Ssenkoto Joram
For those that may not know, I-Jay was the singing duo of Iryn Namubiru and Juliana Kanyomozi two of the best female vocalist the country has seen.
The two teamed up in 1999 to form I-Jay and released a 7 track album titled WAIT which had songs like Wait ft Steve Jean and the most popular one Vive-La-Vie
They sounded so good and the public hoped they would stay as a duo for long but this was not the case as they went their separate ways only after a year in the year 2000.
Like always, the media did the speculation of what could have caused the break up of the very promising duo. There was talk of money sharing issues and Men being the cause of the break up.
It was alleged for example that Iryn Namubiru run away with all the money that they made from their maiden show that was supposed to launch them to the fans held at Hotel Equatorial’s Viper room club.
According to Juliana like she has said in a number of interviews in the past, all that was said was not true, there was not any bad blood between her and Iryn.
“What happened is that from the very beginning we where not meant to be permanently together”
“We just happened to be singing together in the same circles like at Sabrina’s pub, making radio adverts and so the producers said that we sounded good together and that we should do a project together”
When we did the project we realized we needed a name, so we named ourselves I-Jay, but it wasn’t a group that was going to last because I remember at that time Iryn had plans to travel with her hubby to France and I was in school.
There was not any beef between us but what happened is that media made up a conflict because they know it that conflict sells.
Media sold a narrative to the public and the public enjoyed it, they even took sides. At first I took it personal but when I grew up and learnt how media works I realized people where just making money.
“My relationship with Iryn is very good and it has always been” said the songbird in an interview on YouTube channel extra digest mugobansonga
Juliana will be live in concert this month on the 19th 2022 at the Serena Hotel Kampala in the Boundless concert.
