Blu 3 For GMA Festival

For the first time in the seven-year history of the Ghana Music Awards, a performing group from East Africa has been invited to be part of the event, which from this year has been elevated to festival status.

At the Ghana Music Awards scheduled for March 1 - 6, one of the guest performing groups will be Blu 3, Uganda's newest all-girl group.

The band is made up of Cinderella 'Cindy' Sanyu, Jacqui Chandiru and Lillian 'Lee' Mbabazi who were the winners of the 2004 Coca Cola popstars contest ahead of 2000 other contestants.

After winning the competition, they moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, to work on their debut L.P. While in South Africa, they were taught skills in performance, stage presence, make up and all the other things they needed to turn them into pop stars.

They also recorded four of the tracks on their debut album and shot the video to their first single, 'Frisky' which was written and produced by Steve Jean. All the group members are songwriters and work together on many of the songs on their album.

The girls returned to Kampala to a tumultuous welcome and made the front page on every major newspaper. They embarked on a rigorous tour to promote the group and their first single. The tour rang at 34 stops and played to over 30,000 people. They also performed at the massive Ekiggunda Festival to over 50,000 people.

At the Miss Uganda 2004 show, Blu 3 performed the national anthem to a mesmerized crowd.

By the time the album came out in December 2004, over 150,000 people had seen Blu 3 in concert. They launched their album at the 10,000 screaming fans...complete with a huge fireworks show.

The 'Hitaji' single from their debut album went to number one on every radio and TV show all over East Africa. The 'Hitaji' video was number one on musicuganda.com for two months, beating already established artistes.

Blu 3 won two awards at the Kisima Awards in July 2005 for Best Video and Best Artist from Uganda. Blu 3 were also nominated in three categories at the 2005 Pearl of Africa Music Awards in Uganda. The slots were Best Video, Best R&B Artist and Best R&B Single.

At the 2005 Kilimanjaro Awards in Tanzania, they were nominated for Best Album from East Africa. They also put on a sizzling performance at the awards show. Then at the 2005 Kora All Africa Music Awards in South Africa, they were nominated Best Group from East Africa.

The girls toured extensively and have been to concerts in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Africa, UK and Denmark. 2006 will see them touring countries they have never been to perform. Their trip to Ghana will be their first to West Africa.

Blu 3 is only one of the four internationally acclaimed music stars who are expected to be in Ghana to take part in activities marking the festival.

Event Director, Theresa Ayoade announced at the launch of the festival last week that they are completing arrangements to bring in Awilo Longomba from Congo DR, Rebecca Malope from South Africa and Sammy Okposo from Nigeria.