Taking stock of 2012

Time is one element in the universe that scares most people. Do you remember being a few minutes away from a deadline and wished you could slow down time?

With the pains of devaluation, have you ever had a tough month in which you had a lot of bills to pay, but it was mid-month and you wished you could speed up the time to get to payday?

We can never go back in time to correct the mistakes we made in 2012 or relive the exciting moments we had in the past year. However, just like a good driver needs to look at the rear-view mirror, let us rewind and press ‘play’ and see where we did well or where we did not do so well as far as arts are concerned.

365/24/7 of arts and entertainment minus time wasted

Most Malawian artists never seem to be familiar with Shakespeare’s words: “It is better being three hours earlier than being two minutes late.” Most fun lovers are far from being impressed with lateness to most music shows. ‘Mablacks’, Lulu and Fredokiss (just to mention a few) were occasionally late earlier this year which did not please most patrons to their shows.

It was disappointing to hear some organisers of events defending this behaviour by arguing that artists need time to prepare for their performances before coming on stage. Well, it would be better to follow Shakespearean philosophy by being some minutes earlier to prepare than being late for a show.  

Malawian fun lovers have wasted a lot of their precious time and money waiting for gigs that never happened or were postponed several times.  Ugandan musician Chameleon’s show was postponed two times before being completely cancelled and a Soul Raiders show at Sunbird Mount Soche was cancelled due to logistical problems.

Moonrock Festival was also postponed—a move which musicians claimed was costly as they cancelled all their programmes to prepare for the festival. The organisers of shows should plan better to avoid such inconveniences. People abandon all their endeavours to attend a show only to find empty seats and an empty stage at the venue.

But the show cancellations during the mourning period of former president of the Republic of Malawi Bingu wa Mutharika was necessary. All artists united to mourn the late former head of State.

Money wrangles, bad events’ management

Love of money is the root of all evil, says the Bible. However, art is business. Without it, how can music, drama, fine and visual arts flourish?

Early this year, musicians ganged up to get their royalties which Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) claimed from Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) last year and Patricia Kaliati, who was Minister of Information during the first half of this year, had to intervene. 

Later, National Theatre Association of Malawi (Ntam) Northern Region Chapter banned actor-cum-playwright Thlupego Chisiza from performing in the region for failing to pay Beatrice Nundwe, an actress he hired during Lions Theatre’s show at Mzuzu University.

Mzuzu artists vowed never to allow the son of fallen stage king Du Chisiza Junior to perform in the city. But later, Ntam lifted the ban and now Thlupego is free to perform in the region.

When Zambian sensation, Mampi, visited the country, K300 000 from her payment went missing. And in a twist of events, one of our local celebrated artists was implicated in the scandal.

The concept of an artist being a brand seems too complex for most Malawian artists to comprehend. But artists need to take care of their conduct because it affects their sales as well.

This is manifested in the way the Dunstan Kapitapita brand declined. On the international scene, Jah Rule is no longer making the bass box boom with his horse voice because he served the wrong dish of beef to a wrong person.

Dominant One and Jolly Bro (JB) should learn from this—Starting cyber beef can end your career faster than you can say the word Facebook. It is high time artists started to choose carefully what they say, what they do and where they go.

It is only when artists know they are a brand in themselves that they realise that it does not do them any good to franchise foreign artists—by dubbing themselves Makhirikhiri wa ku Ndirande or by remixing Chop my Kwacha. The name that is being promoted is Makhirikhiri or P Square, all because of poverty of creativity and perhaps originality. 

Talking of artists as brands takes us back to Maskal, who pioneered being commissioned as brand ambassador last year when he became the face of Access Communication followed by Piksy, who later became Airtel brand ambassador. This was a good development, but there should be mutual benefits between the artists and the companies they represent.

Happy New Year! May 2013 be a year full of arts and cultural prosperity!