Dominican aims to break record for continuous singing

Santo Domingo — Dominican singer Carlos Silver can set a new Guinness World Record for continuous singing if he makes it to 9.00 am on April 3.

Silver has belted out scores of songs since stepping into a glass enclosure on a stage opposite the Santo Domingo waterfront last Friday.

His producer and agent, Franklin Toribio, told EFE that Silver spent months preparing to take on this challenge “one of the most difficult ones to achieve.”

Emphasizing the importance of having a support team behind the singer, including medical personnel to assist him in case of need, the agent said that Silver is inside a box because it provides protection from infections and viruses, given that the marathon performance is taking a toll on his immune system.

Toribio said that the rules of the challenge allow the artist to take 30-second breaks between songs, plus five minutes per each hour of music performed.

Guinness agreed to the team’s request to allow Silver to save up the allotted five minutes per hour to take 30-minute-long spells for sleeping, hygiene and eating, Toribio said.

“We are managing (time) based on what we see, medically speaking. There are times when he has felt very good and he has sung for 12 hours running,” the agent said.

But as Silver nears the finish line, “it is much more difficult and there are many risks, such as loss of memory, hallucinations and lack of oxygen,” Toribio said.

Toribio recalled that at one point after 60 hours of continuous singing, the oxygen levels inside the singer’s brain “dropped to 92, with the most critical levels being at 84 and 85,” in which hypoxia occurs.

If Silver’s oxygen levels were to drop to 90, “we would stop the event immediately,” the agent said.

This is Silver’s second attempt to obtain the Guinness World Record. He sang for four days and nine hours in December 2016, but there were no judges from the organization to certify the achievement on that occasion.

This time, two people from the Guinness World Record organization are witnessing the attempt.

If Silver manages to reach his goal, he will top the record Indian singer Sunil Waghmare set in 2012 after singing for 105 hours straight.