I have received a flurry of calls asking what I feel about the E-Wallet show. However, I will not go back to the beginning when everybody is cruising well past the end.
Last Saturday was the grand finale, and what a great night it turned out to be. The night started with two female voices against the last man standing and congratulations to Wakhumbachi Kalua, the proud winner of the talent show’s comeback edition.
The ending offers several lessons for the nation.
First, Malawian women have got talent although they continue to play backstage roles in bands marshalled by male vocalists, instrumentalist and managers. The only time the front men take the background chores is when the women take to the front line as dancing queens. The women that reject this objectification of their bodies as seductive focal points of masculine merrymakers usually migrate to gospel music where award-winning musician Ethel Kamwendo-Banda leads the way.
However, the fact that a chief executive allowed and supported his daughter to take part goes a long way to prove that art is not an enterprise of idlers and loose winners.
Elsewhere, more and more corporate captains like Wakhumbachi’s father support events like E-Wallet because art is serious business–not a pastime.
Having said that, thumbs up to youthful Taonga Kanthungo for earning breathtaking superlatives from judges all the way to the final bow.
To promoters of raw talent like E-Wallet president Felix Njawala, I say let more and more exceptional children come to the fore because the future of the creative industry belongs to them.
To Guise Pemba, kudos for being the only man in the final act. Losing the prize is not the end. This could be the time to emulate Aemo E’face (Amos Mazinyane) who has risen from an early exit in the talent show to become the next big thing in South Africa–one of the three Malawians whose music has tasted Channel O and MTV glow.
Bravo Njawala and company for bringing back E-wallet and promising to make it a calendar event. However, the efforts are nothing if promoters, labels and corporate firms allow the finalists and other contestants to fade to inaction like their forerunners.
Turn up the volume!
