Bucci’s many faces

Bucci is one of the country’s well-known creative minds. Many know him as a musician, but lately his other creative talents have started to be noticed in the country. His appearance in the hit series Mushroom Shade as a taxi driver has earned him praise. He has previously worked on outfits for some of the country’s stars such as Tay Grin and Onesimus. During the just-ended Takulandirani Expo, he was all over the place as he led a team of dancers to perform a dance routine for the theme song. Our Arts editor EDITH GONDWE caught up with Bucci to talk about his many faces. Excepts:   

Q

: Let us start from the beginning. Which one of your many talents started first?

A

: Among all of my talents, the one that started first is the one most don’t even know about because I have not made it public yet- fine pencil art, although I never used a pencil, but a pen instead. It helped me challenge myself not to make any mistakes since I could not use a rubber to correct any mistakes. And it begun when my father once hired an arts teacher to show me the ways to do it only to report back to my father that it seemed I already knew everything he had planned to teach me. Ever since then, my parents let me explore more on my creatives. Then I took to drawing on clothes, using markers to add thick colours to the details. Then after that I was introduced to music by my elder brother DJ Nathan Tunes. My talent in music grew from mimicking raps of American legends.

Q

: Now tell me about your music journey?

A

: It all started in Chilomoni Township when I was first told I should be a singer among all of my friends who were rapping. A certain producer gave me a task and I took it. Since then, I practised singing and studied the R ‘n’ B genre. I was inspired by groups such as B2K and 112. With my dancing, we ended up being inspired by a movie called You got served which took our dance to another level. We ended up participating in the Sprite Dance Competition in Malawi and won it, but came second at the regional finals where Zimbabwe took the first position. Adding dance to my music became a thing eventually as we watched the greats do it. A few years down the line, that is when I changed my name from Mabuchi Mwale to the short form Bucci as the brand name. Everything became serious to me when I met producer Andy Phiri. He taught me the biggest lessons in music and made me a better singer. And that was when I was discovered by Ndefe’yo Entertainment, a music label which signed me first as their band’s lead vocalist. I used to do back-up vocals for Piksy, Maskal, Onesimus and other signed artists. I grew from that to a household name after they saw I could do more.

Q

: Tell me more about the dancing. How has your journey as a dancer been this far? And is the art of dancing rewarding in Malawi?

A

: Yes, I am a dancer, but not only a dancer, a choreographer. Dancing has been rewarding lately because it has played a huge role when it comes to bringing attention to important awareness campaigns. For example, we did a dance challenge for Apapa, a campaign for sign language, something we created to support and advocate for the needs of the deaf community. We combined dance with signing with the help with of sign language interpreters from Tikonze Apa. Recently, we did a campaign for Malawi International Tourism Expo through a choreography we made into a TikTok dance challenge. The challenge got a lot of attention and was even endorsed by the Minister of Tourism Vera Kamtukule. Later, many other Malawians, dancers, drama groups, cultural troupes and more also joined. So, I pretty much can say it has been such an amazing journey as it continues to grow and get better. And not only for the campaigns, but even in my previous music video of my song Samagona, we executed dance on a high level energy and we dedicated ourselves to bringing the same energy on live stage performances.

Q

: Now let us talk about acting. How did you find yourself into acting and how has been the journey this far?

A

:  Well, this was a very random pick for me. Chawezi ‘Chaz’ Munthali, the director of our recent trendy series Mushroom Shade is the one that made it all begin for me. He asked me to appear briefly in his first movie called Sponge which I also contributed a soundtrack called Disappear. Then later on I was officially debuted in Highbrow in which I played a bigger role. I also made a cameo appearance in his third movie Misnomer and now a series called Mushroom Shade. I can’t say there’s a huge story behind it, but I do believe it is a side of me that I just never knew I had, but I had been putting to action in my music videos. And all in all, it has been such an amazing journey which I plan to pursue further. It is a field that I personally enjoy.

Q

: Finally, let us talk about your art as a stylist.

A

: For me, all of this is driven by one concept, value. I often ask myself, in the beginning what or who gave money the value it has today? If you seek your answer around it you will find out that it takes oneself to make anything as valuable as possible, including yourself and that’s what I do for myself. I chose to operate under the value concept over hype, because hype dies and it goes. So, I balance establishing myself in different areas all under one umbrella as Bucci Worldwide the artist. Anything I do never goes outside that line. Recently, I have gotten into script writing for music videos and set creations by working with amazing videographers like Seany Films. I begun with my own video Samagona then branched out to doing Zani Challe’s Delela, then Fadamoti’s Angelo then recently another recent one which I can’t mention yet. This is the path that I chose and I decided to be great at it without being apologetic about it.