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The Caribbean Tweets for NBC's The Voice Contestant Tessanne Chin

Categories: Caribbean, Jamaica, Arts & Culture, Citizen Media, Music

Music and the Caribbean are practically synonymous, what with annual Carnival celebrations [1], dibs on the only surviving new musical instrument to be invented in the 20th century [2] and giving the world some of the greatest musicians [3] it has ever seen. No surprise then, that regional netizens have been faithfully tuning in to NBC's The Voice [4] to support one of their own – vocal powerhouse Tessanne Chin [5], who hails from Kingston, Jamaica, has toured with reggae legend Jimmy Cliff [6] and according to her coach Adam Levine [7], “could easily win” [8] the Season 5 competition.

This past Monday night was the first of the live shows – and it was a special one for Chin, who put her own spin on the iconic Jimmy Cliff song [9], Many Rivers to Cross [10].

The day before she took the stage, netizens were anticipating that she would bring down the house:

Chin, the last performer of the night, received a standing ovation from both her coach and the live audience; Twitter was also on its feet:

After her performance, Chin tweeted [11] a message of thanks to Jimmy Cliff:

Congratulatory messages were coming in from all over the Caribbean:

Some Twitter users were moved by the choice of song:

Others were already sold on Chin as a performer in her own right…

…and many have been longtime fans:

But support for Tessanne was understandably the most vocal from her homeland:

Naturally, many netizens were reminding people to do their part to help her win by voting for #TeamTessanne [41]:

By the next day, US mainstream media were also praising her performance:

Jamaica's media, however, were way ahead of the game, doing their part to help secure votes:

The media were not the only ones; in Jamaica, musicians – and fans – were happy to support their own:

In the end, though, it was really all about a strong and moving performance: