Freddie Matthews writes from London: Tula Paulinea Contostavlos, or just Tulisa as she’s more commonly known, has confirmed that her former UK Hip-Hop, R&B and Grime genre band N-Dubz will reunite in 2013.

Whether you’ve heard of N-Dubz or not, in actual fact they were together for 11 years. But it took them nine years for their first UK Top 10 single, in 2009, called I Need You. (sure you do, luv, sure you do.) This announcement isn’t the momentous musical occasion the band would like us to believe. Ridiculously, N-Dubz haven’t been apart for any longer than it takes most artists to create their next album, let alone take a step back from the industry and pursue totally different careers. IT’S ONLY BEEN 18 MONTHS!! This is the joke announcement of the year and do we really care whether they’re getting back together or not?

The not so unimaginable 18 month separation hasn’t felt like any form of separation whatsoever as all three have each released singles under their solo guise. Dappy, Tulisa’s cousin, is probably the most successful of the three artists, although I’m sure Tulisa would beg to differ. Dappy has been involved in five UK top 30 positioned singles and one of them was the solo No.1 called ‘No Regrets’. It was the lead single from his debut solo album ‘Bad Intentions’ from 2011. Friend of the family, Fazer, has only just released his first solo single, ‘Killer’. It achieved a UK top 20 for him a couple of weeks last month. You could say that he’s not achieved much since leaving the band.

Tulisa however has had an elevated UK status since splitting with the band in 2011. They will have been apart for two years by the time they’re reunited in 2013. This is becoming more and more farcical by the second. Tulisa was announced as a new judge for the British TV show The X Factor in August 2011. She was given the Groups to mentor and for the first time ever, the girl group Little Mix, went on to win the show. This was a classic piece of UK and worldwide publicity for Tulisa. Just as those PR wheels were starting to lose momentum in March 2012 along came her sex tape scandal, which was ‘somehow’ leaked onto the internet by her former boyfriend Justin Edwards. That video in turn bizarrely led to her beating off a whole host of beautiful competition for the No 1 position in FHM magazine’s annual 100 Sexiest Women In The World poll. I say bizarrely because she certainly doesn’t have super model looks. In fact she even struggles for Airfix model status, yet FHM readers voted her straight to the No. 1 position. She then released her debut solo single called Young, which, with her profile at an all time high, went straight to the Official UK Chart Company No. 1.

Subsequently, Tulisa has been by far the most successful of the three former N-Dubz band members. She’s back on our TV screens as a judge and mentor, each week, in her second X Factor series and, unsurprisingly, just in time for Christmas. She’s also on the verge of releasing her debut solo album at the end of November.

The PR gurus who mould and shape Tulisa’s career will be working their magic once more when N-Dubz return to the UK music scene for album number 4, in 2013. But do we really care?

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