Kamiyala’s Entertainer of Entertainers nostalgia

 My senior colleague in the newsroom Kondwani ‘KK’ Kamiyala has a penchant for spending time in the office library going through old published articles.

Time and again, he calls me to his desk or sometimes comes to my desk to show me some interesting happenings of the past. This other day, as usual, he summoned me to his desk.

I did not hesitate for he always has interesting takes on issues. The library pet on this particular day was showing me the prize breakdown of the Entertainer of Entertainers Awards of some year in the 90s. What caught his attention were prizes such as K10 which were given out to top winners.

We laughed over it, but then we appreciated that by then, those were big sums which were capable of making some married men ditch their homes for a week as they hopped from one pub to another spending the windfall carelessly.

Those from the older generation will appreciate that they were fewer if not none award platforms which were as glamourous as the Entertainer of Entertainers Aw a rd s , o r g a n i s e d b y the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).

On the night of the awards, every household made sure their radios were in tune and in perfect functioning form. Those who did not have power in their households made sure they bought enough batteries to last them the whole night.

Normally, the programme of the awards presentation run late into the night, but many were ready to sacrifice their sleep so that come next morning they should not hear it from a neighbour as to who scooped the top awards.

The Band of the Year, Song of the Year, Artist of the Year, Player of the Year, Team of the Year, Best Drama, Best Actor and ultimately the Entertainer of Entertainers Award were among some of the prestigious awards on the platform.

As years went on, with the entertainment industry widening with the coming in on various private radio and television stations, the glamour that was associated with the awards became sort of diluted. It was normal to miss the programme and just get to hear of the outcome in the morning.

Fatigue had eventually clipped in on the part of the organisers and the awards officially folded in 2005. A sad end to an interesting chapter in as far as awards ceremonies are concerned in Malawi. The Entertainer of Entertainers Awards were a platform that everyone dreamt of.

Winner of the overall award in 1999 musician-cum-politician Billy Kaunda said of the awards recently: “ Yo u c a n n o t b e g i n to imagine what it meant to win those awards. It was what every artist dreamt of. The feeling was special and it encouraged you to do even more.”

At the time the organisers decided to stop the awards, what was needed were new innovative ideas to freshen the face of the awards and align it with the needs and demands of the industry which had now grown maybe threefold.

This year, after several unsuccessful tr ysts to revive the awards in the past, MBC announced the return of the awards few weeks ago. Since 2005, when the awards folded, the situation has not changed a bit, maybe it has even gotten more complex.

That on its own shows MBC has its work cut for t h e m s e l ve s . T h e t a s k of reclaiming the glory associated with the awards will need sacrifices and massive inventiveness. To put in place such an all-encompassing award event will not come cheap.

The categories will require proper configuration, the selection process has to be watertight, the representation itself has to be inclusive and most of all, the element of independence has to be up there in the sky.

Luckily, we are now in a digitised space and the hope i s that the organisers will leverage on the technological tools at their disposal to deliver an award event that will remind everyone of days of the old.

It is not only Kamiyala who has nostalgia for the awards, there are many out there. Their hope is that this return is for real and for long.