UK musicians reproduce Malawian ethnomusic
Musicians from the United Kingdom (UK) have remixed Malawi’s traditional music recorded in 1952, giving it modern house touch whose 21-track album will be released in June.
The original music, two thousand tracks in total, was recorded by ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey, who travelled across Malawi as part of his 35 000 track reservoir of African recordings since 1921.
a press conference in Lilongwe
One of the tracks, Ndisankha Lero, which was originally done by women from Dedza has been remixed by urban musician Sonye and the final track is an acceptable modern house with the original voices professionally fused in and has potential of blowing the night clubs and radio airwaves.
Other artists featuring on the album are UK-based Malawian artist Drew Moyo, My Nu Leng, Kidnap Kid, Peter Rabbit and Rudimental.
The album only covers music from Malawi and has been named Heartbeat One and, according to the implementers of Heartbeat Project, Chris Pedley, Piers Aggett, Olly Wood and Noel Lobley, people must expect projects for other countries too depending on how successful the project is going to be.
“The 21 one remixed original tracks were recorded from across the country and are in about seven languages. After Malawi, we are going to move to another country and that is if the project will still be making sense,” said Noel Lobby, who is an ethnomusicologist, sound curator, DJ and assistant professor of music at the University of Virginia in the USA.
The album is expected to be sampled during a show at Cape Maclear in Mangochi on Saturday afternoon.
Other local acts slated to perform are Malawi’s ethnomusicologist Waliko Makhala and Mangochi Beni Dancers. n
