JAMAFRO UK SET FOR MAY

Maria Chiguvari

ORGANISERS of the JamAfro UK Music Festival have announced that the event will now be held on May 20 in Leicester, England.

Initially, the event was set to be held on April 29 but was postponed after venue owners advised festival organisers the facility had already been booked.

Alick Macheso, Suluman Chimbetu, South African energy goddess Makhadzi, Ugandan diva Winnie Nwagi and Botswana’s finest Vee Mampeezy, are part of the bill.

Speaking to H-Metro, festival organiser, Boniface “Negombwe” Jana, confirmed the changes.

“We had announced our event last year, just after JamAfro Festival 2022. 

“Our date was 29 April.

“The venue owners kept telling us that they will let us know when they were ready to take the payment.

“Then they got another booking for an event they said is similar to ours so they can’t hold two similar events on the same weekend. 

“We had no choice but to look for other venues.

 “Because of the unavailability of venues and artists schedules, we opted for 20 May 2023,” he said.

Negombwe assured their fans they were busy marketing the event to ensure it lives up to expectations.

“We are rolling out our marketing machinery as always and we are good to go.

“All artists have given our flier the thumbs-up and we have released it to the public, so we are on.

“This edition is unique in the sense that we keep adding other African artists. 

“We started with Zimbabwe, South Africa and Jamaica.

“Then, in our second edition in Birmingham, we had South Africa and Zimbabwe only. 

“Now, this time, we have Botswana, Uganda, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

“We aim to be one of the biggest festivals in Africa.”

Asked how they convinced the artists to be part of the strong line-up, he said:

“It’s always easy for us. We have Sulu and Makhadzi as the founding artists of JamAfro. 

“So, we looked for other big artists from other countries and it was easy to bring Vee Mampeezy and Winnie Nwagi on board.

“We also want to thank Freeman, Feli Nandi, who took part in the first two editions, and could not be with us on this one due to other commitments. 

“But, hopefully, we will be with them.”

He assured fans that they should look out for similar events in Canada, Australia, Botswana and South Africa.