Jamali (band)
Jamali is a South African female musical group. The members are Jacqui Carpede, Mariechan Luiters and Liesl Penniken. The band was formed on the TV show Coca-Cola Popstars. Their name is from the first two letters of each of their names. Jamali was the runner-up to the boy band Ghetto Lingo. Although Ghetto Lingo was the winners of Popstars, Jamali has outsold Ghetto Lingo in terms of popularity and TV appearances.
Career
Jamali; Formation And Debut (2004-2005)
Emerging, like their male counterpart, Ghetto Lingo, out of the 2004 Coca-Cola Popstars talent search contest, Liesl Penniken, Mariechan Luiters, and Jacqui Carpede made their début on South Africa’s airwaves with their first radio single “Greatest Love”. It’s the lead single off Jamali’s self-titled album, which was recorded at CSR Studiois in Johannesburg. The album was certified gold for sales in excess of 25 000. The album produced the huge hit singles ‘Greatest Love’, 'Love Me for Me’ and ‘Dalile’
Jacqui: “It’s been the most incredible experience! Obviously Popstars was hard work and not knowing whether you were going to make it, made it that much more difficult. But now we are a group, working together with our producers to create an album for people to love and listen to, it becomes all that more real for all of us and I think you can feel that spirit in the music.”
“It’s been fabulous,” says Liesl. “Exhausting too because we have had to record this album in a short space of time and do it with all the commitment and quality that you find in any other recording, but it’s been more than worth it.”
“We wanted this to be a global album that is also proudly South African,” says Mariechan. “For instance, when we worked with D-Rex we said to him that we wanted the music to be instantly recognizable as South African and his experience as a kwaito producer enabled us to really make that happen.”
