ON A night when many of the contestants brought their A-Game, opera singer Kimberly Samuels did not bring it enough, and was the latest act axed from E-Network/Red Entertainment’s Cable TV talent show, “The Spotlight”, when it continued with Episode 4 last Wednesday night.It was another night of twists, surprises, and emotion running high as this week’s episode revealed that the final ten contestants were paired off, with each pair challenged to put together the talent of the two acts and create enough of a stir to get the nod from the judges to move into the next round.

The biggest twist was they had only one week to prepare.
This week’s guest judge was none other than local Dancehall artiste, Jackie Jaxx, who herself performed during the course of the evening. Apart from Jaxx, regular judges Christian Sobers, Alana Seebaran, and Russell Lancaster were all on site to tell the acts just what they thought of the partnerships.
The rules for the night were that the pair ending at the bottom would then go from friend to foe, as they would be pitted against each other to face off for a single spot in the final nine.
Many, like dance group, Euphoria, which was partnered with speed painter, Winston Alexander, were able to pull it off flawlessly; however, others like Samuels and ‘Errol T’ hit several glitches along the road. In their case in particular, it was about their clash of song styles.
‘JUST AMAZING!’
When Euphoria and Winston Alexander wrapped up their witty performance of dance and art, they rendered Judge Jackie Jaxx almost speechless. “Just amazing!” was all she could manage. And, amazing it was indeed!
Clad from head to toe in black bodysuits, Euphoria never emerged from the dark backstage until Winston painted on their suits and “drew” them into motion, in an enthralling act that you just had to see to believe.
“This is just super creative! People coming together to make one masterpiece of a performance!” said Alana.

“You guys blow our minds independently; we put you guys together and it is just insane the quality that you guys have delivered. Everything was there: The precision; the quality. It was just fantastic!” she added.
Russell loved everything about it, and Christian said it just blew his mind away. They were arguably the best act of the night.
But if Euphoria and Winston were ‘the ‘best’, then ‘the worst’ just had to be Kimberly and Errol T.
The pair ended up as the bottom acts of the night after performing reggae classic, “Coming over” by Chuck Fenda and Cherine Anderson, which put Samuels at a great disadvantage. Instead of finding a way to merge her operatic style of singing with Errol T’s reggae, Kimberly instead chose to holistically embrace it. So while the song allowed Errol T to work in his natural element, it succeeded in leaving Kimberly woefully shortchanged.
NOT QUITE RIGHT
Samuels is a fantastic opera singer, but struggles when singing other genres. And reggae is no exception. The general consensus from the judges was that the pair looked good, but just didn’t put the sound together quite right.
“You managed to visually convince me, but vocally, not quite so much. There were certain points during that song that you were definitely going off; there was a little bit of slippage, and this is not the point of the competition for you to be slipping,” was how Russell summed up their performance.
Joining Errol T and Kimberly in the bottom acts were dance group, Now U C Me, which was paired with contortionist, Robert Wall. The highly-competitive night saw emotions running high, so much so that Now U C Me dancer and singer, Travis Bowen just could not stop himself from breaking down when he learnt that the group was through to the next round.
Now U C Me and Robert put on a well-costumed “Wizard of Oz”-themed dance routine that was arguably one of the group’s best performances in the competition thus far.
Nonetheless, the dancers felt they did not bring their A Game; and neither did the judges. Comforting Bowen, one of the dancers noted that the group has been feeling the pressure of the competition.

“Right now, Travis is going through a lot; we all are. We know this was not our A-Game as much as we were supposed to, so, from the performance, and the judges’ honesty, we knew that we were at the bottom; so it’s kind of a weight lifted off of us, knowing that we now have another chance to bring it again,” she said.
EARLY START
Earlier into the night, the show started off with a collaboration between ‘Behold the Jury’ and the singer, Trevaun Selman. And in the words of Judge Russell Lancaster, “It just came together; it was excellent!”
For Judge Alana, “It had heart; it had soul; and this is what we want to see. It was so entertaining!”
The other duo of the night saw Delisha Wright paired with Jamal LaRose, and together they put on a performance of James Brown’s “It`s a man’s world” that received nothing but praise from all of the judges.