I
don’t believe that Lucius Banda’s tribute track for late President Bingu wa
Mutharika ‘Kuwala’ is the last that we have heard of him and the fallen
President.
The relationship between President Mutharika and Lucius cannot, in any descriptive attempt, earn anything close to being rosy.
Politics and Lucius will also never be separable. Ironically, he once declared that he will only concentrate on love songs, which were never to be the case; songs full of political innuendos and some briskly attacking the political authority of the powers that be kept on coming.
‘Mabala’ – his maiden album – was a litany of atrocities that the first President Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s government is believed to have committed.
The subsequent albums that followed were merely pointers to President Bakili Muluzi on how his governance had gone off beam; afterwards Muluzi took it upon himself to invite Lucius to the executive residence where he was anointed.
At first, he was a strong critic of Muluzi and he thus rightly called himself, the soldier of the poor, but soon after meeting Muluzi who later became his political God Father, the soldier of the poor became the soldier of Muluzi.
He never took it kindly when Muluzi was a subject of ridicule and this completely changed the tone in his music, which nonetheless kept selling.
Then in the political fray entered Bingu wa Mutharika handpicked by Lucius’ Political God Father.
Just within his top notch quality composition skills, Lucius released the all time political campaign track ‘Yellow’. This is one number that even when one was never going to vote for UDF of Bakili Muluzi, you still wanted to listen to it.
In fact, it is undisputable that this track wooed a percentage of voters towards UDF.
Lucius and his Zembani Band travelled the length and breadth of Malawi with UDF political heads and by the end of the campaign he had made 70 performances. He says despite all this, Bingu pretended that he never knew who he was; thus lack recognition.
Then there was also lack of reward, although the party provided a seven-tone lorry and band equipment, it was never to follow what was agreed that he would be rewarded after Bingu’s victory.
And this explains why he moved a motion in parliament to have impeachment procedures for a sitting president and what came out is something that still makes Lucius seethe with anger.
After only enjoying the status of a Member of Parliament for two years between 2004 and 2006 he did not only found himself out of the august house but had to spend 67 days in Prison.
Now tell me if Lucius is not justified to exact the pain he suffered at the behest of the late President Mutharika by exposing the ills of his government through his music?
He says he has forgiven Mutharika, but I don’t know what he means? That he will never sing about the ills of Mutharika again or will, of course sing about him, but only about the good things that, like his political God Father Muluzi, Bingu registered in his first term?
One thing for sure is that Lucius would occasionally sing about Kamuzu and I doubt very much if he will not sing anything again about Mutharika; more so if there will emerging issues or developments to compare him with the incumbent Joyce Banda.
And talk of Joyce Banda, I am anxious to see Lucius’ next album because he has become our music political barometer. We use Lucius to gauge how far we can go with expressing our dissent over the current political authority through music.
He has those poetic dubbing pieces, like the latest ‘Life’ which, like all the songs he has released during the tenure of Mutharika infected the rest of his albums never to see any airplay on television as well as radios operated by the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).
I hear he is leading a lobbying machine to have President Joyce Banda open up the airwaves for his ‘banned’ music. At the moment, the President has just emerged from our folds and we share the same disgruntlement over duty bearers who had let greed get the better of them and left us all whining.
Now that she is the Duty Bearers-in-Chief, will she still share our plight, won’t she become another intolerant leader who will ban any music that suggests she is out of step with the accepted norms of governance?
We have not yet heard how things are between Joyce and Lucius as politicians who were once eating from the same UDF bowl. Are we going to see anything better in terms of who places the interest of musicians at a better tier if comparisons between Joyce and Bingu have to be summoned?
Having read my wild intimation, do you still believe we have heard last of Lucius and Bingu?
May the Soul of President Bingu wa Mutharika Rest in Eternal chiming Peace.
The relationship between President Mutharika and Lucius cannot, in any descriptive attempt, earn anything close to being rosy.
Politics and Lucius will also never be separable. Ironically, he once declared that he will only concentrate on love songs, which were never to be the case; songs full of political innuendos and some briskly attacking the political authority of the powers that be kept on coming.
‘Mabala’ – his maiden album – was a litany of atrocities that the first President Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s government is believed to have committed.
The subsequent albums that followed were merely pointers to President Bakili Muluzi on how his governance had gone off beam; afterwards Muluzi took it upon himself to invite Lucius to the executive residence where he was anointed.
At first, he was a strong critic of Muluzi and he thus rightly called himself, the soldier of the poor, but soon after meeting Muluzi who later became his political God Father, the soldier of the poor became the soldier of Muluzi.
He never took it kindly when Muluzi was a subject of ridicule and this completely changed the tone in his music, which nonetheless kept selling.
Then in the political fray entered Bingu wa Mutharika handpicked by Lucius’ Political God Father.
Just within his top notch quality composition skills, Lucius released the all time political campaign track ‘Yellow’. This is one number that even when one was never going to vote for UDF of Bakili Muluzi, you still wanted to listen to it.
In fact, it is undisputable that this track wooed a percentage of voters towards UDF.
Lucius and his Zembani Band travelled the length and breadth of Malawi with UDF political heads and by the end of the campaign he had made 70 performances. He says despite all this, Bingu pretended that he never knew who he was; thus lack recognition.
Then there was also lack of reward, although the party provided a seven-tone lorry and band equipment, it was never to follow what was agreed that he would be rewarded after Bingu’s victory.
And this explains why he moved a motion in parliament to have impeachment procedures for a sitting president and what came out is something that still makes Lucius seethe with anger.
After only enjoying the status of a Member of Parliament for two years between 2004 and 2006 he did not only found himself out of the august house but had to spend 67 days in Prison.
Now tell me if Lucius is not justified to exact the pain he suffered at the behest of the late President Mutharika by exposing the ills of his government through his music?
He says he has forgiven Mutharika, but I don’t know what he means? That he will never sing about the ills of Mutharika again or will, of course sing about him, but only about the good things that, like his political God Father Muluzi, Bingu registered in his first term?
One thing for sure is that Lucius would occasionally sing about Kamuzu and I doubt very much if he will not sing anything again about Mutharika; more so if there will emerging issues or developments to compare him with the incumbent Joyce Banda.
And talk of Joyce Banda, I am anxious to see Lucius’ next album because he has become our music political barometer. We use Lucius to gauge how far we can go with expressing our dissent over the current political authority through music.
He has those poetic dubbing pieces, like the latest ‘Life’ which, like all the songs he has released during the tenure of Mutharika infected the rest of his albums never to see any airplay on television as well as radios operated by the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).
I hear he is leading a lobbying machine to have President Joyce Banda open up the airwaves for his ‘banned’ music. At the moment, the President has just emerged from our folds and we share the same disgruntlement over duty bearers who had let greed get the better of them and left us all whining.
Now that she is the Duty Bearers-in-Chief, will she still share our plight, won’t she become another intolerant leader who will ban any music that suggests she is out of step with the accepted norms of governance?
We have not yet heard how things are between Joyce and Lucius as politicians who were once eating from the same UDF bowl. Are we going to see anything better in terms of who places the interest of musicians at a better tier if comparisons between Joyce and Bingu have to be summoned?
Having read my wild intimation, do you still believe we have heard last of Lucius and Bingu?
May the Soul of President Bingu wa Mutharika Rest in Eternal chiming Peace.
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