Inspire Club that dissects music

Music Crossroads yet again has established a unique concept of promoting the growth of Malawi’s music industry through the art of critique.

For some months now, every Wednesday a music video is picked, watched, enjoyed, loathed, loved, and then an inconclusive verdict is passed by members of Music Inspire Club whose core business is to dwell on completed artwork of music and just do the above.

In the words of Vincent Maluwa, who is the Music Crossroads Academy Administrator, Music Inspire Club is a brainchild of Music Crossroads Malawi and is situated across the long leg of art to provide a critical and analytical discourse of particular musical production.

“In its quest to offering aspiring young musicians the chance to equip themselves with the knowledge and know-how to become professional musicians, and to take part in the competitive music industry, Music Crossroads Malawi has established Music Inspire Club. This initiative is done to compliment the pedagogical approach of the Music Crossroads Academy that has been offering professional training and lessons in Music.  The club basically, aims to critically analyse music of different artists through intellectual debates based on lyrics, instrumentation, quality of production, performance among others.”

By the way, the club members meet every Wednesday at Music Crossroads Center in Area 23, Lilongwe from 5:30pm-6:30pm.

Vincent communicated to me a few months ago as follows: “On the fore of this background, it is in the spirit of this letter to kindly ask you to be the patron for the club. The role is based on your incredible contributions to the local music industry through your professional and critical writing on the discourse of music in your column Drumming Pen.”

Well, I guess I need not tell you what my response was, but I can assure you that the following Wednesday I decided to partake in this unique activity where I found the members discussing a live music video of Karonga based Lusubilo Band when they toured South Korea – by the way, I am now none the wiser; one time this band will be Lusubiro the other time Lusubilo – but this is the grouping the Wednesday meeting was discussing anyway.

How impressive it was to find out that this was not only a male dominated venture, ladies too were not just available but contributed immensely.

The grouping looked at the how Lusubilo members presented themselves in terms of their costume; how as a band they strolled on to a half lightened stage and the meaning of the cheers they got.

When they started performing they also considered the musical contributions of each band member in the total creation of distinct melodies, harmonies, rhythms, sections, and so on; the issue of interaction between these elements and emotional expressivity through their demeanour and how a totality of all this received applause or not became the main subject as well...Then the talk also looked at the cultural aspect associated with music and how it is performed. The question was did Lusubilo represent a Malawian/African culture in the way they dressed and performed their music?

Music being the kind of art that it is, I think Music Inspire Club is the right mirror that musicians in the country can make use of. It would be interesting to see accomplished artists like Lucius Banda taking their final piece of production down Area 23 one Wednesday just to hear what the musical students will say about it.

In the study of music philosophy there are a number of discourses that have established that music is perhaps the art that presents the most philosophical puzzles.

‘Unlike painting, its works often have multiple instances, none of which can be identified with the work itself. Thus, the question of what exactly the work is is initially more puzzling than the same question about works of painting, which appears (at least initially) to be simple physical objects.’        

In the process, I know even the critiquing by Music Inspire Club can equally be found wanting but at least this is work in progress. We have so big an interest in music that has been put on display by many youthful Malawians. There are also many rote musicians that are making it big and once some professional reality check is sprinkled over their work they can improve even more.

Sometimes musicians have just jumped unto the band wagon without knowing what the journey brings. They have performed before a danceable crowd but they are yet to perform before a seated crowd. The two are different; one loves the noise the other the musicality. 

The question now is if you were a musician, before which of the two set of audience would you love to perform for. Now this is where among others Music Inspire Club comes in. It is just there to direct you through the basic dos and don’ts.  

Tay Grin ‘Chipapapa’ Shame

Sometime ago I had listened to the latest song that the self-styled Nyau King Limbani Kalilani - showbiz named as Tay Grin – released called Chipapapa, which features the Nigerian singer 2Face.

I was about to write something against how it has been done when The Nation wrote a story implicating him in a copyright infringement case.

What is worse is unknown rapper Zizipizgani Beza aka Zizi-B accusing Tay Grin of redoing his Chipapapa song.

The reason I wanted to register my arguments has now been well buttressed by this case considering that Zizi-B is a mere Form Four student at Pact Secondary School in Blantyre, and he claims to have produced the song earlier in December last year with Twin Beats at 123 Records and gave it to Marcus Pasanje a DJ at Joy FM.

The argument of the two is that the hook is the same and I am surprised they are making such claims when this is a childhood song that all of us partook in singing.

Rightly put in the article, Tay Grin says Chipapapa is a childhood song that no one can claim ownership and if such song was like Chinafuna M’bale he would have sought permission to redo it.

He goes further to say it is his trademark to reproduce old songs…

Now this is where it was all clear that I needed to say something about this.

Now if you are like me and are listening to Chipapapa by Tay Grin one thing that comes out clearly is that it has been badly done if one compares it with what used to obtain when we consider the musicality in the original childhood Chipapapa.

Even the hook that these two are fighting for is one a short riff that used to appeal to us not only as children but even to our elders at the time.

What is even more disappointing is that just like he did with ‘2by2’ he has clearly killed the musicality in the childhood song.

The original Chipapa has was able to exude some sensitivity, knowledge of eerie and flat but sticking musical talent that provided the quality and state of being musical which is absent in the Tay Grin rendition even after trying to elicit the services of the Nigerian musician.

The Tay Grin beat has also failed to relay or even better the musical ability pitch, rhythm and harmony that the earlier one commands.

The original Chipapa had a very strong musical receptivity which was why generations after generations we were able to reproduce it and its storage was just in the air and the mind. That’s how powerful the folklore and childhood songs were or are.

Now this is why it is bringing me to appoint that Government as a representative of the people needs to hold the intellectual property as well as the copyright of these songs. I suggest the Museums of Malawi or the Malawi National Archives must be holder or custodians to these rights.

We can’t have artists like Tay Grin who are more of entrepreneurs than musically talented artists to be defiling such a rich heritage. These holders are supposed to ascertain if the recreation of such folklore or childhood songs because we do not want the mediocrity that Tay Grin churns out that destroys this treasure.

In The Nation story that I talked about earlier also interrogated Copyright Society of Malawi senior licensing officer Rosario Kamanga who said they can only act if they have established a violation.

My question is it will be violation against what because anybody can just woke up one day and start destroying the contents of the country’s musical treasure trove.

The challenge when artists fail to stimulate their creative juices they only settle for something that is already a household. This is what entrepreneurs like Tay Grin do.

He is like Shawn Corey Carter, known by his stage name Jay Z, who although a rapper, record producer and entrepreneur his music rides on his entrepreneurial scores and not the other way round.

You look at people who have creative juices like Evison Matafale; he composes a track like Waseseleka and it stays on the lips of everyone. But artists like Tay Grin do not have what it takes to come up with such compositions and instead just want to regurgitate the famous folklore and childhood music.

My problem therefore is how instead of improving on the same so that it helps to perpetuate our priceless treasure, these Tay Grins of this world come to degrade them. Of course there is also timeliness related to copyright where after such a time elapses its free for all...But I still want some honour to be bestowed on our best works. 

We therefore need the protection of those that we should empower so that we are able to preserve the musicality and all those related and attendant issues that make such songs priceless.

Anko Layi in Champweteka Chimanga

Let me start with a confession that when Layison Njati came on the musical scene, with his track, ‘Ndizakupasa Love Yabwino’as Anko Layi I had huge reservations.

This was at a time when I had been arguing that we needed a musical identity as a country where anything musical that would be produced by us once played within any earshot should easily be recognised as a Malawi music genre.

But here was an artist who did not only come up with a childish showbiz name Anko Layi, but came up with a cheeky track ‘Ndizakupasa Love Yabwino’  and worse still he was sounding Zambian. And everyone was as usual overtaken by another bubblegum production.

However, a track ‘Makwatirakwatira’ in his latest album ‘Khala Chete’ has changed all that. It has made me pause a bit and take a look at the artist with a really serious ear.

When one listens to the track, you would wrongly dismiss it as just one of those tracks that are hitting the airwaves all over the place because besides entertaining, it leaves you in stitches as it has a description of the song’s character that borders on comedy.

But this is the track that needs to be taken seriously as it has again shown that it is possible to have a Malawian genre.

Three years ago when Maskal released ‘Zili ndi iwe’ and ‘Usatope’ I was of the view that ‘Usatope’ was truly a fusion of an R’n’B like resonance that was reverberating in a ‘Manganje’ like thrash; it kind of fit in the frame of most of the traditional tracks that take after the ‘Champweteka Chimanga’ lilt.

This quickly takes me to the works of Sonyezo Houston Kandoje, especially a song track called "Tsika" which he also describes as Manganje on steroids as inspired by Malawi’s very own ‘Champweteka Chimanga’ sound.

No other African country has this sound which is fortunately present in Manganje, Vimbuza and many other traditional beat.

These tracks are a sign that Malawi music is slowly and surely observing a departure from a cacophonous and fleetness beat that characterized it in the past.

The advantage is that Sonye’s place is in the musical studio and his self-produced song is an indication that he is turning the studio into an experimental lab.

The same experiment would be said of Anko Layi who has a studio rightly called Audio Clinic. 

Two years ago he produced a sound track for a story board and animations project called ‘Tilitonse’ by Stephen Emilio of GD Art & Designs.

If one attentively listens to this sound track, they would not be surprised with Anko Layi’s ‘Makwatirakwatira’ because it is as a result of a long time experiment on how to turn the ‘Champweteka Chimanga’ beat into some hybrid funky that should identify with Malawi.

Its simplicity explains why Anko Layi should be taken serious because he almost made me get disappointed that this is an artists who has studied music at the University of Cape Town in South Africa; was nominated as the best guitarist, has a diploma in music reading, writing, and composing as well as being a vocalist and yet look at his lack of contribution to the development of a local genre.

Now I can confidently describe him as an accomplished singer, guitarist and producer and now with his own band known The Boosters Band he needs to spread this genre across.

Having been performing with Edgar ndi Davis Band, it would not be difficult to popularise the Malawi beat.

I do not know why our sound scientists like Anko Layi and Sonye for example, do not come together to experiment with ‘Champweteka Chimanga’ beat even further. When you listen to the ‘Tilitonse’sound track I am talking about, then Sonye’s ‘Tsika’ as well as Maskal’s ‘Usatope’ you’ll realise that even with ‘Champweteka Chimanga’ as the holding sound in order to identify the genre there can still be sound variations that in any way cannot remain monotonous.

‘Makwatirakwatira’ is built on ‘Champweteka Chimanga’ with a soft continuous tap which is fused with ‘brass bridging’ that could have come from synthesisers and this is maintained throughout the song as it is cascading with some playful lyrical content that has been embossed in powerful and disciplined vocal output.

Anko Layi in ‘Champweteka Chimanga’ should be taken serious. It’s one of the best experimental versions, as we try to procreate our Malawi music genre from our musical laboratories. I guess I now take my earlier reservations back; Layison Njati is indeed trying to become the Uncle of Malawi’s music genre.    

Why Oliver Mtukudzi still matters

Was it a privilege? Yes, I guess it was.

On the night of Wednesday, August 20, I had an opportunity to share the same dinner table with Oliver Mtukudzi, hosted by Latitude 13, barely 48 hours before he staged a sterling performance at the Bingu International Conference Centre auditorium on invitation by Qoncept Creative which is setting some ambitious bars in the entertainment business.

Talking to him on the day, his voice was perpetually husky; you needed to pay close attention to listen to what exactly he was talking about.

Also present on the table were his female vocalists, Alice Muringayi and Fiona Gwena, as well as his drummer Sam Mataure and a youthful bass guitarist, Enoch Piroro.

The one who was taking command of the conversation was Sam who talked a lot about their globe-trotting career which has taken them to almost all corners of planet earth.    

Both Tuku and Sam recalled names of people they have dealt with in Malawi before, including Enoch Mbandambanda and a music promoter from Blantyre called Pedro, whom Tuku described as the calmest Malawian he has ever met.

Both Sam and Tuku recalled how disorganised this promoter was. He was so disorganised that everything that was supposed to facilitate their performance was not adding up and yet Pedro never pressed the panic button as he kept assuring them with aplomb that all was well.

The instruments were poor, they remembered, and that when they reached the stage it was very dark they had to use headlamps from two vehicles that were positioned on the either side of the stage for the show to take place.

Well, this is a story for another day.

At the dinner the impression Tuku gave me was that age was catching up with him although he is only 62. His speech was almost a drawl, twiddling around issues like he was not ready to talk at all.

Even when my colleague Yvonne Sundu and I asked to talk to him away from the dinner table, for him just to rise from where he sat and walk to the place we needed him to be took a lot of effort.

But come Friday night at the Bingu International Conference Centre auditorium, I saw another Oliver Mtukudzi.

Throughout the show I kept asking myself how can one person live two lives that are a total contrast of each other?

From a seemingly tired old man to an energetic musical super star who danced throughout the 16 songs that he played for two hours running, I was left dazed with amazement at his energy-consuming dancing antics.

My fear throughout the performance was that fatigue will catch up with him. I was wrong. His dinner table fading voice was gone, replaced by a booming voice that has become the Tuku signature worldwide.

My goodness, Tuku and The Black Spirits only use five instruments for all the international appeal; the voice, the lead guitar, the bass, the drum and an occasional tambourine.

However, because Tuku is so good at his game, he leaves you with the impression that he has a whole range of instruments, including an orchestra, for his trademark Tuku music.