Rescuing Malawi Music from Archives

I came across a BBC World Service podcast that had a documentary called ‘Malawi Tapes’ which took me by surprise, a pleasant surprise, of course. 

I could not believe my ears listening to the documentary whose narrator is no any other better person than top musician Faith Mussa.

The documentary was a coverage of a digitisation project taking place at the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) where the old reel-to-reel tapes dating back to the 1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s are being put into digital formats.

In 2009, I wrote that storage of past music, which was meant to create leverage with posterity, would be futile if all this will end up damaged.

I remember to have written the following: Music in the country did not have enough justice in as far as its storage is concerned.

There was a time when it was only the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), which was recording artists, and keeping their music on its open reel tapes.

At that time, we had no music industry worth its salt – I hope we have now. While in neighbouring Zambia, I remember my father used to purchase some music on vinyl from artists like Super Mazembe, while we used to only listen to music of our artists no more than when MBC felt like playing it.

No wonder, the dominant music that used to be played at different occasions, like during nationwide beauty contests or in villages, during wedding ceremonies or sells of locally brewed ‘masese’ beer was from neighbouring Zambia, East African, Zimbabwe, South Africa etc.

What this means is that besides our oral music history, there was no opportunity to play it for the sake of their appreciation.

The little publicised National Archives patted itself on the back at the time, for having preserved music that traces our history right to the colonial era, although it is now, however, faced with vinegar syndrome due to initial incapability to preserve its material properly.

Since there was no company that was furrowing our music on vinyl, plus that we did not have a recording studio other than that of MBC, even what the national archives kept in its repository were mostly open reel tapes taken from the broadcaster and the information department.

Those musicians that had gone to Southern and Northern Rhodesia or had the opportunity of having their music sent there had their music on vinyl, like Ndiche Mwalale, Bali Kuseli, Gerald Wayawaya etc.

The biggest challenge the national archives is faced with is in many folds. Biggest of them all is fending off agents of deterioration.

Chief among such agents is the time itself, followed by chemicals that are used to make the reel tapes, or films and other forms of storage, which make them, suffer deterioration as a result of chemical reaction, commonly known as vinegar syndrome.

For example, sulphur dioxide released from cars starts a chemical reaction once it finds its way into the repositories and the result is unpalatable to antiquarians.

The other challenge is the relic gadgetry that is used to play the stored material, where you would find music stored in a phonographic form in a reel tape can no longer be played because the machine was broken down and companies that used to manufacture them have since stopped producing them.

Even the tape reels use magnetic patterns which get compromised with different magnetic fields which demands that at intervals, those looking after the repository have to rewind them time and again and this has its own attendant problems, like getting damaged etc.

You will appreciate that mine was a far cry for a possible loss for what was recorded in towns and villages all over Malawi and in the MBC studios

Until two Norwegian producers, one Georg Buljo and another Sigbørn Nedland – director of the project – came on the scene, the situation was still hopeless. 

These joined hands with Waliko Makhala a musician, an ethno-musicologist and MBC Chief Editor in this digitisation project ‘which is being aided by a donation of an old tape machine sitting idle in a mountain Cold War-era bunker in Norway’.

Now as if this news is not enough, part of the project has seen the coming together of Marlene Chakwera, Peter Mawanga, Samuel Mkandawire and Faith Mussa in a collaboration which has been christened ‘Takula’ where they have come up with their own ‘reinterpretations of the old music’ through the production of a collection of fresh productions.

Listening to their production, one is left with appreciation that as lovers of traditional instruments, rhythms and harmonies, Faith and Peter were indeed at home with Marlene and Sam to produce these beautiful tracks.

What an ingenious way of preserving that which is supposed to be archived.