Malawi’s greatest writer Ken Lipenga eulogises Nyokase Madise as a great teacher, mentor and mother
“Here,” she said, “let me teach you how to splice a tape.”
“Splice?” I asked, scratching my head.
I was a Chancellor College undergraduate, which in my definition meant I knew everything. Yet here was this woman using a word I had never heard before.
“You’ll learn how to cut out the unwanted parts of the recording on this tape, and reconnect so that the sound plays smoothly without any gaps,” she explained.
My first effort was a disaster. But Nyokase Madise, a BBC-trained radio producer, was an excellent teacher. Before long she had turned me into something of an expert.
This was in the 70s, and we were using ancient reel-to-reel magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape was spooled between reels. If in today’s digital editing I’m at ease with the YouCut app, it is partly because of what this lady taught me.
MBC frequently offered me vocational employment, and Nyokase was always my departmental boss. With her distinctive charming voice, she was already a household name and one of my idols when I was in primary and secondary school. Finally meeting her was a treat. “Ife timagwira ntchito ndi Nyokase Madise,” became my way of impressing fellow students, especially the girls, at Chirunga Campus. We worked together on Writers’ Corner, Star Time, Songbook Days and other programmes.
“You do really like that wild stuff, don’t you?” she’d say in amazement as she watched me play the Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, and others over and over again in the off-air studio. There was this warm motherly tone as she poked fun at my obsession with hard rock music.
“Mama Nyokase, this is not wild stuff. This is the Now music that’ll shape future generations,” I’d say boastfully. “In return for your lesson on tape-splicing, can I give you a short lesson on the poetic significance of “Riders on the Storm” by the Doors….?”
And we’d laugh as she excused herself and head for the door to escape my youthful arrogance and deny me the opportunity to reverse our roles.
Today, Nyokase Madise, pioneer broadcaster to the nation and great matriarch to her family, is being laid to rest in her home village. I’ll forever cherish the memory of a very kind lady boss who treated me like her son. And a radio producer who taught me how to splice a tape.
This is my song for you, Mama Nyokase. Mweete phaama. Hamba kahle.
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