Date Of Article: 10/22/2002
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‘This world is not my home’
By: Aubrey Mchulu
Album: Three 71 Artist: San B Studio: Pro-Sounds Producers: Chuma Soko and San B Reviewer: Aubrey Mchulu Whoever thought husky-voiced local ragga star San B has run out of ideas after his not-so-successful second album Swit Poem has another thing coming because the musician has come out bigger and better than ever before in his latest and third album Three 71, which contains the dancehall hit of the moment Pelemende. The first wonder of San B’s new album is that there is no song in the 10-track collection named after the title Three 71. He says the album is a tribute to his late mother who died 10 years ago. He adopted the title from a Church of Central African Presbyterian (CCAP) hymn number 371, This World Is Not My Home (or in Chichewa, Kwathu Sipadziko). Hymn 371, usually sung by the CCAP faithful during funerals, is the main theme of the album in which, in a nutshell, San B is warning people of loose morals to stop. He says that if they continue living carelessly they will die prematurely and, probably, people shall sing this hymn during their funeral and they will go to hell instead of paradise. “I am merely trying to put across the message that this world is not our home, we are just passing through and the angels are beckoning us from heaven’s gate,” said the 23-year-old star in an interview. Those familiar with the hymn can shed a tear or two if they relate San B’s choice of title and dedication to his mother to the hymn’s second stanza which goes: I have a loving mother o’er in glory land/ I don’t expect to stop until I shake her hand/ She’s waiting now for me in heaven’s open door/ And I can’t feel at home in this world any more. Currently available only on compact discs (CDs), Three 71’s smash-hit Pelemende marks San B’s departure from attacking women of loose morals as evidenced in Amake Junior in his debut Nkhutukumve album and Chiphadzuwa from Swit Poem. San B attacks Pelemende, who in Chichewa means a bald-headed man, for his never-ending lust for women and love for pornographic magazines and videos. Pelemende is so immoral that girls throw refer-to-drawer ( bounced) cheques on his desk at the office after sleeping with them the previous night and he contracts sexually transmitted infections. Pelemende is also obsessed with women, pasting on the dashboard of his car a picture of a nude woman. San B says, when driving Pelemende admires this picture while listening to love songs. Old habits die hard so it seems because San B digresses in the song a bit to attack women who attend ante-natal clinics while wearing trousers. This scene is well portrayed in the song’s video which shows “Mrs Pelemende” going to the clinic clad in a tracksuit, in his words, “ngati golokipa wa football.” The song is done in the same dancehall style like Amake Junior and Bwana in Nkhutukumve which catapulted him into the top ranks of music. Listening to Three 71 one feels the original San B of the first album who lost focus, an observation he admits, in his second album Swit Poem released last year. In the new album, San B has also redone veteran Saleta Phiri’s Munyaradzi in a dancehall duet that Phiri is probably feeling very proud of. Besides Saleta Phiri, San B also features Geoff Kayira of the duo Jeff and Langa in Kayira’s own composition Suzzu. There is also Jijo Mkanda-wire in his composition Same old son. Mkandawire also did backing vocals in the album alongside Donald Kasitomu. Three 71 is not one of the “one-hit-wonder” albums on the market. It is a captivating collection from start to end with other equally hot hits like Dzila la njoka, Honey, Kalekale and Mtundu wachilendo. Despite the controversial title, in Dzira la njoka, which can literary be translated to mean “a snake’s egg,” San B is telling a personal story that he grew up an orphan but strove to be a star today. He encourages orphans not to give up on life and resort to drug and alcohol abuse or early marriages but rather take it as a challenge and work hard to have a bright future. FM 101’s renowned local music guru Patrick Kamkwatira, whose Music Avenue Top 20 programme is based on sales, last week described Three 71 as “a bomb of an album.” The album made it to position three while only selling CDs and Kamkwatira predicted the album will make a bigger explosion when it is also sold in audio tapes which are more affordable and accessible to the majority of Malawians.
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