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| Entertainment |
| Society: A hunt for music identity |
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by
Herbert Chandilanga, 08 July 2006
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06:00:25
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Efforts by most Malawian artists to strike a breakthrough, sail to undiscovered islands and weave a genre people will appreciate as being traditional and unique have been shot down mercilessly by the audience.
Every time ssuch an effort is made, the remark on the part of the listener and observer has been to identify the ‘new’ touch to an already existing genre from Zimbabwe, Zambia or Congo.
The question that crops up is whether some day the Malawian listener and observer will wake up to nod to a tune that will be accepted as being traditionally Malawian.
Veteran musician Paul Banda observes: “There is no genre or style Malawians can call their own today,” and he adds: “Malawians won’t strike that breakthrough any sooner.”
Banda says the problem is that Malawi lagged behind at the time people and nationalities scrambled for identities.
“Now almost everything is owned and it is difficult for us to place a tag on a style and claim it as our own. It won’t even be easy for us to change the situation. I don’t even understand what made us lag behind but that unfortunately is the situation we are in,” emphasises Banda.
He gets on a search for answers deep into which he opens up.
“You will observe that the Senas––predominantly in Nsanje––are not only in Malawi. You get some in Mozambique and this means that even the music they play should be similar. So too with other tribes found in Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa with common traits to those among tribes in Malawi.
“Now what happens is that when Joseph Tembo tries his best to play what is from his roots, people will quickly compare his work with that of Oliver Mtukudzi or Tomas Mapfumo and because Tembo comes on the music scene after the two, he will be deemed not to have been original, which is sad. It’s a big challenge we have to live with,” says Banda.
Banda’s point of view is strongly supported by Musamude Fumulani, a member of the country’s reggae icons, the Black Missionaries.
Fumulani notes that for so long Malawian artists have embarked on a search for a style they can call their own but that the hunt has not yielded much.
“My father [the late Robert Fumulani] was one of the people who tried to get something Malawian. He dug into the issue and his conclusion was that only beats like Tchopa, Beni and others in that line were what one would truly call Malawian.
“I think the best we can do is blend beats like Tchopa and Beni into something big, something people the world over will respect as Malawian,” says Fumulani.
The reasons why Malawi does not have a distinct style are varied.
“The first is that we haven’t had a plan to promote what we want. For instance, unlike in other countries, we don’t have government schools to promote musical heritage. However, people have gone it alone and they are doing the best they can. For this, they should be hailed.
“Secondly, efforts to sound more traditional are not supported. For instance, a musican will do reggae because it’s the one that sells better on the market. Music buyers have not supported local efforts as far as purchases are concerned,” he observes.
Fumulani is of the view that poverty slowed inventions on the Malawi scene.
“Our counterparts elsewhere had the materials to timely blend traditional beats into something else. But in Malawi, lack of resources slowed down the inventions and here we are with nothing to call our own. As it stands, we have no identity but we have all the chances to do it some day,” says Fumulani.
But Chaiperson of the Musiacians Asscociation Malawi (Mam), Wellington Chatepa, opts to stand on the other side of the divide.
“We have music we can comfortably call our own. The only problem is that we are engulfed by a bad mentality that makes anything good sound or look foreign,” so begins his arguement.
“The first thing that makes our music Malwian is the language. We are the only people who can sing Chichewa songs and there is noone who can claim that Chichewa songs are after theirs.
“The second thing is the inclusion of an element of our traditional dances. Look at Mankhamba [Ben Michael], Lucky Stars, Lawrence Mbejere, Lomie Mafunga and even the Conga Vibes that have just made it big at the Crossraods Music Finals in Mozambique––they all do what we can call Malawian music,” argues Chatepa.
He says the problem is that such music has not been accepted as being Malawian.
“But this is music you can’t find in Zimbabwe or elsewhere, it’s our own and we should take pride in it. For instance, the reggae from Balaka is Malawian,” says Chatepa.
Chatepa’s argument gets Joy Radio DJ Kenny Klips’ support.
“Absolutely, we have Malawian music. If you ask for examples, I’ll cite Mafumu Matiki, Joe Gwaladi, Kasambwe Brothers and most recently Monte Louis.
“If you are anywhere in the world and hear something like what these guys play, please come and beg to differ from what I say that this is uniquely Malawian and all they do is give the styles a danceable tune,” challenges Klips.
But that there is Malawian music is the farthest Chatepa and Klips can agree because the latter, unlike Chatepa, thinks there could be nothing like Malawian reggae or rhumba.
“Playing ‘Malawian rhumba’ is only doing an injustice to the real rhumba. Let rhumba conform to its standards wherever it is played. When people improvise, they only come up with something to which you can’t attach a proper name. Even doing rhumba or R ‘n’ B in Chichewa does not make either rhumba or that R ‘n’ B Malawian,” he says.
Whether the situation will ever get better for Malawi and that one one day people will have something to call their own, is something on which brains must come to the boil.
According to Banda, it is not an easy feat.
“In the meantime, the best we can do is try and localise the beats available. Elsewhere you are bound to have Rhumba from either Zaire or Zimbabwe, the difference being how fast the instruments sound or the style in lacing the voices over the instrumnets.
“I think the best we can do is try and do our own versions of rhumba or the other styles. In this case you’ll see that we won’t even get to be 100 percent unique, no way,” he chews over the situation.
He holds that it would be bad to put pressure on the artists to bring about something that is new and unique.
“Let them play what they can, they will eventually grow and bud into something different and good to listen to, something people will appreciate as being somehow traditional and unique.
“If you closely follow good musicians––those we tout today as trying everything to be unique and more towards a traditional identity––like Wambali Mkandawire, you will realise that they have budded from other genres. People Like Wyndham Chechamba, a man I know is doing everything to shape up Malawi’s own identity, have come through the same path,” Banda says.
However, Chatepa says the way out is for Malawians to be more aggressive and push for recognition of their music.
“All we need is grooming on how we can fight for recognition of our honest efforts. We should work on a way of commercialising our music. We’ve left the crude Malawian sounds to die in the villages and this is the problem we need to solve,” reasons Chatepa.
Fumulani agrees and says if musicians were left to play what they play now, gradually they would end up with something unique.
“On our part, as the Black Missionaries, we do international reggae. People might argue reggae is Jamaican but if you follow issues closely you realise reggae is African and more or less international. So, we play international reggae and we are happy,” says Fumulani.
The search for what is Malawian goes on. So does the debate on whether the country has music which is truly Malawian. Until people get to a consensus––if at all something like that will ever happen––the biggest worry must be that among people from other countries, a Malawian is at pains to boast of music from home.
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