We first heard about Acho when he was nominated for the Best Artiste or Group in the Carribean category for the upcoming Kora awards. Who was this Nigerian artiste who's running for an award meant for Caribbean artistes? He must be pretty special. Yes he is. He's even a petroleum engineer by trade. Museke.com caught up with him to talk about his music, profession and his thoughts on the industry. Below is the interview transcript.

Museke.com: How are you?
Acho: Am beautiful and you?

Museke.com: Feeling good too. What’s your real name? Can you tell us about your background and family?
Acho: My real names are Iheanacho Onuoha from where I got my stage name which is the last four alphabets of my first name Iheanacho.
I am a native of Otulu Amumara Ezinihitte Mbaise in Imo state Nigeria. I was born in 1976 in Lagos state into a family of nine children (All graduates) .I am the sixth child and the second son in the family. I am a Petroleum Engineer and as well a singer. I graduated from the Federal University of Port Hartcourt in Rivers state Nigeria in 2000.

Alikiba, one of the most popular musicians in East Africa, performed for fans in the Bay Area of California this past weekend, alongside Longombas (Kenya and DR Congo). Props to DJ Slim for making this possible. Alikiba sat down with Museke.com for an interview before and after he performed. Here is the transcript below.

Museke.com: Habari yako?
Alikiba: Nzuri sana

Museke.com: What’s your real name? Can you tell us about your background and family?
Alikiba My name is Ally Salehe Kiba. I grew up in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

Museke.com: What made you take up music as a career?
Alikiba: I have the talent. I was born with it. When I was in primary school in 1997, I started being involved in music. I got serious in 2000. I released my first song in 2004 called ‘Kuteseka nimechoka’.

Over the weekend, the Longombas brothers were in the Bay area to perform at the "Africans by the Bay" concert" also featuring Tanzania's Alikiba. They sat down with Museke.com for an interview. They talked about their music, their interests and how they handle their many female fans, Below is the transcript of the interview.

Museke.com: Habari yako?
Longombas: Nzuri sana

Museke.com: How did you get into music and when did you start rapping? Did you rap in school?
Lovy Longomba: Music is in our family and we have been surrounded by it all our life. We grew up in a music family. Our grandfather, Vicky Longomba, was a member of T P OK Jazz, together with Franco Luambo Makiadi.

Museke.com: Habari yako?
STL: Mzuri sana.

Museke.com: When were you born? can you tell us about your background and family?
STL: I was born on 1st September 1986 in Kenya and we moved to Norway when I was 5. I'm the second born in a family of three and we all live in Norway.

Museke.com: Was your family into music? How did you get into music?
STL: My Dad used to take us around Norway when we were young, performing Kenyan songs like .....Jambo jambo bwana Habari gani mzuri sana... but at a young age I faced a lot of racism in Norway and every time I came home, I'd tell my Dad about it and he told me to listen to the Public Enemy song “Fight the power”, so after a while I took Hip hop as a weapon to get me by whatever I was facing. When I was seven, I was now rapping and listening to more hip hop female artists like Queen Latifah, Salt and pepper and Mc Lyte. When I was 8, I knew this is what I wanted to do thus I started taking it really serious.

The 1st Africa Music Awards (AMA) event comes off Saturday 27 December 2008 in London. The AMA aims to expose the incredible richness of African music and culture, showcasing the breath-taking performances from the Continent’s music giants and top musicians. The event is expected to be broadcasted to over 10million viewers worldwide, and 2,500 live audiences consisting of the crème de la crème of society.

The 1st Africa Music Awards (AMA) event is tipped to be the biggest African party, exploding with the exquisite continent’s rich music and culture on Christmas Saturday 27 December 2008 at the stunning 1930’s fashionable venue; TROXY (490 Commercial Road, London E1). Within its niche, the AMA will aim to expose the incredible richness of African music and culture, showcasing the breath-taking performances from the Continent’s music giants and top musicians.

I was impressed with the Metahua video when I saw it. Yosef Gebre aka Jossy is a very new school Ethiopian musician and has potential to be bigger. The Kora awards already nominated him as a promising artiste. We chatted with him about his music, and his thoughts on Ethiopian music. The interview transcript is below.

Museke.com: Can you tell us about your background and family?
Jossy: I was born in a town named Dilla in southern Ethiopia and I come from a family of total 10 children- five boys and five girls. I am the 6th child. I grew up in beautiful city of Nazret and completed my high school education there. Then I moved to Addis Ababa and currently reside there.

Museke.com: How did you get interested in music and when did you realize you wanted to take up a music career?
Jossy: Though my family generally loved music, my father especially appreciated it. He used to send me out to buy records and I sat with him enjoying different songs. I used to sing daily just for the love of it but it was in 2004 when I decided to make it into a career.

What happened to the Plantashun Boiz Reunion aka Plan B? What has been Faze's most challenging song to write? Faze aka Richard Chibuzor Orji answered these questions for us in an interview with Museke.com. He also put to rest the whole shebang about 'See me so' and 'Letter to my brother'. Read what else he had to say in this interview transcript.

Museke.com: How are you?
Faze: I’m good and u

Museke.com: Can you tell us about your background and family?
Faze: I’m the 4th born of my family of 11, 6 boys 3 girls my mum and dad

Museke.com: How did you get into music and what was your first break?
I’ve been singing right from secondary school days but I took it as a profession 1995

Museke.com: How did you guys get together to form Plantashun Boiz?
Faze: It started with black face and 2 face. Then I was called lyrical Urge because I used to rap but when I joined the group I had to change my name to faze to blend with the group name.

Lira Molapo's music was the most downloaded (bought) in South Africa last year. Here what this beautiful South African artiste has to say about piracy, her music and her career in this Museke.com interview.

Museke.com: Sawubona! Unjani?
Lira: Ngiyaphila wena unjani?

Museke.com: Can you tell us about your background and family?
Lira: I grew up at my grandmother’s house where there were 13 people in the house. It was awesome! I moved in with my mom and dad when I was about 11 years old and my sister was born when I was 16.

Museke.com: How did you get into music and what was your first break?
Lira: I sang privately with a friend of mine while I was in high school. I as generally very shy about my singing and only performed in front of an audience when I was 16 years old. I also wrote my first song then and entered a talent show with a group of friends. We won Best composition, Best Vocalists and Best performance and it was then that I thought I had something special. It was further emphasized when we started performing in various clubs ad seeing people react to our music was fulfilling and quite addictive!

Just A Band just got nominated for a Kora award for best African video. Do you know that they made the animated Iwino Piny video themselves? Museke.com asked them about it and other questions in this interview. The JAB guys are quite entertaining, and just like their music, this chat is a 'swell' rockas of a ride!

Museke.com: Can you tell us about your background and family?
DANIEL: Since I left the Touareg caravan, Azim has been like a father to me…

BLINKY: You’ll have to forgive me; I don’t remember large sections of my childhood. There’s a gap in my memory.

JIM: I grew up in Kilgoris. It’s a little town in Western Kenya – but we were indoors all the time, so it could have been anywhere. I still prefer dark rooms to this day.

Museke.com: How did the three of you meet?
DANIEL: If you’ve read our bio then you know we met under what other people would call strange circumstances.

JIM: It was more like concentrated doses of serendipity.