Saturday afternoon couldn’t have been sweeter when urban artists in the names of Barry One, Maskal and Piksy graced the stage of the newly refurbished French Cultural Centre and brought it back to life.
In what can easily be called the mecca of entertainment in Malawi, the French Cultural Centre has unearthed talent in the likes of the barefooted Ethel Kamwendo who with her brothers sang at that same stage in the 80’s. The likes of the late Allan Namoko and Chimvu River Jazz Band and Madolo and it followed that tradition on Saturday.
It was therefore a make or break performance for the popular urban musicians who teamed up to hype the tempo at Blantyre Arts Festival.
“Live performances are always important because they can make or break you,†said Barry One in an interview after the show.
An upbeat performance that saw Maskal collaborating with Piksy in the Wa CV song got the crowd thumping and tuned up to the beat.
It was there that Maskal revealed that the launch of his new album Umuthu will be on November 4.
The visibly poorly scheduled festival then took a break from the musical performances to play host to a drama performance before Piksy (the last of the urban artists) came on stage with his performance of Ponya Mwendo.
When the performance ended the crowd kept calling for more as gospel artist Mlaka Maliro took over. Mlaka took the audience through his career while blending past and present songs revealing his journey in music from secular to gospel music.
