Saturday night's latest - and penultimate - episode of Popstars featured the Nne-Vida foursome putting the finishing touches on their new image, group identity and album.
The episode began with them in studio with Zwai, recording the final two tracks of their album - which Zwai produced. While he rushed around from sound-desk to sound-desk, Lyle dished a moment of cringe when he called Zwai "old" and "big".
Not directly, but rather, he told anyone who would listen that working with Zwai as a producer was like working with a "big daddy", which he quickly changed to "big brother". Like us, he's obviously
spotted Zwai's ever present moobs and hasn't wanted to say anything.
Zwai seemed unphased enough, wore a floppy golf shirt and got lost in his recordings while the group had their first big disagreement surrounding the name Nne-Vida.
As mentioned at the time of the
group reveal, the group narrowed their name down to two options: Nne-Vida and Phase 4. They debated them and Zinhle was very against going with Nne-Vida. Which resulted in her being out-voted three to one when they took a group vote on what to go with.
The moment of voting: caption her thoughts.
Our take on it is that they should have started from scratch when it happened. You can't just say, "Oh we'll take a group vote and tough luck if someone doesn't like it." They should have started again and re-found a name that they were all into
100%. As soon as one member of a group starts making compromises, cracks start to creep in. It may seem small and insignificant at the time, but such things have a way of lingering - and then happening
again.
If members of the group keep getting out-voted, it means that everyone has had to compromise on something, which no-one should.
Oscar's response to one of the Nne-Vida logo designs.
Still, things seemed to work out okay this time round. When Zinhle saw the lifesize posters of Nne-Vida she was pleased and said that they made her like the name more.
In other name news, Lyle suddenly changed his name with no warning.
One moment he was Lyle Volkwyn.
And the next ...
While the foursome chatted about the experiences they've been going through, the episode built-up to the first TV release of their single Ready To Fly: the headline single of their album.
Their backing singers for the track are the African Youth Choir, who spent time with the group at their house. They had a feast together, performed together and recorded the track.
The choir then joined them at the launch at Club Movida, where they debuted the track to the live audience that included Nne-Vida's family.
A clip of the single, followed by a clip of their re-mix of Loverboy, which they performed at a Soviet party the night after their debut:
Album deets: the album's on sale at the venues they're touring and goes on sale in stores in January 2011.