Mad Alley’s ‘Nyama’, a spark of creativity: Malawi music latent put to strongest test
Long gone are days when local music was hugely an expression of pain and poverty. Artists had to sing about the usual tantrums of social ills, if were to gain recognition. But over the years the set-up has changed, music has rebranded, lyrics improved. It’s more of love or dance. Local talent is being put to strongest test.
It is of no surprise that Mad Alley- an Afro-Pop artist- decided to tap on his every sense of creativity to demonstrate how local artists are tiresomely working on weaving in catchy lyrics fused by local dance elements.
The artist has released a single “Nyama”- a fusion of Manganje and urban beats- through which he deftly weaved in lyrics just to describe a woman in food analogy.
“The song talks about how girls can be compared to food and my girl is nyama ya nkhuku as she is most preferred of all girls,” explains Mad Alley, justifying his choice of song-title.
Mad Alley born Madalitso Chimpeni demonstrated in the song that his try on Chichewa cover of Adele’s “Hello” collaborated with Joe Kellz (now Jay P) – song that brought him into lime-light- was not just a fluke.
Though simply done, the song sparks the artist’s creativity in fusing Manganje and lyrics that seek the listener’s attention and questions their opinion.
The song, produced by Henwood, has been released with a video directed by Sukez, and was premiered on Fusion live with Black Jack on times TV. The song keeps on getting positive feedback from his fans.
Meanwhile, Mad Alley is working on a few songs for the summer and promises that everything he brings out will be a definite upgrade from the first. He states that the Malawian music industry is slowly blooming into a profitable and reliable industry.
“Artists and music promoters should look at the bigger picture and aim for the international market. We need to get rid of the stereotypical phrase that “this is Malawi” because it is one of the many reasons people don’t invest time and money in music. Music speaks one language which is “good music”, no matter where you from, the world is waiting to listen to you as long as you speak that language.”
Mad Alley he grew up listening to a diversity of genres including RnB classic, Hip-hop, reggae, blues and afro-beats. This influenced him to start singing at a very tender age and gaining familiarity with the musical world. In secondary school, he joined a few acapella groups and also started writing RnB songs.
