Sam Simakweli’s attempt at resurrecting Chaphuka

Paul Chaphuka remains an enigma because he came at a time when there was the rebirth of Malawi music. His one and only album ‘Ndichiritseni’ released at the time he had just died on May 11, 1997 was only made possible by legendary brothers Paul and Lucius Banda. What would have become, had he not succumbed to skin cancer is a subject of conjecture.

But his album is marked in the all highly treasured archives as one of Malawi’s classic music production, albeit going with the equally pioneering all famous Balaka genre.

Chaphuka’s career started – or it is better known to have started – when he played with Mte Wambali Mkandawire and as an instrumentalist he used to play the bass guitar a departure well registered when he joined Alleluya Band where he was now playing lead guitar.

The album had many captivating tracks like Nkhoswe, title track Ndichiritseni – which of course is a Chichewa rendition of Alpha Blondy’s song ‘Heal Me’ found in the album Dieu. Just like Alpha Blondy who suffered a mental breakdown that prompted the release of the track in 1994, Chaphuka too, having realised of his ill health sought God’s healing power. As they say the rest is history; while Blondy survived, for Chaphuka, it was never to be.

Lucius and Paul had to finish the album and together included a tribute Tsalani in the album. This is all to give you a picture of the priceless sentimental value that this album has.

Now why I am all rumbling about Chaphuka today is because Sam Simakweli has taken a ‘leap of faith’ and done a rendition of one of Chaphuka’s great hits in the album called Mavuto Tawaona.

It is this one that has brought us to talk about Chaphuka in light of this production from Simakweli who currently brands as Sam Smack.

When you understand the pain and richness of this song just like the rest of the tracks in the album, you realise that it would require a special reason to do a rendition.

The place to look for such a special reason is obviously in the released newest production and my effort to look for one in Simakweli’s Mavuto Tawaona did not help matters as it left me with mixed feelings.

To begin with, this is a classic that, much as effort would be made to modernise it, there is still need to preserve its touch. This without doubt should have been achieved with Simakweli’s golden voice. But for whatever reason he decided to sound like a Nyanja speaking Zambian.

Smacks is one of the six-pointed stars in the local urban genre and if any attempt was made to do a Chaphuka rendition everyone would give it to him if he so decided to bring in the urban elements. Now he does so by bringing in a guy I am hearing for the first time called Michale Es.

My problem is not because I have never heard of this guy before. But here is my explanation:  

There is a ring to all the classic tracks that are redone by modern artists. They tend to resurrect the old, by making it to the top of numerous charts. The reason Simakweli’s effort on this Chaphuka track has not made necessary noise is because it has not brought any fresh impetus to the resounding following that the initial track attracted.

Most of the old folks who fell in love with Chaphuka’s original toils feel short-changed especially with the rapping which, as most of our rappers do, did not bother to make sense and bring clarity to own lyrics thereby degrading itself to the levels of noise.

In short, with the bar that was set by Chaphuka, any attempt to redo his work should be well thought of and should not come in half measures. Unfortunately this one has.

Enigmatic Paul Banda

Paul Banda – eer, Sir Paul Banda still strums his guitar and sings with the same high fetched resonance and aptness as he has done since the 1980s when his musical career kicked off.

From the onset I need to disabuse you that I am not the perfect connoisseur when it comes to picking apart his work of art; which is, however, not the same thing as not being able to appreciate consistency that this larger than life music performer has demonstrated over the years.

I have seen Paul Banda perform with Alleluya and Anthu Ambiri Band both of Balaka, and Mingoli Band. While one or two challenges would crop up with the aiding band players, his act has always been marked with some precision and perfection that comes with long years of disciplined practice and dedication.

I have seen some artists, who because of one reason or another – ranging from politics to search for greener pastures outside the borders – stayed out of music and consequently also ended up staying out of touch on their return.

For a long spell, Paul Banda was in hibernation and everyone including yours truly thought we have heard last of his musical exploits.

He has over the period that he has returned, proven us all wrong with performances that stills rings loudly, reminding us why he is a music pioneer that started performing when it was politically impossible to express oneself musically.

While it is clear for most ‘music returnees’ that they are struggling with vocal delivery and stage presence, he has taken it up with aplomb, dispatching one hit after the other that leaves the patronage with little choice but to sing along.

What is more striking is the humility that one can clearly see in his approach to doing everything musical. Lately he has been performing in places that one like Paul Banda would be too proud to go to.

He has a younger brother Lucius who has made it big in the entertainment cycles that by just coughing everything would start falling in places for him to take advantage of and take the easy route.

Paul Banda has gone beyond himself and respected the artist in him to perform for everyone and everybody without restricting them with higher gate fees or pride.

One has in the recent past seen posters announcing his performances not only with young artists but also venues that you would not expect him to grace.

In such cases one may be forgiven to conclude that delivery to such places will befit its status but not with Paul Banda who always gives out a full package performance conveyed with devoutness of an artist who respects his audience, his achievements notwithstanding.

Besides the many artists that have learnt from Paul including his younger brother, what he is currently doing at the moment is another lesson whose students should be these younger artists that have tested fame and are being carried away.

It is a lesson that teaches that the constituency that a musician represents is unlike that which politicians embodies for it is the most truthful one that really rewards you commensurate with not only their artistic delivery but also how they carry themselves.

Like I repeatedly say, the body of work that has signatures of Paul Banda all over it should have been enough to serve him financially until the end of this passage. But he is still working hard and not getting the financial prize that he deserves.

While I am still in full praise of Paul, I want to end up this entry today with the question that I ask all the time. What is wrong with the Malawi music industry? 

Elsewhere one just releases a single that does well on the market and will flourish in wealth while the most of the celebrated Malawian artist with plenty shining productions will still flounder in penury.         

 

  

Nsaku: From analogue to digital

Charles Nsaku is a musician that the young ‘urban’ age can not relate to; at least this is according to my submission.

Nsaku emerged on the scene from a very different Balaka route, but it was Balaka nonetheless.

A wealthy business person had started a band which he called Mwizalero Band in Balaka and that’s where he cut his professional teeth.

If you ask me, I will put Nsaku with a special generation of musicians who brought a special wind of music direction in the country. The Generation marshalled by Sir Paul Banda.

Paul’s younger brother Lucius prides himself as one who at one point or the other hosted many popular musicians when he established his Zembani Band and in the process helping to begin careers of Mlaka Maliro, Paul Chaphuka(Late), Billy Kaunda, Coss Chiwalo, Wendy Harawa, Emma Masauko, Enort Mbandambanda, Charles Nsaku etcetera.

But I put them in one music generation and of all those that emerged from this generation, only Lucius Banda can confidently declare that he is indeed moving with time. He has survived the tides and has responded to the present day demand. In my own words, I can say he has managed to migrate from analogue to digital.

It has been a process that has taken longer than one would anticipate. But one just needs to the listen to Lucius albums that he has hauled from past to the present including the present one rightly called ‘Thank You’.

Pardon my digression; I want to talk about Charles Nsaku. His choice of migration from analogue to digital was a little bit uncharacteristic and proven not to be in compatible with the system.

Being someone who has been around, especially when he established his band called ‘Ali ku Town Sounds’ many artists claim to have gone through his hands via the band including the current big names like Skeffa Chimoto.

Now, in an effort to return the favour, sometime last year Skeffa decided to hold a joint show with his mentor Nsaku at Wakawaka. The mistake that was made was to still use the obsolete ‘windows’ into the present advanced sophisticated operating system. You know issues of incompatibility.

Nsaku was still using the language he used to tell the fans he was performing before 15 years ago; still tried ‘Ankolo Pansi pa Bedi’, ‘Makaniki’, ‘Economy’, ‘Ndiphike Nyemba’, etcetera, oh God, it just could not click.

He really tried hard but it was apparent that most of the youthful patrons that had come for the show only waited for Skeffa as they could not identify themselves with the tracks of the old. No wonder those of old age responded with gusto and worse still the turnout was not one that is associated with Skeffa Chimoto, meaning even the old ones could be counted with the fingers of just one hand.  

One thing is now clear; either Nsaku has to retain his niche market that has fallen for his music over the time or he has to adjust and adapt to the market demand.

At his time, musicians used to make a lot of money by selling cassette albums through OG Issah music distribution system. Now this is system is no longer relevant.

Not even CDs are an attraction as with the advent of digital production and piracy of course; people carry all the lifetime albums of an artist in just one singe CD or a memory stick in the name of MP3. 

MP3 or MPEG Media layer III was designed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) as a means of compressing a sound sequence into a very small file, to enable digital storage and transmission.

What has to happen now is even a change to the approach of Nsaku music. The studio work has to be different from what he used to do. Now people popularise music that has been well done and this advertises for one’s upcoming live shows. This is where the musicians are currently mining their gold.

Unless Nsaku takes a drastic shift in his approach, he will be best suited to perform in our museums.

Lucius Banda has managed to avoid this by appealing to the present as well. When he plays his music people of different generations still know he is their own. One clever way that Lucius has managed to do to achieve this is to circumvent the issue of analogue and meet half way down with digital all the time. He has always adroitly moved with the pace. He has his place in all the generations. He has even co-opted into his album productions all youthfull musicians of the moment through collaborations among others.

If for example Joseph Nangalembe was to come back to perform today, it will be folly for him to expect to have a pull that he was commanding in his time with the performance of the old which was also meant for the audience of then.

Nsaku has been in the wilderness for so long, his comeback cannot be on the basis of riding on his ghost. On the said day, he even tried to bring along his younger brother Dave. Apart from the dreadlocks Dave is sporting now, he was just the same old one; energetic on stage yes, but with the same style that appealed to the old folks.

Sorry guys, times have changed, move with it if you still want to matter in the current Malawi music scenario.

Alleluya Band – the Modern Music Pioneer

Music was there when the country got independence in 1964 but due to political atmosphere, there was self censorship that by extension killed creativity.

The scenario remained the same until 1993 when first the country voted through referendum to have multiparty political governance and a year later when Malawi had the first multiparty system of government in place.

This also saw the birth of Malawi’s modern music history; this is digital music history.

The beginning of such history will, therefore, be a different story if it does not start from Alleluya Band; it will be mere falsehood if any such history removes the band from the origins of the country’s music history.

It is not as if there were no bands that used to play before the multiparty dispensation; there were bands like the Likhubula Dance Band, which was backing Robert Fumulani, there were also Police Orchestra, the MBC Band and the Chichiri Queens and uncountable local artist.

There was also talent within the country; but there was no knowledge of how one could put his talent into musical product through a recording studio.

Bands used to go to one and only place where the Malawian music was played and therefore this is where they used to listen to their music and for that reason, they knew that bands used to record there because there was nowhere else and this was at the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation MBC studios.

The music was also being recorded merely for MBC airplay because it was being stored on reels, which was something that could not be taken on the market for sale?

At least it was only the emergence on the scene of Alleluya Banda from Balaka, led by the agile guitarist hands of Paul Banda, that led people to realise several things about what can happen with music.

They appreciated that independent studios can record elsewhere other than the MBC studios alone. 

They discerned that local music performed by local artists could also be put in a cassette and be made available for the take of those with money to, to enjoy it in the comfort of their homes.

    

Whether one likes it or not Paul Banda ‘revolutionarised’ Malawi music.

Banda achieved all his deserving accolades through the Alleluya Band from whence he launched his decorated musical career.

Lucius Banda, Paul’s younger brother needs no introduction to the world of music from these parts; he has marked his name; no, he has engraved his name in the hall of fame.

Like Paul, he can also trace his history to Alleluya Band.

Then there is the list of the country’s most accomplished artists, you mention artists like Charles Sinetre, Coss Chiwalo, Isaac Liwotcha, Rod Valamanja, Paul Subiri, che Kachingwe, and the list is just too long to fill the whole page with names.

Throughout its history, artists have prospered while others have fumbled along the musical journeys.

While we have striking stories to tell, there are stories of Alleluya Graduates that leaves the mind wondering whether the band has a strategic plan or not.

Foster Chimangafisi, fast comes to mind. Together with Sinetre at one time they were two famous Alleluya products and one of the valuable musical artefacts that bought them fame is the ‘Chimangafisi Dollar’ album and track.

‘Tipange yathu Dollar, Chimangafisi Dollar, Tisamavutike ndikumadzitsaka’.

This is the chorus line of the track and remembering it now makes me start thinking; did we miss something in the song? Did it have a hidden meaning that we are so daft and failed to notice?

Were the two talent endowed musicians clearly telling us that Alleluya Band was just attractive from the outside and therefore the best way to get money was to have their own currency?

The story that Foster Chimangafisi was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and he is now bedridden in a hospital bed where he was also suffering financial crisis because Alleluya Band could not provide for him spoke volumes of how troubled our music industry is.

Many questions arose from this and effort to find answers gave us a number of issues to ponder on deeply.

The first one is why is it that it is Foster Chimangafisi, out of the accomplished list that seems to be suffering in this manner?

While we sympathise with Chimangafisi for having fallen to the exploitative means of a church managed secular band, we also have to answer the question above.

Does he fall in the category of artists who live for today. Our musicians are usually a sorry tale; they perform in all places and find little monies and unfortunately, they do not have any sense of saving.

One might argue that they do not make enough to save anything at all. 

However, how is it that some that have come through the rank and file of the band have progressed so gloriously?

It is a shame that a band like Alleluya on whose apparel, uncountable medallion for their unsurpassed musical achievement are pinned, should be paying its musicians K1500 a month.

One might wonder if this is the money they are getting now, how much Lucius or Paul was carting home.

However, while we are at this, we must blame the artists for not taking the skill to fishing that is imparted upon them by Alleluya Band to a step higher.

But one other artist that can give us the answers to how best to utilise the talent that Alleluya Band imparts to its band members can be traced in one Sinetre.

Alleluya is such a band that even when artists left it to turn solo, they would gain so much confidence to call themselves nicknames like ‘Soldier Lucius Banda or like in the case of Sinetre ‘Music ambassador’.

Through the band Sinetre managed to study at University in Italy.

Perhaps the biggest achievement that the band chalked, is its influence of the growth and establishment of the Andiamo Youth Campus especially at its Cecilia Youth Centre.

And this is where Sinetre was Music Teacher and Trainer.

Sinetre also spearheaded the growth of Alleluya Band and made it to still stand tall even after the departure of the Banda brothers.

Exist Sinetre, enters Chiwalo. I have argued before that I have no urge to out rightly look at one Coss Chiwalo as a sign that connote death of the all famous Balaka beat started by Alleluya Band.

Having been started when Paul Banda was leading the band and extending his services to record artist from within and without Balaka, that include Lucius Banda, Sinetre , Isaac Liwotcha, late Paul Chaphuka, Vincent Kachingwe, Paul Subiri and Rod Valamanja, etcetera, the future was so bright.

Balaka opened musical doors that led to different genres for Malawi. It became so common that people started detesting it, Lucious Banda amongst them, as he eventually tried to run away from it.

Check his song “Achimwene mumvetse chuma ndi m’malele kumbukirani makoro – muzawafuna” the last he did with Alleluya Band - a musical outfit that became synonymous with the Balaka beat – to the South African recorded ‘Mabala’.

Well, while most of the old timers of the Balaka beat have excused themselves in one way or the other, Coss Chiwalo has not yet given a convincing reason why he is not there up to date.

He appeared on the scene with a storm, I think that should have been in 1997 when he released his debut album ‘Amandikonda’.

The album was full of promise, like how the Billy Kaunda likes had graduated through the Balaka School of musical Excellency under the tutelage of Sir. Paul Banda; it left no doubt that we have a man to carry forth the aspirations of the youth in the area.

Two years later, Coss re-emerged with ‘Amakonda Aliyense’. Here, as usual, opinion started to split. While others felt the production in this aspect failed to beat the first album, others were of the view that this was an improvement from the previous works.

The debate promised that with such pace setting, life will no longer be the same.

But what has followed has been a complete disappointment.

Between 2001 and 2008 Coss released three more albums which in my view were total flops, that is if we are to compare them with his own set standard with the first two albums.

If you think I am lying, tell me how many of you know that in 2001 Coss Chiwalo released an album he called ‘Mudzithandizana’ or that he followed this one with a 2003 album named ‘Chindalandala’? Do you also know that Coss has an English titled album called ‘Heart of Hope’ released in 2008?

I have several theories that I have been trying to use to explain why Coss never impressed as was the beginning of his career.

In between he left Alleluya Band before returning as a prodigal son which could be one contributing reason. The other one could be that once he returned to Alleluya he re-discovered that the band had an international stage through the Catholic Church where they would go to Europe to perform.

There could be a sneaking feeling in Coss that if he is able to make the white people jump out of their skins with his synthesizer wizardly, then why should he waste time polishing up songs that Malawians have long stopped appreciating.

The other explanation would be that the competition is stiff and that the Balaka beat which used to massage the musical minds of the people has now started twitching the very soul it used to caress.

I know Coss holds the biggest of stakes at the moment to make the Balaka beat still stand side by side and shoulder to shoulder with the sound that is slowly but surely edging out what could be the genesis of Malawi’s modern genre.

The start of the Balaka beat has influenced the reggae and the urban stuff that has become the in thing for our radios and all dance halls in the country.

Now remember how every latest release by Alleluya Band used to turn the nation on its head? Do we still expect anything from Balaka? What have the artists in Balaka done to our hunger for their music?

Is it us who are to blame for poor patronage or it is them who have stopped being creative and in the process they have lost us all?

These are the questions anyone who has a penchant for Malawi music needs to ask. There seem to be no sense of history for the country that one has to preserve and propagate, let alone musical history.

But Balaka genre, the Balaka beat should not die, I leave it in the hands of Coss!

Paul Banda, Lucius Banda and all the graduates, including Chimangafisi, better read this as well.

These people should not the Alleluya influence and its Balaka genre die. If anything, let it outlive the rest of us, posterity has sharp and hungry ears that will still need this music.