"Blowin' Up! - Fatty Koo" Is Brightest New Light on Thursday Television

"Blowin' Up! - Fatty Koo" Is Brightest New Light on Thursday Television

BET's Hit 'Reality' Series Sets Stage for Album Debut From Pop Music's Hottest Emerging Group

'House Of Fatty Koo' in Stores Tuesday, July 12

NEW YORK, May 12 /PRNewswire/ -- "Blowin' Up! - Fatty Koo," the new smash hit television series on BET, is shaping up as Thursday's hottest music show and has set the stage for the release of the group's debut album, House Of Fatty Koo (Sony Urban Music/DAS/Columbia Records), on Tuesday, July 12.

Music fans hungry for new sounds are tuning into "Fatty Koo" to catch the escalating buzz on these charismatic young talents and their dramatic/comedic adventures navigating the music business. "The show doesn't make the band," Fatty Koo's 17-year-old vocalist Gabrielle told the New York Post, "the band makes the show. We were a band already."

The New York Times (April 31, 2005) praised the innovative "Blowin' Up! - Fatty Koo" calling the show "... a pleasure to watch, a quiet meditation on dreams and pop music."

Entertainment Weekly (April 22, 2005) singled out "Blowin' Up! - Fatty Koo" in the magazine's "What to Watch" guide while Star magazine gave the show a three-and-one-half star (out of four) review lauding: "It's compelling behind-the-scenes stuff, minus the bogus talent-show vibe of shows like 'Making The Band.'"

The third installment of "Blowin' Up! - Fatty Koo" airs tonight at 9:30pm (Eastern/Pacific) on BET.

ABOUT FATTY KOO

Fatty Koo is a group of young musicians from Columbus, Ohio who worked on their own demos in their rented apartment. The group caught a break and were given the opportunity to record on a promotional bus-studio that was rolled through Columbus. Working together as one, the members of Fatty Koo created a unique fusion of R&B, hip-hop, Latin, jazz and pop that led them to a record deal with Sony Urban/DAS/Columbia Records. The groundbreaking urban television network BET caught the Fatty Koo vibe and worked with the group to create "Blowin' Up! - Fatty Koo."

The members of Fatty Koo are real people -- with the real pressures of school, family, love, religion, money and sex -- who fight and argue about everything except their music. Fatty Koo was not created in the boardroom of a record label, but formed organically and authentically through the sheer strength of their talent, chemistry and musical vision.

ABOUT BET

BET, a subsidiary of Viacom, Inc. (NYSE:VIA)(NYSE:and)(NYSE:VIA.B), is the nation's leading television network providing quality entertainment, music, news and public affairs programming for the African-American audience. The BET Network reaches more than 79 million households according to Nielsen media research, and can be seen in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. BET is a dominant consumer brand in the urban marketplace with a diverse group of branded businesses: BET.com, the Number 1 Internet portal for African Americans; BET Digital Networks - BET Jazz, BET Gospel and BET Hip Hop, attractive alternatives for cutting-edge entertainment tastes; BET Event Productions, specializing in a full range of event production services, including event management, venue selection, talent recruitment, sound, lighting and stage production; and BET Books, the nation's leading publisher of African-American themed romance novels under the Arabesque imprint which also publishes compelling fiction under the Sepia imprint and inspirational fiction and nonfiction under the New Spirit imprint.

http://www.fattykoo.com/

http://www.columbiarecords.com/

Source: Columbia Records

CONTACT: For more information on Fatty Koo, contact Edwin Banacia, Sony
Urban Music, New York, +1-212-833-5072, Edwin.Banacia@sonybmg.com; for more
information on "Blowin' Up! - Fatty Koo," contact Tosha Whitten-Griggs,
+1-818-655-6712, tosha.whitten-griggs@bet.net, or Zabrina Horton,
+1-818-655-6737, zabrina.horton@bet.net

Web site: http://www.columbiarecords.com/
http://www.fattykoo.com/

NOTE TO EDITORS: Screener tapes and artwork are available upon request; contact Zabrina Horton, BET Corporate Communications at (818) 655-6737 or zabrina.horton@bet.net.

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