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Artist
Madalitso Band
12+ albums
malawifolkfunk_add_to_lidarr_batch_17World Music
about
Initially, the duo busked the streets of Mtandire, a slum in the country’s capital Lilongwe, between holding down regular jobs as gardener and watchman and were discovered, by chance, by a local producer. Ten years of hard graft followed, during which time recognition of their talents grew exponentially, resulting in appearances outside their native country. Fungo La Nyemba, an album available for purchase only at their live concerts, was produced, and in 2019 Wasala was released on Les Disques Bongo Joe label. It is to this increasingly influential Geneva-based label that the band return for their latest release, Musakayike. The eight tracks on the album, the title of which translates as “do not doubt us”, are high-energy and infectious in the extreme, although, somewhat paradoxically, the subject matter is often commenting upon the harshness of daily life in what is one of the world’s poorest countries, alongside thoughts on love, romance and success. The duo comprises Yosefe Kalekeni, on four-string guitar (acting as a Malawi banjo), and a cowskin foot-drum which is thumped with the heel, and Yobu Malingwa, who plays babatone, a home-made one-string slide bass. Both artists provide vocals. With the guitar holding tight to the rhythm, lead singer Yobu’s long-necked babatone serves as both bottom end and lead. This “Malawi banjo music” is derived from South-African rhythms and exemplified by other artists such as the imperious Kachamba Brothers in the late 1960/1970s, an
