being displayed.

It was none stop, Onika finally got challenged by one of the young member of the Obayom group and all she could say with a big smile on her face was, “You small but you could wine.” The party went on for about 2 ½ hours. The group then took time out to sign autographs on paper, flyers, and believe it or not on socks. Oungku then sat down with a group of young kids and shared the photos he had on his digital camera with them.

Thank you Burning Flames for a job well done, thank you for bringing us joy and happiness. We will see you next year. 

Click here for photos

Up next for Bluefields, Nicaragua.

Burning Flames – date to be announced / 2005

New York

Yvonne Curtis & Owen Gray – date to be announce /2005

Each One Teach One!