Madcon

Madcon (short for Mad Conspiracy), made up of Tshawe Baqwa (Kapricon) and Yosef Wolde-Mariam (Critical), is a Norwegian hip hop/rap band. Kapricon was born in Germany from South-African parents, but grew up in Tveita in Eastern Oslo. Critical was born in Norway with parents from Ethiopia and Eritrea.

They have collaborated with a variety of artists in Norway, but first received real commercial recognition for their work with their partners from Paperboys. The track Barcelona from Paperboys feat. Madcon was a massive hit in Norway - Barcelona won the prize for most requested video of the year from Nordic channel ZTV, and was an important factor in Paperboys winning "Spellemannprisen". (Norwegian equivalent to the Grammys).

Tshawe and Yosef are currently hosts of a TV-show called The Voice of Madcon. The show airs Monday to Thursday from 10 PM to 11 PM on the Norwegian music channel "The Voice". The show features small-talk, music videos and interviews.

Tshawe participated in the 2007 season of Skal Vi Danse?, the Norwegian rendition of Dancing with the Stars. On November 25 the finals aired, with Tshawe ending up as the winner.

Madcon are going to host a new television game show on the Norwegian TV-channel TV2, starting in the second quarter of 2008. The Show is called Kan du teksten? which means Do you know the lyrics?.

Their newest album, entitled So Dark The Con Of Man, was released on December 3. The first single from this album, Beggin, has sold (Norwegian) platinum, and reached number one position on sales charts already in the 1st (Norwegian iTunes top songs) and second week (VG-lista Topp 20). Beggin is a cover of a song originally performed in 1967 by The Four Seasons featuring lead vocals by Frankie Valli. Madcon's version is produced by 3Elementz