{"id":7656,"date":"2012-03-10T07:47:45","date_gmt":"2012-03-10T07:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=7656"},"modified":"2012-03-10T07:47:45","modified_gmt":"2012-03-10T07:47:45","slug":"in-malawi-when-life-gets-tough-it-gets-banned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/03\/10\/in-malawi-when-life-gets-tough-it-gets-banned\/","title":{"rendered":"In Malawi when \u2018Life\u2019 gets tough, it gets banned"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday night in Blantyre and the drinks are flowing at Mustang Sally\u2019s, a fluorescent bar with a swimming pool centerpiece frequented by ex-pats and a new generation of young Malawians who have money. The laptop DJ plays LMFAO\u2019s \u201cParty Rock Anthem\u201d for the eighth time of the night.<\/p>\n

No longer under the strict censuring control of one-party-state president Hastings Kamuza Banda, Malawian airwaves have opened up to music that in the 20th century remained an unknown. In the years following the country\u2019s first multi-party elections in 1994, the Malawian music industry has diversified, with Malawians artists more free to perform traditional, gospel and reggae-inspired sounds, and some images and styles even being scavenged from sexually provocative, explicitly violent and drug-saturated music on stations such as MTV.<\/p>\n

Today Malawians can praise any God, they can even party rock, but if you ask Lucius Banda they still can\u2019t protest.<\/p>\n

Lucius Banda, the first Malawian musician to use his platform to protest government. Photo submitted.<\/p>\n

The first musician to sing openly against political oppression in Malawi during the decades of one-party rule, Banda says growing up in absolute poverty and amid systemic social injustice inspired him to \u201cmake sure there\u2019s an alternative voice from the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cComing from a broken family living in absolute poverty, life was difficult,\u201d remembers Banda. \u201cWe had to go to the Catholic mission houses to clean toilets to pay for school fees. After we\u2019d paid that, we\u2019d go to school, and then if the president was visiting your area you had to raise money to give him as a gift.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t afford that and so we wouldn\u2019t be allowed in class, maybe for two or three weeks. It was like getting candy from a grandchild,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t forget that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1980s Banda began his music career singing gospel songs as part of the Alleluya Band, but eventually branched out on his own to produce music that would \u201csensitize people to regain their conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t like singing love songs,\u201d he says. \u201cI talked about injustices, the suffering of the people, that was my main concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1993 Banda released his first solo album titled \u201cMakolo\u201d. The single \u201cMabala\u201d which means \u201cwounds\u201d was critical of the ruling Kamuzu Banda regime, which he said afflicted pain on those already living in absolute poverty.<\/p>\n

In 2001 when then-UDF chairman and President Bakili Muluzi attempted a third term, Banda released the song \u201cHow Long.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI did a lot of songs rebuking [Muluzi],\u201d Banda says. \u201cWhy should we have become a friend of Mugabe and others who were clinging to power?\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2005 he released the album \u201cEnemy (of the State)\u201d where he criticized current president Bingu wa Mutharika for quitting the UDF party that had ushered him into power to seek re-election as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate instead, and in 2006 and 2008 he released the albums \u201cSurvivor\u201d and \u201cFreedom\u201d respectively with messages meant for Mutharika: \u201cWe\u2019ll survive you\u201d and \u201cYou will see when people realize the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in 2011 his latest album of protest music and its title track \u201cLife\u201d attracted negative attention from the Malawi Censorship Board and a ban by the Malawi Broadcasting Company (MBC). Now that his music is banned from Malawian radio stations, Banda says Section 35 of the Malawi Constitution has failed him and that without free expression the music industry is \u201charsh\u201d in Malawi.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t criticize people who are in positions where you put them with your vote,\u201d he says. \u201cThey say, \u2018Stay quiet as I\u2019m sitting on your money\u2019 at a time when we don\u2019t have a strong opposition and [Malawians] are weaker than we were in terms of our reactiveness to dictatorship\u2026 The Malawians you meet today are not the Malawians of 1994. In 1994 Malawians were aggressive. We were patriotic. The Malawians you meet today I\u2019m sorry to say are desperate, everyone for himself, \u2018as long as I get mine it\u2019s OK.\u2019 That\u2019s why we cannot come together and fight one common enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though he still believes Malawians who love their country should show that they\u2019re not happy with what is happening, Banda says the MBC ban has hurt his medium.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the ban, slowly [my] music is dying, people don\u2019t listen to it, youngsters don\u2019t listen to it, so they [government] are succeeding,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday you have to censor yourself so much when an artist is supposed to be free. If I were going into the industry now, in this environment, I wouldn\u2019t go.\u201d

\"\"<\/a>

Lucius Banda, the first Malawian musician to use his platform to protest government. <\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday night in Blantyre and the drinks are flowing at Mustang Sally\u2019s, a fluorescent bar with a swimming pool centerpiece […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[269,1741,224,813,1742,1743,596,258,1072,1021,1014],"class_list":["post-7656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-art","tag-censorship","tag-human-rights","tag-lucius-banda","tag-malawi-broadcasting-corporation","tag-malawi-censorship-board","tag-music","tag-malawi","tag-politics","tag-protest","tag-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}