Joyous Celebration Joins Universal Music Africa
Joyous Celebration Joins Universal Music Africa. The musical group is currently celebrating 25 years of existence, and will also have its music released in the US and Canada by international renowned Motown Gospel. Joyous Celebration was founded by Jabu Hlongwane, Lindelani Mkhize and Mthunzi Namba, the group released its latest single titled Ndenzele uNcedo yesterday.
Not only are they celebrating turning 25, but they are joining Universal Music Africa (UMA), a division of Universal Music Group (UMG), has announced the signing of the iconic group MTN Joyous Celebration. Mkhize said: “This move means growth, and it feels like a rebirth of some sort. We had a good 24 years run at Sony Music and had a good run. We felt that with a lot of changes happening digitally with mobile music happening we really needed to re-imagine ourselves. We needed to find people who say we don’t know you but we love what you are doing. Let’s start from scratch and Universal offered that. We are excited and we are looking forward to this new direction to this new move.”
Universal Music Group SA and Sub Saharan Africa CEO Sipho Dlamini said: “This was an exciting opportunity to be involved in the next phase of their incredible journey as they continue to grow, inspire, spread culture and positivity and reach new audiences around the world. We welcome Joyous to UMG and are looking forward to working together across a variety of platforms to help open up new exciting opportunities.”
Hlongwane said, “We are very excited to be partnering with Universal Music on this journey as we are celebrating 25 years. There’s been crazy ups and downs but we are here. This milestone album is special to us, 25 years is not a short time. We are particularly pleased that this partnership is an opening us up to new territories, new things, new outlook, we needed the change. We also want to say to say to the people that the 25th instalment of Joyous Celebration is being cooked, and they should expect it soon. It’s going to be ready before Easter.”
