Kukaya Festival back with 2nd edition: Malawi’s first digital arts carnival
After the inaugural edition in 2019, Kukaya Festival organizers have announced that the Malawi’s northern region born and bred showdown returns this year in a digital format.
The Kukaya Festival second edition will be held virtually from 1st to 3rd May, 2020.
According to the festival’s creative director Tamanda Mbendera, the event will be streamed online in partnership with Zonse Live.
“We’ll be live-streaming centrally with the support of Zonse Live. As you may be aware, the creative industry has been greatly affected by Covid-19 pandemic, with so many events being cancelled.
“We are seeking to continue providing entertainment in a safe and responsible manner whilst still ensuring our collaborating artists are able to sustain some income during this time,” Mbendera explained.
She added: “All the artists will be performing from their respective residential locations as per government and health experts recommendations of isolation and social distancing.”
According to Mbendera, headlining artists will be announced later this month.
“A very important thing to mention is that all our partners and artists have given their time and talents/resources to the project for free, as part of their social responsibility initiatives, to ensure the Covid-19 pandemic message reaches as many people in the country as possible. That’s the main aim of the festival,” she highlighted.
Kukaya Festival has so far partnered with Nyali Muzik, ZonseLive, Swagg Entertainment, Green Jamz Records, 1Lord Records, Mario Bros and The Festival Institute and other partners to be confirmed in the coming weeks.
“We are still working on media partnership with radios and televisions in particular as the festival will be preceded by a Covid19 sensitisation campaign spearheaded by a number of artists involved in the project already,” Mbendera added.
In his remarks, one of the partners, Dali Mizaya of Zonse Live said, “We are excited to partner with the Kukaya team. Zonse Live is in essence an entertainment digital platform, so partnering with Kukaya was a no brainer. This is what we do.
“We’ve been ready for something like this, and we are still working towards hosting a very well produced event but our team is up to the task. We were the official Lake of Stars media team last year so in the small time we have been in operation, I think we have earned our stipes.”
Kukaya Festival was founded in 2016 in Mzuzu by Swagg group of companies as a movement aimed at creating a platform for local artists to showcase talents and groom their art into business.
The first edition took place in August 2019 with almost all local artists involved from the likes of Patience Namadingo, Gwamba, Macelba among others.
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