3MA performs in Malawi

Three artists from Madagascar, Mali and Morocco on Friday offered a scintillating performance in Malawi during their concert at French Cultural Centre (FCC) in the country's commercial city of Blantyre.

The three artists dubbed 3MA offered Malawians the Best African art which showed them how important traditional instruments are as far as producing the best sound.

From Mali Ballake Sissoko brought in his Kora instrument and Madagascar’s Ragery plucked his valiha with Moroccan Driss El Maloumi playing his Oud.

The 3MA who came to the southern African country courtesy of FCC were curtain raised by Malawi’s Ethno-musician Waliko Makhala who played alongside Macfallen Chingwalu and Eric Kangulero.

Makhala said after the show that 3MA played the best music using traditional instruments which were part of preserving culture.

“The three guys are from different countries, use different string instruments and they blended it well,” said the musician further calling on Malawians to appreciate traditional instruments which would help improve the country’s music identity.

Malawian musician have received criticism from the society for copying music from other countries and failing to produce their own identity.

Meanwhile a Mozambican musician, Feliciano dos Santos, is one of this year's winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.

A statement from the prize jury, said that dos Santos has been using his musical talents "to spread the message of ecological sanitation in the most remote parts of Mozambique".

The Goldman Environmental Prize, the largest of its kind in the world, was established in 1990 by the philanthropists Richard Goldman and his late wife Rhoda Goldman. The winners are selected by an international jury, from nominations made both by environmental organisations and by individuals.

Each prize-winner will receive 150,000 US dollars. There are six other winners - they include the Ecuadorians Pablo Mendoza and Luis Yanzawho who are fighting against the US oil company Chevron for compensation for oil pollution in a large area of Ecuador, Russian activist Marina Rikhvanoba, who is battling to protect Lake Baikal from industrial pollution, and Ignace Schops who has raised funds to establish Belgium's only national park.