By Songwe, we gulped TZ beats

Good people, welcome back to work.

Where I come from, Easter is always momentous that you cannot recount how you spent yours without getting better counter-narratives.

Yet, mine was a worthwhile break from this Warm Heart of Africa where DJs, radio stations and other music-putters generously pepper our happy days with foreign music.

It was at Kasumulo Border Post, Tanzania, we saw our beloved Malawi across Songwe River on Sunday night.

Back home, I sighed, it seems there is nothing more fashionable than music from Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, Nigeria…anything from abroad! Back home, locals get little if any respect from selectors.

So it’s here, on the Tanzanian side, I expect Malawian music to be the beat of the town.

Alas, this Swahili-speaking country is no respecter of anything foreign-be it French or English, Reggae or jazz.

Malawi danced to their Mr Nice like soaked idiots, but our neighbours known no Black Missionaries, Lucius Banda, Skeffa Chimoto, Joseph Nkasa and Lawi.

By the Songwe, I wait and wait for songs of home.

This wait is a non-stop playlist of Tanzania’s vibes in the air.

Tanzanian music we sip…along with their Serengeti, Safari and other 500ml brews.

But the sips become deadening gulps, a hopeless wait for offerings of Malawian hitmakers who have been dying for international  exposure for years.

One Serengeti beckons another, but there is nothing Malawian on song. Only air.

So Malawian music has no place in Tanzania?

Here only the very best, the likes of Iyanya of Ukele fame, can displace the local beat.

Arise Malawian DJs.

I refuse to admit that Malawian music is so low-grade,  that it has no place at Kasumulo nearby. But a question lingers: “Why should I blame Kasumulo selectors for doing their work?”

Hail Skeffa, often coveted but seldom achieved is thy breakthrough in Zambia!

Maybe our deejays, both radio and pub-based, are failing Malawian artists by playing overdoses of foreign songs.

Yet our artists will continue dying twice, kufa kuwiri, if their offerings cannot meet the demands of both local and international selectors who only have their audiences to please.

Quality matters!