The Music Crossroads InterRegional Festival is undoubtedly the only event of its kind to take place in Zimbabwe this year. Musicians from Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia poured into the country's capital to compete in this year's festival.

The Music Crossroads program has been running in Zimbabwe for 10 years and to commemorate a decade of work with youth and music this festival was surrounded by new and exciting events for both participants and public.

This year, thanks to a new partnership with festival Couleur Café in Brussels, world-renowned Marco Gudanski sound technician was flown to Harare to train local technicians from the five countries. Together they worked on the festival and then in July travel to meet Gudanski in Brussels where they completed their training onsite at Couleur Café.

Things heated up at the IRF with the Zimbabwean national finals, which brought together top local talents from around the country. Excitement levels mounted with guest performances from the international competition groups and the Swedish band Soul Trip.

InterRegional Festivals are not simply about shows, prizes and parties, they are unique in that every festival is accompanied by workshops that train and develop the musicians and their skills as well as Relationship workshops which challenge the musicians positively on issues such as gender and HIV/ AIDS. Musicians participated whole heartedly and although there was much laughing and joking and music the core messages touched people and brought about a collective consciousness among people from separate nations.

As Saturday night approached the nervous excitement became palpable. Not even the cold Harare night air could cool the contestants as they dawned their stage outfits, tuned their instruments and warmed up for the night everybody had been waiting for.

Show time! Artist after artist blessed the stage, giving their all to convince the judges that they were to be the Music Crossroads champions for 2007. Performances that still linger in the minds of those that were there are surely those of the powerful voices of African Destiny, the colourful dances of Alleluya Band II and the moving rhythms of Muticoma. At such an event it is always a difficult to decide on a winner although in 2007 there was one group that stood out far from the rest and that group was Body, Mind & Soul from Malawi, who were crowned the 2007 Music Crossroads IRF champions.

The group performs an individual style which they have entitled VoodJazz, a combination of African magic and Jazz rhythms ‘that heals you' as Street Rat the bands vocalist explains. The group will go onto work with Poney Gross in preparation for their 2008 Music Crossroads European Tour where the group will travel across eight European countries performing at festivals and Jeunesses Musicales International member organizations.

The second prize of a European tour went to Sungo Umukoshi of Zambia and third prize to Yange Yange of Tanzania, Sungo Umukoshi will tour Sweden whilst Yange Yange will participate in a JMI Ethno camp also in Europe.