Former cop takes top gospel award

Jamaican gospel minister and recording artiste Rosey Bee is the Praise Ministry Female Artiste of the Year for 2022/2023 following her recent crowning at the Occasion Banquet Hall in New York.

The former police sergeant resigned from the Jamaica Constabulary Force in September after 24 years of service and migrated to the US.

"I really feel elated, humbled and truly appreciative of the award and very appreciative for the recognition," she shared. She was also awarded Album of the Year for I Surrender.

"It [the award] lets you know that whatever you have been doing has been recognised. It's not cool getting up every day spending on studio time and putting words together and nobody is really recognising your work," she said. She also revealed that in 2021, she was awarded song of the year by Praise Ministry for Spiritual Warfare.

Rosey Bee, whose given name is Rose Marie Lee, explained that the Praise Ministry platform focuses on new gospel artistes and provides, among other things, grooming and exposure so that they can expand their reach.

"It's different from every other award show. So you wouldn't find like a Kevin Downswell in there ... what they look for is up-and-coming artistes who have a name, but they are not really out there as much," she explained.

Rosey Bee explained that she has to fulfil a number of engagements as being an awardee also puts her in an ambassadorial role.

"They have outreach programmes that I have to be a part of so I will have to go into the trenches to give out food, or whatever projects they take on I will have to be a part of it," she revealed.

A VISION

Director of events, funding and outreach at Praise Ministry, Joy Hardy said that the platform is an online programme that is based in the Cayman Islands.

"We started in 2018 ... with the founder, Brother DC Praise, and had to do with getting souls for Christ. He got a vision one Saturday morning to do a programme called 'Sen the Artiste a Road' and it would be for up-and-coming artistes because they don't get recognised as the bigger artistes. So we created that programme for artistes like them and a couple of months later, we created a committee for Praise Ministry and I was awarded events department and later I created the gospel awards show for Praise Ministry," she explained.

She said that the Artiste of the Year award is one of the highest for the platform.

"To get that award it's only 40 per cent singing and the other 60 per cent is broken down into your character and your spirituality. How we do that, we do like a deep dive into the artiste's background," she explained.