Saturday 24 February 2018

Norfas Nkoma of Walala

Today I want to take you on a journey to a musical place I have always protected. Why so? Well, because it gives me fond and haunting memories. 

Every time I hark back to this period it shows me the face of music.

This is my personal story. It is one that I believe talks of how my musical gods were revoked and appeased. To date I should believe I am still doing enough to my musical ancestors.

The year should have been in 1988 and I was 14 years old and in Standard 7. Both my parents are retired teachers which meant that we would be at different places. At this time we were at Namaka or Kachingwe. This is a place along the Blantyre Zomba Road in Chiradzulu. You can reach this place by branching off to the right when coming from Blantyre at Nyungwe or Mbulumbuzi, otherwise known as 6B.

My exposure to music, as was the case with all and sundry at that time was at the mercy of the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). It was the only available source or through shortwave radio frequency once in a while and this had to be BBC or Radio Nampura of Mozambique. Channel Africa was also offering occasional music every evening.

At the height of this period I cannot recall how it happened, but I befriended a standard 8 dude by the name of Norfas Nkoma. He introduced me to reggae and its associated Rasta livity through provisions of handwritten literature which he painstakingly copied from books. I was also meant to copy and return them.

I remember that day I was forced to travel on foot a distance of almost 20 kilometres from this spot to his village in Walala Poya where he gave me the materials, unbeknownst to my parents and siblings.

From this literature, I read about Leonard Percival Howell, the founding father of Rastafari, the First Rasta and the Original Gong who inspired Bob Marley with his message that ended up gifting the world with reggae music as we know it today. I also learnt a lot about Marcus Mosiah Garvey, a proponent of Africanism and many more.

Now in the absence of music – I mean reggae music – this history could not sink in and therefore I needed music. But as Malawians had no access to music it proved difficult.  

But as fate had it my father happens to be one of the first teachers of Malawi Correspondence College (MCC). Because they had radio programmes they were making provisions of radio cassette players in such institutions.  

Besides this, my father had a vinyl record player which was a rectangular box sitting on four legs called radiogram. Well, my father’s taste of music included those of Jim Reeves, Super Mazembe of Zambia and believe it or not Jimmy Cliff, among others.

It was always Jimmy Cliff’s version of ‘No Woman No Cry’ on the LP that really made me move. But then I met another son of a teacher at the institution who was an elder, Grey Mabvumbe who first borrowed me iconic Gregory Isaacs cassette albums which I would listen to by playing them on the MCC cassette players/recorders from my father’s work place.

With exposure to a lot of reggae music as I grew up – briefly in Nkhatabay when teachers were repatriated back to their respective region of origin in 1989 through to my sojourn at Masongola Secondary School in Zomba and Rumphi Secondary School – my musical life completely transformed.

Therefore for the last ten years that I have been running musical columns in the weekend newspapers of the country, whenever I sit down to write, my man Norfas Nkoma always comes to my mind.

I am still not sure where he is at the moment but I doff my hat to my musical father who took time to explain to a 14-year-old boy of the different genres of music that are there. I followed my ear to reggae music which opened a lot of doors for me to appreciate music in general.

Now this is one of my many personal stories to music that I thought I should share with you this week.


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