Grace Chinga, Steve Spesho and ‘N’dzaulura’

As Malawi is still mourning the death of Grace Chinga, and also celebrating the life she shared with the rest of the world through her music, her departure will have other impacts on the Malawi music scene.

The point that has to be stressed is that Grace Chinga’s last album was released six years ago. But she still remained one of the most popular singers in an industry where to survive and remain relevant one has to be coming up with new songs. It tells much about her special presence as far as Malawian music is concerned. She was a woman of class.

As we all know, Grace Chinga died hours after posting on Facebook that she has a planned double album release. It created a lot of anticipation in people, especially those of us who were looking forward to her new songs. Although we were still being inspired and blessed by her old songs, one always yearns to listen to new songs from their favorite artist.

She has been in the industry for years, dating back to 1998 when she led the All Angels Choir with one of the most popular gospel songs in Malawi, ‘Uleke’. That is when all her perfection started. It was no surprise seeing her making a mark when she released her first solo album in 2002, ‘Yenda’. She continued from where she had stopped before dropping the popular ‘Thandizo Langa’ album in 2008.

Two years later, she followed up with, ‘Udzayimba Nyimbo’, a conceptual album on hope. This was the project that will forever define her personal life and career.

As a way of slowly getting back to the studio, months ago she released a single song, ‘N’dzaulura’. The song became popular especially for its beat, a Malawi urban music touch. After singing from what is largely accepted as the gospel beat, Grace explored the other end of music by diving into the now popular urban beat. And it came out perfect, a message to the entire Malawi music lovers that she will be coming back hard into an industry she had starved of music for six years.

But there is only one reason why she surprisingly sung in that beat: Her son, Steve Spesho, is a singer and a producer inclined to that side. He is the one who produced the song for her mother. The speculation can be that he first made the beat and asked her mother if she can sing on it. If it indeed it went like that, Steve Spesho has to be applauded for forcing back Grace into music. But looking at the announcement Grace made that she will be releasing new music, it tells that she was also fully into the new music. It was not only Steve Spesho who made it possible.

Since her death, the song has been popular through being played, shared and downloaded. It can safely be said that it is the most famous song in Malawi right now. The fact that Steve Spesho has his name tagged to the project, as the producer, will change a lot of things for him.

Besides this song, Steve Spesho probably had a visible hand in the other songs Grace announced that will come out.

Due to her death, if the songs were done and can be released, they will be instant hits. His profile as a producer will be raised and some gospel artists will later start going to him to produce for them.

It is not that he will be benefiting from the death of her mother. He has been around the music scene for three years now, and even if her mother was alive, he would have one day still made a mark on the scene. Grace has been the kind of a mother who encouraged her children into music, also noted by the brief and impressive appearance of her daughter in her 2010 album.

She showed some potential for class. Music runs in their blood. We cannot be sure about the daughter, if she will think of getting into music and fill the void. But if she can decide to make a try, from what was seen in 2010, she can make it. But Steve Spesho already has a mark in the industry, and it is clear, he will be going even higher. Grace created a music empire of her own.

About the writer: Wonderful Mkhutche is an author, a political scientist and a manuscript developer and editor.