22 Jun 2023

Botswana Press Agency (BOPA) scribes serenaded the crowd to win  media karaoke competition held at  Newscafe recently.

The competition hosted and organised by Kulture an events planning company striving to elevate the local showbiz industry with favourite international acts witnessed Team BOPA scooping the grand prize ahead of Gazette newspaper and The Voice newspapers.

Media houses showcased their singing talents at the media karaoke night, which was part of Kulture’s three part series.

The karaoke nights started with corporate/parastatals organisations battling the night away followed by media houses.

The last karaoke night will be a competition among the rock stars this Friday.

Despite Team BOPA sounding like Maria Carey or Maria Scarey, they proved to be the crowd’s favourite and scooped the prize.

The win was not by fluke but by merit as they had the crowd eating from their palm and commanded the stage.

The three media houses each sang three songs, with two of their choices and another song from Zonke, a South Africa act who is scheduled for a gig in Gaborone on June 30.

BOPA team chose simple sing along songs from Backstreet Boys I Want it that Way and Westlife’s ‘My Love,’ which worked for them as they held the night down and was everyone’s favourite. 

The third song from Zonke, Feelings which the teams were ultimately judged on was sung by all, with all media houses singing in Acapella, to determine the level of knowledge to the lyrics and ‘tune.’

Feelings proved to be a difficult song for all the contestants, however BOPA team improvised and displayed a winning performance.  However, Team Gazette performed fairly well the Beyoncé’s Ego and Weekend Special from Brenda Fassie. 

The Voice team hopelessly left all songs unfinished and in true karaoke style gave the house an interestingly funny night.

The title earned the team tickets to the Zonke Kulture Live show as well as one night accommodation at Metcourt. 

In an interview Kulture member, Thato Mochipisi, indicated that they held these karaoke nights not only as a build up to the event, but also to give people a chance to experience what it felt before an audience. ENDS