Good people, Skeffa Chimoto is no devil’s workshop

Idlers and backbiters really are.

One does not need to listen to his songs to know Skeffa is a God-fearing musician, not a satanist as it was purported lately.

The musician may have have churned out a multiplicity of more touching spiritual  songs than most  self-styled gospel singers, his struggles for every penny he bags speaks volumes about his wealth.

He is that rich man in Lucius Banda’s motivational hit, Sagona. He neither relents nor snores. He sweats for his sweets and that is how he grew up.

A mere son of a poor man. That is what the bestselling hitmaker when he was choir member both in school and at church in the maize fields of Mwasambo where he rubbed shoulders with my pals, runaway journo Norman Fulatira and ‘black cop’ Senk Kalowekamo.

It was sheer audacity of hope that he convinced his father and mother to relocate from his hometown in Nkhotakota to Lilongwe in pursuit of his dream to make music happen.

For those claiming to be holier than Skeffa, this is my question: Do you know what you are talking about?

The UNAids ambassador for the youth in times of HIV and Aids is a man every Malawian should look up to if we are really sick and tired of poverty, hunger and corruption.

He is a hard worker, always on his toes to make sure he does not return to the dungeons of poverty where he gashed teeth not due to lack of morals but scarcity of food.

His ‘rags to riches’ story begins in the gutters of Malangalanga Road in Bwalo La Njovu at the heart of Lilongwe.

He is that streetwise kid on the block who was selling underwears fashioned by his heroic father when he hooked up with Mwanyama at Eclipse Studios.

The studio was “basically a mic, and old keyboard with some keys missing and a rundown PC” When Mwanyama invited my versatile editor Jack McBrams to Lilongwe to sample some new voices on the bloc.

Skeffa was not one of them. Not the best dressed either.

Lulu and Bleek were, says Jack who introduced Skeffa to the citizenry.

He remembers Skeffa was a skinny boy from the village dying to record his own album, but he did not have a dime to bankroll the project.

The underwear seller from Bwalo La Njobvu had to do menial jobs around Eclipse Studio, coming and going hungrily, while waiting to be put on the waiting list.

He lived in the bulk waters of Chigwirizano, a densely populated slum in Likuni where his family rented K300 house and sometimes survived on goodwill from Mwanyama.

Strike a conversation with the musician promoter Jai Banda christened the Jamming Machine and you will understand why he eulogises the late Mwanyama as my a father figure who trusted his potential and gave him a chance in life.

The son of a tailor has literary tailored his way up and his struggle did not begin with Satan or his massive debut album Nabola Moyo in which he pledges to always be good to his parents Insah Allah (God willing).

It began with a journey of self-realisation, knowing that he was born to sing.

He keeps sustaining the inborn dream not by idling or gossiping, but by working hard–not relenting even in times of plenty.

He works so devotedly that some of his songs widely glorify one God—the almighty father of Jesus Christ in whom he pledges untiring trust as spelled out in the hit Sungandichotse.

So far, Skeffa is not the type that says one thing with the upper lip and another with the lower fresh.

This chronology of Skeffa’s humble beginnings is not shared to embarrass Skeffa, but to help you appreciate that neither gossip nor the satanist miracle money wagging tongues often over-glorify pays.

Gossip is nothing but an outlet of envy. Malawians seem to be a strange species. If we are not killing and defaming stars in the social media, we are burning our grannies as some perverts did with the Neno Four.