The pangs of piracy have hit Malawi’s legendary musician Lucius Banda so hard that, 30 years after entertaining Malawi with his rare talent, he is pondering on quitting the career.
Barely four days after launching his 18th album in grand style at the weekend in Blantyre and Lilongwe, where he wrote yet another inspiring chapter in his music career, his Thank You album was already on the market courtesy of pirates.
The artist did not hide his distress on social media on Tuesday, when he intercepted a copy of the pirated CDs.
“After all the work I did……here is the fake one all over the country maybe it’s time to give up?” he wrote on Facebook.
While a majority of his followers and fans consoled him, in an interview, Lucius said he is ready to quit music if things do not change in Malawi.
“This is an insult honestly. I am considering giving up music if nothing is done because now it is not worthwhile releasing an album in Malawi. It’s like farming and you get no harvest, can you carry on? If something is not done, there’s no need to continue,” said the artist sounding disappointed.
He said from the look of things, he will get nothing from the K3 million ($6000) investment he made to have the album recorded in South Africa.
“In the past, I used to sell for about two weeks, but I can assure you that by Saturday morning, the new album was on the market in Mzuzu. Apart from those people who got free CDs during the launch in Blantyre and Lilongwe, we have not received an order to get the CDs as the market is flooded already.
“I sent to Mzuzu CDs to my agent who has received only one order as people already have the music. People are likely not going to buy the originals, which are going at K1 000 while the pirated CDs go for as low as K200. Piracy happens, but where you get no single benefit from your sweat, you have a very big problem,” he stated.
According to the artist, government should introduce a levy on all gadgets that aid people to pirate any form of art.
Said Soldier: “We need a levy on equipment like computers, flash disks, among others, which should be charged at the point of buying these gadgets. The money collected should go to the Musician Union of Malawi and then will be given to us depending on how many CDs each artist sells for example.”
