How Musamude Fumulani was rejected

For long, I have really fought the temptations to write about Black Missionaries song in Kuimba 5 called Azandigwira Dzanja. 

When Evison Matafale died in 2001, the eldest Fumulani brother Musamude took over. Shabbah as he was fondly called, never disappointed. 

While Matafale only managed two albums Kuimba 1 and 2. Musamude led the band in producing four albums, Kuimba 3, 4, 5 and 6.

It is however Kuimba 5 which is considered one of the prolific creations from the Black Missionaries and it is this track that helped the album to stand out. 

The song was a testament from Musamude as a Rastaman. He was continuously facing stereotypes for believing in the Rasta livity and befittingly so, the track is ensconced in Biblical verses from Psalm 23 and Psalm 118 verse 22 as well as Ecclesiastes 1.

At 28, Musamude died very young but he took charge of the band from 2005 until 2008 where he showed what an impressive lyricist he was. 

Considering that this composition was a declaration of a personal position, it sure would have rendered the creative facet more challenges as it would have been compromised with emotional outburst.

He however wove it in such a balance that he was both unapologetic and unassertive. He opens the track by declaring with acceptance:

N'zayenda monga mwala wokanidwa padziko la pansi

(I will walk the earth as a rejected stone)

Koma kwa Mulungu wanga ndizayenda mwachifundowo

(But I will walk with grace in my God’s presence)

He then realised that as a Rastaman people would always question his conviction so much so that he thus acknowledged:

Mawonekedwe, khalidwe ndi madyedwe anga ndicho chitsanzo cha moyo wonka muyaya wa Mulungu atatewo

(My appearances, my character and my food exemplify the everlasting life of my God, my father)

Knowing that this would still not be enough to those people that are wired to only believe what they think is right and never give others room to exercise their beliefs, Musamude told them that:

Sindizaopa nkhale nzayende mchigwa cha nthunzi waimfa sindizacheuka

(I will not fear even though I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not turn back)

Poti azandigwira dzanja, Mulunguyo ndi mfumuyoo

(Because He will hold my hand, God, the King)

The chorus is also interesting as it now emphasises on the fact that he had made peace with what he believed in and that he would tread on the path that he had chosen:

N'zayenda mchigwa cha nthunzi waimfa

(I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death)

Sindizaopa zochimwazo, Yesu zandigwira Dzanja

(I will not fear evil: Jesus will hold my hand)

Ngakhale ndiyenda mu nthunzi waimfa 

(Even though I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death)

Sindizaopa zowopyazo, Selassie I zandigwira dzanja

(I will not fear the perils: Selassie I will hold my hand)

In the second verse he compares the current world authorities to the Kingdom of God. He demonstrates that the earthly powers come and go and deprive people of their rightful acquisitions and therefore are supposed to be fought until victory is achieved.

Ufumu wadziko lapansi ndiwonamiza, Umawala, nkuzima

(Earthly kingdom is deceiving; it glows before going dark)

Koma wa Mulungu wanga uzapita muyaya eeh

(But my God’s kingdom is forever)

Utsalire m'bale wanga iwe wovutika, tizamenya nkhondo

(Don’t despair my troubled brother, we will fight on)

Mpaka umphawi uzatha, tizayimba Allelujah eeh

(Until end of poverty, we will sing Hallelujah)

Azatipatsa mphamvu ndi Mulungu wathu sazatisiya,

(He will give us strength; He is our God, won’t desert us)

Tizayimba kumwamba, ndi pansipa tikuyimba eeeh

(We will sing in heaven and so here on earth)

It is in the third verse that Musamude called on Ecclesiastes 1 where he referred to words of the preacher in the scripture and referred to human failure to withstand temptations and pander to the whims of prodding desires that are leading to the destruction of the world.

Mulaliki anati zonse nzachabe, ena akuti nzabwino

(The Preacher said all is vanity, but others say otherwise)

Koma dziko la pansi likupita ndi zilakolako

(But the world is being weighed down by human desires)

Chomwecho mayendedwe, maonekedwe anga adabwitsa wanthu

(Therefore, my character, my appearance marvel people)

Poti ndisunga tsitsi lomwe Jehova analengalo

(Because I keep hair that God gave me)

Poti ndidya zomera zomwe yehova analengazo

(Because I eat plants that God created)

Choncho dziko lapansi ndizayendabe monga mwala okanidwa

(Therefore, I will walk the earth as a rejected stone)

The month of September, precisely on September 17 is the month that Musamude died. In fact, this year is the twelfth year since his passing. This track and many that allowed him to perform in his short life tells us of a man who was an embodiment of creativity.

Ignorance of producers means poverty

Most of our music producers do not realise how much they still become part of the music they produce in terms of royalties. With the coming in on the scene of modern producers there has been some movement from Cosoma, so I have heard.

Now there is a section on those forms that artists fill when registering their products with Cosoma where name of a producer is indicated.

Like I said last week, Cosoma benefits a lot from the ignorance of artists and therefore operate in secrecy. There is no knowing, how much in royalties these music producers are owed. What is even ironic is that if musical artists themselves are complaining that they are never given what is owed to them in royalties, can a producer really receive anything at all.

If Cosoma cannot release a full list of those musicians to receive royalties, can one really expect them to even have one for music producers? Or is there indeed any arrangement for producers.

Heather McDonald notes that most producers want to help make songs of artists the best they can be. In the process, he warns that a bad deal with a producer can haunt musicians for a long time.

'There could be best ways to prevent a nightmarish scenario by merely understanding how producers are compensated for their work so the musician can accurately evaluate the deal that's on the table'.

The big place to look at are in three folds: advances, royalties, and recording fees.

There is no across the board telling on how producers can get paid, but it all depends on the terms in contracts which apparently vary significantly based on the genre of the music, the bargaining power of the producer and how big or small the musician in the deal is.

Unlike in Malawi, producers in the advanced music industries have two main streams of income which is what they call advances and royalties.

A new entrant in the producing industry cannot get advances as their portfolio is in the formative stages. Most of our local producers get a per-song fee and the amount variation is influenced by many factors. One factor is when there is a label involved and if such label is local or international, independent, or a major record company.

The producer therefore, benefits from recording fees and royalties. For years Malawi's local producers like late Chuma Soko, Sir Paul Banda with his IY Studio, used to only charge recording fees. If we go to Sir Paul Banda today I pretty much doubt if he will tell me he has ever received royalties for producing numerous tracks now aplenty in the musical spaces.

The element of getting advance in the Malawi scenario comes at the back of recording fees where upon agreeing to record an album the producer can get paid 80 percent for a 12 track album when he has only produced just one song. But in industries where advances are paid, Heather says they might include the actual recording cost when producers work in their own studios which is sometimes called a fund deal.

He also says it's up to the producer to make it clear in the contract what percentage of the funds go to the advance and how much is considered a recording fee.

Now where the difference is, is 'that recording fees aren't generally recoupable against producer royalties, but advances should be recoupable or subtracted from royalties ultimately paid to the producer, just as the name suggests. Its advance money that will technically be earned later'.

He says many producers receive a percentage of an artist's royalties earned on an album which are also called "points", where one point equals 1 percent.

The explanation is that traditionally, the royalty is based on how the artist was paid, which is typically a percentage of the record’s sales price multiplied by the number of CDs or downloads sold. The record royalty to the artist is around 15 percent to 16 percent of the sales price of the audio product.

In this case Heather says the record royalty for a music producer is usually between 3 percent and 4 percent of the record’s sales price, or 20 percent to 25 percent of the artist's royalties. I wonder how it is calculated at Cosoma, if there is any at all.

The other thing is that producers are typically paid "record one" royalties which are paid for every album sold, unlike artists who only receive royalties after recording costs have been recouped.

My questions still goes to Cosoma to show us the list of royalty beneficiaries… Is it possible? And which authoritative doors can we knock on to force Cosoma to comply?

Where are the Royalties for musicians Cosoma?

The fact that the issue of royalties keep coming means the Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) is yet to be transparent in its dealings over this matter or that it lacks a good publicity machinery that can always churn out information that leaves no grey areas.

Just this week I was tagged on Facebook by musician Khuzah Rampi who had no kind words for Cosoma. His story is that since 2001 he has been realising albums and performing lives shows across the country. He says he recorded his first songs with the late Chuma Soko followed by others that he did with late DD Nyirenda, late Charles Foster, Ralph Records, Uncle Lai, Bathwa Maestro Flobud, Limbani Chibwana and many other top producers. His songs have enjoyed massive airplay on different radio stations in Malawi. He mentioned several radio personalities that have played his music.

He bemoans that for the period of 18 years that he has been in the music industry Cosoma has never given him a penny through royalties. All what they claim he says is that the broadcasters do not log his songs in the sheet.

He now borrows from gospel artist Princess Chitsulo who once wrote that their number one enemy in music industry is Cosoma. Rampi calls it a monster that has been milking musicians for decades.

He now rallies support from fellow musicians and other talented artists to fight Cosoma.

Cosoma executive director, Dora Makwinja once told me that in the past, they used to keep data on sales of music by authorized distributors especially those that they had given licenses.

She said when Afri Music Company (OG Issah) was in the business of producing and distributing music, they used to have a good database of record sales and even for others who were also in the same business because there was some kind of control.

Now, with parallel markets where musicians are also selling their own musical works, she said it was difficult to have a complete data of the record sales and therefore there is a huge loss of royalty collection.

Before, she said the system was beneficial to musicians like in 2009 when one musician Lawrence Mbenjere set a new record when he became the first musician to cart home money in excess of over K2.5 million in royalties.

There were also challenges in collection especially in broadcasting royalties, where some radio station including the state owned broadcaster the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) would fail to remit the royalties and at one time in 2013 MBC owed Cosoma K8 million.

Cosoma Senior Licensing Officer Rosario Kamanga once said since the Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (Macra) commissioned the Consolidated ICT Regulatory Management System (CIRMS), otherwise also known as the Spy Machine management of broadcasting royalties would now be easy because other broadcasting institutions were neither logging the number of times they had played music of artists nor indicating at all whether they had played it or not.

With the Spy Machine in full gear I wonder what more excuses Cosoma will bring to the fore.

I responded to the Facebook post that I have written countless times on the questionable conduct of Cosoma and spineless administration of the leadership of the musicians. I stated that unless they wake up and act, the media can only do so much. We can criticize Cosoma and Mum but if the artists remain docile as they have demonstrated they will remain trapped in poverty.

I always argue that why foreign artists should become instant millionaires with a single hit but we have artists like Stonard Lungu, who died a pauper when he was a legend. He had cancer but still performed to raise funds for his medical bills. In other countries he sure would have been able to fly to any expensive hospital in the world because his body of work is a treasure trove.

Bob Marley died in 1981 but he is still making millions each and every passing month through royalties. Now we have many radio and TV stations, buses and minibuses, a lot of pubs, playing local music which by now should have translated into millions for musicians. What is wrong? When did Cosoma conduct royalty presentation ceremony as they used to do with the Nkasas and Mbenjeres that time? Unless musicians wake up, other people will become instant millionaires using their talent just like we have seen it happening in the past.