Malawi’s Nyimbo Music Company unveils new signings
Nyimbo Music Company, one of the country’s record labels has unveiled two artists which it signed recently. The musicians are Fortress and Jaco Jana.
The new artists have been signed after the stable’s relationship with ethnic group Fikisa reportedly went sour.
According to the Lilongwe-based label, the unveiling of the two artists will see Nyimbo releasing two new projects soon.
The label will be dropping Fortress’ Breaking Free and Jaco Jana’s Waiting for Someday albums. Each album has two singles already out for promotion.
“The artists will release the debut albums over the next month,” says Nyimbo Music Company in a press release made available to Nyasa Times.
In unveiling the artists and releasing their music to the public for the first time, Nyimbo Music Company’s CEO Daud Suleman says the new signings represent the extension of the label’s dimension in terms of talent identification and exposure.
“Jaco Jana is the revival of the dying Malawian sound that was punctuated by the soothing but mystical ‘banjo’ guitars, well coated in mature messages and harmonies. We are seeing a return of the sweet old Malawian sound in him,” he says.
Suleman adds: “Fortress is the upbeat and modern stride towards the funky urban sound; the new definition of female musical artistry in Malawi, possibly re-establishing the lost female musical glory of our beloved Malawi.
“Fortress is the beginning of the new era of female Malawian music to rock the world stage. We are very excited to be a part of this new movement and we are happy to see two young ambitious, educated, focused and talented sisters are serious about their music.”
Fortress is a duo of visionary sisters who are artistically inspired and belong to the Kachingwe-Kamwangala clan. The sisters started singing at a very tender age and have always been passionate about music.
“We sing because we enjoy it and it soothes our souls. We used to sing with our family and they encouraged us to sing more and that’s when we started singing in church, at big family gatherings and at jazz sessions when we studied at university. The more we sung the more positive reviews we got and that led to the birth of Fortress.”
The duo is influenced by different genres and singers such as Lauryn Hill, Ethel Kamwendo-Banda, Mafikizolo, Spice Girls and Maskal, just to mention a few. They signify love, inspiration, unity and convey fun and positive energy through music.
“Our music is afro-urban and we want to make music that people can relate to. Our songs convey messages of love, happiness, and inspiration. Our music does not target specific people but is rather generalised to accommodate everyone,” the singers say.
Some songs on the Breaking Free album are Ndamupeza, Amina, the title track which is also called Khalidwe, Go (Nditalikile) and Rikita.
Fortress’ two singles can be downloaded athttp://www.reverbnation.com/fortressmalawi
On the other hand, the media release describes 23-year-old Jaco Jana as an artist who presents the revival of classic Malawian music, as it claims the young upstart from Lunzu, Blantyre, brings the memories of Allan Namoko alive with his seminal release Waiting for Someday.
Nyimbo Music Company says “the musician defines his genre as world music, but one cannot mistake the fact that this music is purely and genuinely Malawian.”
“Jaco Jana’s music tackles the struggles of everyday people and how they keep on waiting for a better day. His music talks about the issues of life. It is the music of the world,” the stable boasts of the vocalist.
His two singles are Maso Patsogolo and Tiye Kwathu and can be downloaded at http://www.reverbnation.com/jacojana.
