Liberate Skeffa from Dru Hill show

Good people, Busy Signal came, impressed and left many waxing lyrical about his offerings at this year’s Sunbird Sand Festival. Such is the turn of events in the entertainment industry that good things come and go.

With the Jamaican reggae singer gone and fondly remembered by his converts, tongue are already wagging about the coming of American star-studded singing group, Dru Hill, next month.

The main talking is not really how the show slated for December 6 at Umodzi Park in Lilongwe will take Malawians down the memory lane to the late 1990s when the US stars were top hitmaker before they temporarily disbanded from 1999 to 2002.

Rather, the enduring highlights include the appointment of Skeffa Chimoto to curtain raise for the good oldies from overseas.

It is no secret Skeffa Chimoto is a talented musician as well as a mesmerising stage performer. That is why his fans christened him “the Jamming Machine”.

However, lumping the local reggae star with the R&B group led by Sisqo (Mark Andrews) is like mixing oil and water. They don’t just mix seamlessly.

Not only does the inclusion of Skeffa Chimoto pronounce a vote of no confidence in the country’s rythm and blues singers.

It also spells out the gravity of knowledge gaps in the minds with the capacity to host artists of Dru Hill magnitude.

When people go to world class shows, they want a smooth flight from the beginning to the very end–not a turbulent trip from reggae skanking to blues.

If you believe in the collapsing can effect, it is easy to see why people shouldn’t be subjected to the sudden fall from Skeffa Chimoto’s heated, high-tempo performance to the smoothly slow tunes of Sisqo and his bandmates Jazz (Larry Anthony) and Woody (James Green).

The sudden slump in temperature is likely to break some hearts and it is like there is no way to save fun-seeking Malawians from this ‘collapsing can effect’.

Looking around, it is puzzling why the brains behind the show seem to have gone into an untimely mental lapse and permanently forgot about the existence of our very own R&B crooner Lulu.

In the country’s music context, Lulu is not a small boy. Lulu is one of the finest performers, player of instruments and vocalist. Lulu’s innate potential and prowess may have gone unnoticed again and again, but sentencing Skeffa Chimoto to a torrid time in the shadow of Dru Hill does not add any glory to the show.

It’s like forcing a fish to take part in a race against cheetahs, elephants, snakes and birds.

When December 6 dawns, all eyes in the R&B world will be on Malawi and it will be a wasted opportunity if we sell them a reggae kite. Skeffa deserves a better chance than this mismatch.

in the name of fairness and customer satisfaction, Umodzi Park should think again and think hard.

Warring brothers

I am hearing Piksy and Armstrong Kalua have taken their war of words to a shameless low. It is not easy to take side when friends exchange words on subjects as petty as holiness and who is holier.

It is never up to onlookers to judge who is right or wrong.

However, time has to come when all this holier-than-thou show has to come to an end.

The beef culture between secular singers and their gospel pals isn’t tasty. It stinks. It does not put food on anybody’s table. It only shows the myopia of two celebs with seemingly nothing better to do. n