Crimes of Lucius Banda

The 19th Album of Lucius Banda is reminiscent of an artist who genuinely stood for the people and ended up branding himself the soldier of the poor until Bakili Muluzi happened.

Rightly called ‘Crimes’ this is where he is taking Government to task exactly the same way he used to do with the Government of the first multiparty President Bakili Muluzi. While everyone was clapping hands for Lucius for speaking on their behalf, like a bolt from the blues, he made a U-turn and befriended Muluzi after a special invitation to the kingly walls.

From there onwards, the masses never recognized their soldier anymore. He was reduced to a hand clapper for Muluzi and even went ahead to compose a track Yellow which helped to usher in Muluzi’s successor Bingu wa Mutharika.

As Mutharika dumped Muluzi so Lucius showed his loyalty by standing beside him, something that led to his imprisonment.

As things are at the moment, while his political party, the United Democratic Front decided to become the ruling Democratic Progressive Party bed fellow, Lucius never joined the band wagon and has realized the true colour of politicians, although he is a politician himself.

At the risk of causing debate I would argue that Crimes is an album packed with Lucius Banda’s undertones and frustrations over what has not become of his political career.

And listening to Crimes, it is a typical Lucius Banda album which has a predictable structure. The title tracks for his albums are always a Jamaican modelled dub-reggae poetry beat which he transforms into spoken word production over a Nyambinghi rhythm.

Kulila kwa amphawi just like Chako is a political outcry indeed speaking for the people as was the case then. And there is also Zithumwa which he presents in form of a letter to his uncle which is a sequel to the last two letters the other one collaborated with Thomas Chibade.

Then there are always wedding songs these days. People hire him to produce songs for their weddings and these ones lately find their way into his albums. In this particular project there are two; Andimvetsa Sugar and Tiye.

Whereas in the last albums which he produced when Muluzi was his hero the tracks carried messages of hero worship, now in Crimes, just like the Lucius of the old, there are tracks with implicit messages like Chida cha mtendere.

He however clearly direct his attacks on the leadership in the track Chako where he equates the current national scenario to a Biblical story of King Solomon.

This is when two women were fighting over a living child after one had lost hers and wanted King Solomon to decide the real mother. As the story goes the king proposed to cut the baby in halves where the real mother protested while the one who apparently had lost her child wanted the baby to indeed be cut into two.

In reflection Lucius thinks the leadership is not patriotic enough because they do not belong to Malawi and are behaving like that bad woman. They are on the course to destroy the country because they are set to leave to their respective countries once everything has been damaged since some have green cards.

Remember his promise to be producing tracks like Zulu woman I think in Kuyenda ngati nkhunda, which is a traditional Champweteka chimanga beat which is produced by an expert of such beat Sonyezo, Lucius has ably just killed it.

Like has been the norm Limbikila mwanawe is a piece of advice to his child and this and the rest of the tracks in Crimes have been complement by two Gospel tracks Nkokoma  and Siliva ndi golide to complete a model of Lucius Banda’s album.

The only difference in this album’s structure is the track Touch Me which is a sexual track that would require parental guidance if played within the earshot of those below 18.

At the end of the day, it’s not up to me to judge Crimes as holding a genuine sway over the followers of Lucius as was the case before. I am talking about this in terms of Lucius’ sincerity. But if you ask me I would only say: Once bitten, twice shy!

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.