Sammi Starr, top Bahamian recording artist and winner of the Music Masters Competition of the 2015 Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival (he also placed second in the 2016 competition), will soon be off to Miami, Florida to record the first single from the album deal he signed as part of his Music Masters victory.

"I'm very excited about it, that first single will feature a very well-known, international artist," revealed Starr during an interview with Pulse from Andros, where is currently involved in charity work, providing hurricane relief as part of "Power of One", a group representing all areas of the arts and entertainment industry. "We came together to provide hurricane relief to the islands impacted by Hurricane Matthew, we got some donations together for distributions throughout the islands," noted Starr.

He further revealed that the Sony project will be pop music, but as a Bahamian artist the idea is to represent The Bahamas and take the nation's sound to the world stage. "Jamaica has already done that with reggae and dancehall, Trinidad & Tobago has done it with soca and calypso, so I want to give the Goombay and Junkanoo sound exposure with a pop fusion."

The first single will be out early next year, with the full album soon to follow. Starr is working with a producer who has also worked with Sean Paul, Machel Montano, Pitbull and Shakira.

"He has produced number one hits for these artists, this is the first producer I'm working with. The distribution of the album will be worldwide, Sony will start with this region and go from there. I am very excited and I'm hoping we can make a project that can get me nominated for a grammy, the sky is the limit," he said.

In addition Starr is also working on quite a few projects in The Bahamas with local artists and will soon be releasing a number of albums.

"I just recently signed a female artist to my production company Starrboy Inc., her name is Bantangy. She does pop, soca, Bahamian music fusion. We are presently working on three albums, one with my music, one with hers and also a mixtape with a number of artists I am working with. These are all finished albums with at least nine songs on them. They will be available digitally, through the online retail sites - iTunes, Amazon and so on. The music genres on these albums will range from pop, pop-Bahamian music, Rake n' Scrape, on an international level."

Starr wants his production company Starrboy Inc. to be a global force, to have a eventually have a roster of successful international artists, and also become a gateway for Bahamian artists to access the international music industry.

"A strong industry for local artists is what's needed. People say we have an industry, but the existence of some musicians, studios, radio stations that are willing to play local music at some level, that does mean there is an industry, there isn't," noted Starr.

"An industry is where you create a product for sale and people buy it. A lot needs to be done to encourage the building of an industry. People say you should wait on the government to do things, but the government runs the country, and it should use its power to put in place some policies, rules and regulations to govern what could be a very lucrative industry, get the ball rolling, inject some income, invest in it to help the sector get off the ground, pay for some artists to get in the studio, mandate that radio stations play at least fifty percent Bahamian music, have music competitions with a high level of prize money to encourage artists to up the quality of their work to win. The private sector of course must be involved, but I think they need a push and that push must come from the government," Starr pointed out.

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