Censorship Board engages Dan Lu on ‘Take My Body’ track
Censorship Board said Monday that they had reached out to musician Dan Lufani, popularly known as Dan Lu, and his team as regards his yet-to-be-released track ‘Take My Body’.
Deputy Director of Arts responsible for censorship Anganile Nthakomwa also confirmed that they had received a complaint on Dan Lu’s romantic song that has some sexually explicit words.
“It is a song that the Malawian public is very uncomfortable with, considering that our culture is quite conservative. To quote Section 23 of the Act, it is contrary to the interests of the public and it is a matter that is indecent or obscene or offensive or harmful to public morals,” Nthakomwa said.
She said that they engaged the producer and that what was remaining was an interface with the artist.
The latest development comes barely a week after Malawi National Commission for Unesco partnered Ministry of Local Government, Unity and Culture in holding a two-day workshop on artistic freedom.
“We are just bemoaning the fact that this comes barely a week after the training workshop on artistic freedom where participants advocated freedom in artistic productions but in a responsible manner,” Nthakomwa said.
In 2018, musician Mwiza Chavura was arrested after he released a track titled ‘Ndidzakupanga Rape’.
“In Mwiza Chavura’s case, the public prosecutor came using other laws. He was arrested by the police, who used the Penal Code. As Censorship Board, we do not have a mandate to do that. All we can do is evoke Section 24 of the Act and declare the song prohibited if the artists are adamant,” she said.
Dan Lu could not be drawn to say much on the track and referred us to celebrated producer Tapps Bandawe.
Tapps confirmed engaging Censorship Board on the song which he indicated is not officially out.
“We will do an edit on it, that is one angle we are looking at, but, apart from the word that people are offended with, everything is perfect in the song. As said, Censorship Board was very understanding but, looking at the situation, they still had to act and, so, we will not release it here but we will do some edits and then drop it internationally,” he said.
Tapps maintained that their working on ‘Take My Body’ which he indicated had been well-received by some DJs internationally, was not to offend anyone but rather the track is about expressing emotions.
“We had an idea that where a song creates an emotion, music is about expression, one’s emotions, and we have seen great artists such as James Brown dropping ‘Sex Machine’, to the likes of Boyz II Men and R Kelly playing regularly with worse content—even Chichewa songs with worse content that are playing on our radios,” he said.
Tapps said they were not looking at crafting an offensive song but rather producing something that expresses emotions and that their main target was night clubs.
“ But the song ended up going to the main domain and, so, we apologise to those who felt offended; that was not our intention—this was all about expressing feeling and emotion,” he said.
