Malawi’s Very Best head to US festival
Swedish/Malawian Afro-pop duo The Very Best have been line-up to perform at the prestigious Bonnaroo Festival in the US in June.
The Very best constitutes Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and Swedish DJ and producer Johan Hugo.
The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is an annual, four to five-day music festival, created and produced by Superfly Productions and AC Entertainment, first held in 2002.
The festival is held at Great Stage Park on a 700 acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, USA.
The main attractions of the festival are the multiple stages of live music, featuring a diverse array of musical styles, including indie rock, world music, hip hop, jazz, americana, bluegrass, country music, folk, gospel, reggae, electronica and other alternative music.
This year’s festival will be headlined by acclaimed singer Billy Joel.
Speaking to The Nation in an exclusive interview, Hugo said the duo is excited to perform at this year’s festival.
“We’re super excited to play the Bonnaroo Festival this summer. It’s one of the biggest and most famous festivals in America, but we have never played it before, so we’re honoured to be asked to come there. What’s even more exciting about going there is that we are bringing Mafilika as our band. Since we started doing shows with them a year ago our live show has improved a lot and we can’t see ourselves touring without them this year. They will come with us to America, Europe and Australia in 2015,” he said.
According to the London-based producer, who has recently worked with top South African singer Thandiwa Mazwai and Malian legend Baba Maal, the band will spend most of June in America touring.
“There are more big and very exciting festivals on that tour, but we are not allowed to talk about them yet. There’s also a lot of our own shows all over America. Basically, it will be one month in a tour bus driving around and doing shows almost every day,” he said.
Last month, The Very Best released Hear Me, a single off their year to be titled album, which has been well received in the UK, America and Australia.
“It has been on highest radio rotation on the two big Australian radio stations Double J and Triple J, which is really exciting for the festivals we’ll be doing out there at the end of this year,” he said.
According to him, Hear Me has had several plays on UK’s BBC Radio 1, which is the absolute king of UK radio stations.
“They have always been hesitant to play The Very Best before because Esau doesn’t sing in English, so the fact that they have been playing us this time feels like a great accomplishment for us and for Chichewa being heard on commercial radio in the UK,” said Hugo, who confided that the single is out mid-February.
