BET Debuts New Reality Series Blowin' Up!: Fatty Koo Premiering April 21 at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT

LOS ANGELES, March 31 --

WHAT: BLOWIN' UP!: FATTY KOO is BET's explosive new reality series debuting on Thursday, April 21 at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT. This half-hour unscripted drama follows the lives of five talented kids aiming for a career in the record business -- Eddie B., Gabrielle, Marya, Ron and Valure. For 13 episodes, BET viewers will experience the ups and downs of one group's struggle to break into the biz, and their journey from the midwest to the bright lights of the Big Apple.

And what, exactly, IS Fatty Koo? Fatty Koo is a musical group created the old-fashioned way -- no Svengali calling the shots, no mega studio, no penthouse, no bling-bling. They are real people doing it themselves and making gut-wrenching decisions while waving away the trappings of show business to concentrate on what's most important to them, the music. The multicultural collective which makes up Fatty Koo met on the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus and came together to create a blend of R&B, hip-hop, Latin and pop for a sound that has already scored them movie soundtrack placement on "Fat Albert." Their Sony Urban/DAS/Columbia Records debut album, House Of Fatty Koo, is slated for release on Tuesday, June 21.

SERIES PREMIERE: Thursday, April 21 at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT

ON THE WEB: http://www.fattykoo.com; http://www.columbiarecords.com; http://www.bet.com

ABOUT BET: BET, a subsidiary of Viacom, Inc. (NYSE: VIA and 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 80 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.

SOURCE BET (Black Entertainment Television)
Web Site: http://www.fattykoo.com