Twelve of South Africa’s rising urban musicians are competing for the opportunity to open for Usher when he performs at the Hansa Festival of Legends at the Orlando Stadium in March this year.

This past weekend, the regional finalists were evaluated and selected from a group of 30 artists through a series of concerts.

Judges looked at talent, stage presence and performance.

Over the next month, the top 12 will be reduced to six – one from each region – as voted for by the public.

The six winners will take to the stage at the Hansa Festival of Legends and open the show for Usher.

“I am confident that we have unearthed some of South Africa’s most amazing talent,” said judge and Talent Search Ambassador, Thabiso Khati, who has worked with artists ranging from Lucky Dube to L-Tido.

“We have a really special group of performers here, all of whom have long careers in the South African music business ahead of them. And what better way to start than to open for Usher.”.

Voting will open soon here. You must be 18 or over to vote.

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Two of Usher’s upcoming concerts in South Africa have been cancelled due to “unavoidable scheduling and logistical challenges”.

Usher was due to perform at both the Cape Town and Durban legs of the Hansa Festival of Legends tour in March. Now the concerts have been scrapped, officials from organizers Big Concerts announced on Monday, Jan 23. Usher will however still play at the Johannesburg leg of the festival.

Big Concerts’ Ceo John Langford says, “We never went on sale with the Cape Town and Durban tickets when we announced that Usher was coming to South Africa. We tried hard to make Cape Town and Durban work, but due to logistics it didn’t work.”
 

Usher is headed to South Africa in March 2012 to headline the Hansa Festival of Legends, according to a press release issued today.

Usher will perform as the headline attraction in Cape Town’s Grand Arena on March 3, the ICC Durban Arena on March 7, and finally at Orlando Stadium in Soweto on March 10, 2012.

Channel24 quoted Mosidi Seretlo, General Manager at Hansa Pilsener, as saying: “Hansa, in conjunction with Big Concerts, couldn’t be more honored to host such a massive entertainment legend and, of course, the most special ingredient – you.”

Usher and an impressive list of South Africa’s top urban music stars will be performing to 35,000 lucky fans at the Johannesburg leg of the tour, following the shows in Cape Town and Durban.

Last year’s tour was headlined by Pharrell and N.E.R.D and featured local artists such as HHP, Liquideep and Teargas.

Tickets are on sale on Friday November 4, 2011 at 9am from Computicket.

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Watch the entire concert here!

Update: On Sunday night, Usher made light of the wardrobe malfunction incident in a statement released exclusively to Yahoo! Music: “The show must go on,” he said about his reaction to the mishap. “I work hard and let it all hang out…. Lol.”