Malawi’s link with United States of America (USA) is in so many spaces and the creative industry has not been left out.
Musician Peter Mawanga, who has in the past years toured USA with his Amaravi Band, has built a strong bond with artists in USA working with Fulbright fellow Andrew Finn Magill producing a project known as Stories of Aids: Mawu A Malawi in 2009.
The album confronted the HIV/Aids pandemic by creating 10 songs, each being a musical portrait of the HIV/ Aids story.
Mawanga did not end here as he went on to connect with Trevor Bystrom before working on an Extended Playlist (EP) which has songs like ‘Katiswe,’ ‘ Some Day’ and ‘A Sleep At Night.’
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The work of music between the two artists has continued since then and recently they also shared the stage during a performance in USA.
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According to www. yourobserver.com, Bystrom raised on Anna Maria Island connected through the power of the internet and both indicates that they were instantly drawn to each other’s music despite the more than 8,000 miles that separated them.
The YourObserver reported during its recent edition about Mawanga and Bystrom’s performance saying people in attendance at Ranch Nite Wednesday on December 18 at Waterside Place had a unique opportunity of enjoying music from Malawi, USA and Africa.
Mawanga and Bystrom played a rehearsed show with a full band — joined by percussionist Benny Maldonado and harmonist Judit Maldonado — for the first time.
The report also puts it that for close to five years, Bystrom and Mawanga had to get creative to collaborate and that this meant using WhatsApp and Zoom to communicate and WeTransfer and Google Drive to share sound files.
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“Bystrom loves reggae music — he describes his music as coastal music — so his influences and his love for African music is so easy to relate to,” Mawanga famed for track ‘Amakhala ku Blantyre’ said.
T h e Lilongwe-based singer and guitarist told YourObserver that even when Bystrom first sent him his recordings, he felt like he was speaking to another African musician.
“There was not a huge difference until I realised where he was from. I think our music complements each other. With me bringing traditional instruments, traditional sounds and Malawian rhythms and what it does, it jells together really well,” Mawanga said.
The two artists were a marvel to watch during the performance where Mawanga apart from playing the guitar, also had time to play the thumb piano (Sansi) while Bystrom stepped in with the guitar.
Bystrom said he has been drawn to reggae African music since attending a summer programme at the Berklee College of Music in 2016 where he first encountered that type of music.
That eventually led him to stumble across Mawanga three years later in his pursuit to find a musician of that background to work alongside.
Mawanga had toured USA with Finn Magill, a fiddler and violinist which led Bystrom to think, “If he worked with this guy, he might work with me, too.”
However, the hopes of in-person collaboration were soon dashed when Covid pandemic struck shortly after they established contact.
Though Covid made performing together impossible, it also cleared each artist’s calendar of any upcoming live shows and allowed them to devote much of their time to their debut EP.
“We had very similar ideas of how we wanted the music to go, and we gave each other a lot of freedom, so there weren’t many edits,” Bystrom, who often plays at Lakewood Ranch Main Street and Waterside Place, said.
He added: “He laid down some stuff, I laid down some stuff, and he would be like, ‘Maybe change this,’ and I’d go, ‘Yeah, I hear that too, I didn’t see that.’”
But still wanting to meet in person, the two finally did that in August 2022 when Bystrom and his wife Katrina visited Malawi for their honeymoon.
It was there that Bystrom and Mawanga first performed together. However, problems with power outages and sound problems in the studio meant those performances were limited.
This is what then made their December 18 2024 performance at Waterside Place a breakthrough moment for the two, who made the most of their first live rehearsal together.
Mawanga indicated recently that there is more projects he is working on with Bystrom including holding tours in Malawi, USA and other African countries with resources permitting.
“I am starting my USA tour again, possibly this year (2025). I am basically doing the groundwork, and letting people know that I will be coming back,” the singer and guitarist told YourObserver.
And last month Feike van Dijk, who is Dutch but lives in USA took to social media to applaud Mawanga for his immense talent and also performing with him.
In an interview later, van Dijk said he relished playing with Mawanga describing him as a gifted musician and a joy to be around with.
“Peter had a lot of skills to share with us. Being schooled in jazz and rock, it is a new style and new approach playing Malawian music, not something you can learn in three days.
“Peter not only taught the musicians but also the audience about Malawian styles of music, the Malawian instruments, several traditional songs but also about the people and how beautiful the country is. He is quite the ambassador for Malawi,” he said.
Mawanga has over the years shown that art is powerful and has utilised it to create relationships between countries and in this case Malawi, Africa and USA.
In 2013, Mawanga told BBC Africa Beats that it was high time the world was exposed to the riches of Malawian music.
While some artists in the country have embraced other genres tied to Western flair, Mawanga remains deep rooted to traditional rudiments as part of promoting and safeguarding the country’s culture.
“I make music inspired by traditional Malawian rhythms and instruments. I have a strong social conscience and I am not afraid to speak out on behalf of the voiceless,” he said.
Mawanga released his debut album, City Life, in 2003, under Peter Pine before he later changed his name. Having changed his name to Mawanga, the musician released his second album Zanga Zozama in 2004. His other projects are Nyanja Vibes and Takula.
