Madalitso Band seeks to raise profile with national tour
Madalitso Band’s global reach is enormous following their power packed exploits in five European tours since 2017 but their label is still non-existent in the country.
The duo of Yobu Maligwa and Yosefe Kalekeni from the outskirts of Mtandire in Lilongwe has since embarked on a national tour as part of raising their musical bar, which has earned them recognition on the international scene and sold Malawi to the world.
On Thursday, the group made their second appearance at the Sounds of Malawi Acoustic Session at Jacaranda Cultural Centre in Blantyre where they attracted an impressive audience that adored their traditional sound.
Their show at Sounds of Malawi Acoustic Session also came after they had held other performances including in the streets, a stage where their music germinated before they made the global breakthrough and they are also set to star at this year’s Nkhotakota Music Festival this coming weekend.
Their international manager Neil Nayar warmed the stage for them before Sounds of Malawi Acoustic Session host Waliko Makhala introduced them to the audience in exciting fashion.
Armed with an acoustic guitar and the one-stringed guitar that has always conquered people’s hearts with its sound, Madalitso delivered a number of songs that zeroed in on issues such as love and corruption.
“We are excited to perform here for the second time and the support that people have given us is massive. We comment our management for putting up these shows because not many people know us here, which is strange. We are well-known outside and, so, we also need to build our name here,” Maligwa said.
Kalekeni said the national tour was part of their farewell as they are set to hold close to 80 concerts in Europe and United States of America (USA).
“The strides that we have made on the international scene are huge; there are people, who are in the country today because of our sound and we are happy that we have contributed to uplifting tourism. But we also need to push our sound here and, so, we are looking at performing in more places,” he said.
After their performance, which lasted for more than an hour, the duo interacted with the audience through question-and-answer session where they briefly unpacked their musical story.
Some quarters even went as far as wanting to know their achievements following their international trips and whether they were not being exploited by their management.
Emmanuel Kamwenje, the band’s manager since 2008, indicated that another goal for the national tour is to gather material to be used in the group’s upcoming documentary film titled The Banjo Boys, a story about the band which has been in music creation since 2019.
“We are looking at holding more tours in the country to document their story and also some of the exciting places in the country, which they can sell to the world,” Kamwenje said.
Ahead of their Europe and USA tour, Kamwenje also revealed that another opportunity had opened for the duo to perform in Portugal.
