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Nothing stunning about BBA exes’ song

Good people, it seems there is nothing as soothing as music.

In our cultural context, people sing when babies are born as well as when they become adults.

Like children sing at play, grownups sing at work as well as in times of weddings, funerals and memorials.

It appears there is no escape that makes life easier like singing, arguably the reason wise ancestors fashioned the saying ukayipa dziwa nyimbo.

However, the time-honoured adage is no endorsement that one has to wait for some hardship to become a musician.

No. Music is greater than just cries of troubled minds, the reason Malawians are increasingly shunning local lamentations in preference for party and club hits imported from South Africa and Nigeria.

Listeners deserve a break from whines of people weighed down by their unrealistic goals the size of winning Big Brother Africa (BBA) show.

But the bug seems to be hitting the country’s BBA flops harder and harder. Having failed to win the desired fame and dime on the continental reality show, our reps increasingly resort to keeping themselves relevant than churning out a single or two.

You might have heard about dreadlocked Code Sangala aka Mr C.O who went into the Big Brother house twice only to come back with tunes that failed to jump-start his solo career from the average rankings attained with Kaphirintiya which he co-founded with his brother Shadre.

You might have heard about Rumours of War rapper Lomwe who made it to the finale of the reality show and recorded the collabo Double Wowza with Botswana housemate Zeus which proved nothing extraordinary.

You have also read about the latest BBA dropout Sipe who has already released two singles Chikondi Cha Ndalama and I Do as you await her debut album, Survivor.

Surely, the country is waiting—not for new music from BBA house, but the day the art-related overtures by the overrated beneficiaries of the international glow Big Brother offers will produce something to get Africa and her overseas peers singing along and dancing to music from Malawi.

But the BBA flops are not to blame. Like many noisemakers, they are children of a country where jobs remain scarce and business opportunities often go unnoticed, a setting with carpenters, farmers, builders, mechanics, plumbers, engineers, journalists, nurses, pastors, sheikhs, vendors and whom it may concern call themselves musicians because they can whistle or hum a number or two.

The influx of unskilled hands into the arts could be symptomatic of poor career guidance or a graver unmet need that calls for organisations like Teveta to scale up skills development not only by establishing community technical colleges but also diversifying the courses on offer.

The loudest song from the 91-day Big Brother episodes is that after the show comes real-life realities which will rock or shock every ex-housemate.

 

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