Entertainment: Where do broken groups go?

Over the last two decades, many musicians have opted to working in groups in order to make achieving their goals easier. Groups of names like Spice girls, Public enemy and lately the Jonas Brothers, came top of the world-music industry because of group effort. In Rwanda, the group trend started in the early 2000s with the ‘TFP’ crew with its veteran rappers Mahoniboni and DMS, singer Faisal and audio producer Beezy Bee. The ‘Family squad’, KGB and ‘The Brothers’ also emerged in the industry as groups by mid-decade. Well, much as they perform better when they combine, one common fate of a group is a bitter break-up. In some broken groups, one lucky member stays in good shape as the others get forgotten or lag in the background of the music scene. American R’nB group Destiny’s Child set an example of successful group work in early 2000s before their sudden break-up. Kelly Rolland turned to low-budget movie roles and Michelle Williams kept struggling as a once famed girl. It was also the time for Beyonce Knowles to begin her success journey. Since then, many of her songs have claimed top spots on American billboards and ‘Sasha Fierce’ album has earned her several Grammy Awards. Similarly in the neighbouring Uganda, Cindy’s role in ‘Blu 3’ was never noticed before. She just emerged as a heaven-sent diva after being shown the exit from the R’nB group. This was a sad end for the trio that had crossed the oceans singing together, but a blessing in disguise to Cindy. It is still hard to tell the fate of groups after breaking up on the local scene though. Fans’ favourite ‘Tuff Gang’ crew was not shy either, to dismiss their fifth limb P-fla a few weeks ago. The 25 year old, who played a big part in the hip-hop group’s early success immediately started his own group, ’IMS’; he is probably headed for the Beyonce-Cindy challenge. And when local afro-beat group, ‘Just Family’ showed exit to Kim Kizito, they seemed to maintain the pace and immediately released the ‘Bamubwire’ single and launched their debut album ‘Turiho’. The group has taken a long absence from showbiz though. Could they be going back to ground level? If this is your time to join a music group, consider first praying to be the lucky star that will survive if the group splits-because history repeats itself and the weakest link is forgotten. Ends