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Jamaican Songstress Tessanne Chin Wins “The Voice”

Written byJanine Mendes-Franco

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Posted 18 December 2013 4:24 GMT

The finals of Season 5 of NBC's The Voice are in progress – and Caribbean netizens are already glued to their television sets, smart phones close at hand, waiting to see if Jamaican vocal powerhouse #Tessanne Chin will win. In the final face off on Monday night, social media users were practically live (micro)blogging the show, commenting on everything from song delivery to the stage presence of the three contenders.

Jamaica has naturally been supportive of Tessanne from the outset of the competition; with her constant progression to the finals, the country – like the rest of the regional blogosphere – is in the grip of Tessanne fever:

Her tribute to Whitney Houston on Monday night with a perfect rendition of I Have Nothing marked her attempt “to go out with a bang” – by the next morning, her version of the song was Number 1 on the iTunes singles chart.

Tonight, Tessanne sang a duet with Celine Dion, one of her idols, and Twitter has been going crazy in anticipation of the Jamaican singer's victory…

Tessanne herself stayed humble and gracious, tweeting just minutes after her performance with Dion:

Her natural affability has captivated netizens across the region:

Many twitter users – including Jimmy Cliff, the internationally lauded Jamaican singer with whom Tessanne honed her skills as his backup singer, reminded #TeamTessanne fans to vote for her:

Tamo-J lamented that it took a contest like The Voice to make Jamaicans appreciate their own:

Even Jamaican politicians were getting in on the action:

The online discussion soon got to the point where several Twitter users announced that #TeamTessanne was trending:

Another Caribbean-born talent who won the hearts and votes of US and Caribbean viewers by winning the last season of Project Runway, Anya Ayoung-Chee, tweeted:

@outlishmagazine added:

As the moment for the announcement of the winner drew closer, the tweets became more anticipatory – and humourous:

Some netizens were getting impatient:

Others – including Tessanne's husband Michael Cuffie – were sidetracked by the car giveaway segment and Tessanne's comment about Jamaica's bad roads:

The energy on Twitter was palpable; Jamaican netizens were itching to celebrate:

Some felt though, that win, lose or draw, Tessanne was already on another level:

After Tessanne and her team sang Hold On, I'm Comin’, the comments kept coming:

When the announcement of Tessanne's win finally came, mere minutes to 11 p.m. Jamaica time, Twitter exploded:

@Kevin2woKrayzee remarked that:

Trinidadian diaspora blogger Afrobella noted that it wasn't only Jamaica that supported Tessanne, it was the entire region:

One Twitter user made the observation that Tessanne's cause drew more people than usual onto social media platforms:

Another went back to Tessanne's coach Adam Levine's prediction when he first heard her sing at the show's blind auditions:

@WorldReggaeBlog quipped:

The congratulatory tweets kept coming, but @tsahay summed up the feeling quite succinctly:

The thumbnail image used in this post, RCA Microphone, is by National Film and Sound Archive Australia, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license. Visit National Film and Sound Archive Australia's flickr photostream.

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Written byJanine Mendes-Franco

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