It was a chilly night on Friday but Malawians defied this and stormed Chez Ntemba International Club in Blantyre to watch celebrated South African pop group Malaika who gave out their best.
The night was worth spending what more with an impressive line up of musicians – Malaika, Zimbabwe’s The Orchestra Dendera Kings and Suluman Chimbetu, and the country’s reggae kings – Black Missionaries and Saul Chembezi.
Malawians came in large numbers despite having another great comeback show of its veteran musician Paul Banda who quit live music 14 years ago at Comesa hall in the same city.
The show started late with Malawi’s Chembezi warming the stage before leaving the stage for the Zimbabwe band which was formed by late Simon Tchopa Chimbetu. Together with his son Suluman they took the audience to another level with their new style known as Dendera which means bird.
They gave the audience their best playing songs like Dzandipedza mafuta, Comma, Chauta, Conwel, Africa Inaliya, Newspaper and Mukoma Sam among others before they bade farewell to the stage.
Suluman said in an interview he was happy to perform in the country with the group for the first time.
“Malawians are very friendly people and they like music. I didn’t know they could dance to our Dendera touch this much,” he said.
The moment of them all was when Malaika dressed in jean attire with two leading members and four dancing queens stepped on stage at around to 12 pm and it was all non-stop music as they played for about four hours.
However it was tracks like ‘Mhlauphel’amandla’ and ‘Hamba’ which lifted the audience as the two tracks kept on being requested before they bowed out to leave the stage for Black Missionaries at around past 3am.
The only disappointing thing of the night was that the group did not play live music as their songs were being played through CD’s and poor speakers to some extent kept on producing horrible sound.
One of the Malawians who watched the show Mike Msindira said despite playing their CDs the group did not disappoint adding their stage performance and dancing was impressive which Malawian musicians needed to learn.
Malaika is an Afro- pop group made up of Jabulani Herald Ndaba (Jabulani), Matshediso Florence Mholo (Tshedi), and Bongani Kevin Nchang (Bongani). They consider their producer, Guffy Pilane, a fourth member. Their style can be grouped under kwaito, rock or Afro-pop. Their music is a perfect blend of post-kwaito, post-mbaqanga and neo-soul.
The group was formed out of the ashes of the kwaito outfit Stouters (The Mischiefs) and Godfrey “Guffy” Pilane was instrumental in its formation as well. Bongani Nchanga and Jabu Ndaba were original members of the Stouters, while Tshedi joined them.
Their debut album, Malaika, was multiple platinum, selling over 350,000 copies. They won the Best Newcomer Group statuette in 2004 and then the Best Afro-Pop Group in 2005 Channel O Music Video Awards and the Best Southern African Group at the 2005 Kora awards.
Some of their songs include Melodi (Hoona Joale), Dichabeng, Gauteng, Hamba, Amacilongo, Chaba naledi, Sebaka Nyana, Hamba, Ting ting, Indoda Yempandla (Beware Verwoerd), Sajika and Baba wami. Their other albums are Sekunjalo and Vuthelani.
The group who jetted in the country on Thursday courtesy of Augustine Kayembe owner of Chez Ntemba perform in the country’s capital Lilongwe on Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment