This and That

Lulu and bad instruments

Good people, ‘garbage in garbage out’ is no new gospel.

The cliché re-emerged last week when R&B crooner Lulu refused to perform in Mzuzu JUST because the organisers, Top City Entertainment, reportedly failed to provide a set of equipment the artist had asked for well in advance.

Just that?

This has been the buzzword among those who cannot believe the musician deserved proper tools not the things he got during the live show that failed.

Professional artists did not die yesterday, Lulu’s resolve affirms.

Beggars are choosers, but artists are service-providers with a reputation to protect. Like every butcher, they can only blame themselves if they attach their name tag to a cow without counting its teeth.

It is said kulamula vumbwe nkulinga uli ndi nkhuku. Truly, if the promoters want quality output they must invest in it.

Where some want the billion-kwacha stuff for K2, artists should emulate Lulu’s example by clearly demanding props that make their offerings worth the patron’s time and dime or step aside to safeguard their name.

The majority of high profile live shows in the country often get bad press not because of the artists’ low know-how, but the instruments seemingly filled with mad crickets and howling pigs just when people expect melodies pure and good to the ear.

Promoters’ penchant for bad instruments is well documented that art journalists and critics often feel duty-bound to judge music by the tools behind it and that is not all art reviews entail.

Good morning singers, players of instruments and sound engineers!

When artists accept bad instruments, they accept to stomach the miserable ratings, undignified perceptions and humiliating publicity that come with the bad jazz.

In other contexts, artists have no problem doing a Lulu: Spell out necessary tools beforehand and the organisers have themselves to blame if they fail to provide or negotiate improvisations and compromises on time.

This is what Mali jazz legend Salif Keita taught us in 2009 when he halted the music, ranted, puffed and huffed in protest to the screeching equipment on offer.

Bad paraphernalia make artists bad carpenters—always blaming the tools for their lack of know-how.

 

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