Redefining urban music

As Malawi continues to search for a definite identity in music, the journey is certainly long and winding, just looking at the foreign elements that continue to characterise local songs.

 Up to now, Malawian music lacks distinctive characteristics that can distinguish it from the rest of the music in southern Africa.

Unlike our situation, other countries, especially Zimbabwe, Zambia, Nigeria, among others, have special genres such that listeners do not find problems to identify their music.

Only few local artists, such as Fikisa of Akamwire fame, have tried to produce music with a pure Malawian touch. The uniqueness in the works of such artists has more often than not made them stand out.

However, technology has helped expose Malawian artists to modern ways of recording songs. This, coupled with easy access to international music, has increased local artists’ desire to sing to the level of international musicians.

Some local artists are successfully doing this by adopting international styles and, at the helm of this is urban music, which is also reported to be blending African local music genres.

In fact, some local enthusiasts have gone to the extent of organising urban music parties. However, the question that lingers is: Do we really have urban music in Malawi? If yes, is it being performed to expected standards?

Nde’feyo Entertainment director Ken Limwame says urban music is a general term that refers to music styles and genres that originated from densely populated parts of the US, occupied by people of African and Caribbean descent.

He says urban music is made up of several genres, including hip hop, contemporary R&B, reggae and dancehall.

He says some of the characteristics that define urban music are rapping, break beats, lyricism and use of intricate rhyme patterns and self-expression of mainly city-life realities.

“Urban music is being actively produced in Malawi. [For instance,] local hip hop being done by Daredevils, Young Kay and Rina. In R&B, there is Armstrong, Theo Thomson and Sonye. Blasto does better reggae-dancehall. This is pure urban music,” says Limwame.

Jai Banda of Entertainment Promotions concurs with Limwame.

He says urban music is a product of American urban lifestyles and says the genres that make up urban music originate from popular US and UK singers.

Montfort Manyozo, a Chancellor College music graduate argues that the genre is distinguished by the messages in the songs.

“Urban music carries issues that affect and matter most to urban dwellers. What is distinct is that there are references to things that urban dwellers understand well. Urban slang is also used in the songs and one of the thematic topics is love. This is evident in Pisky’s music,” says Manyozo, citing Maskal, Third Eye and Diktator as examples of local urban music artists.

He says although the future of urban music looks bright, artists should be more serious in their quest to promote Malawi’s music identity through the genre by fusing local elements in their hits, rather than just adopting everything.