Jamaican musician Busy Signal lived up to his word at the Sunbird Sand Music Festival on Saturday when he offered a scintillating performance until the early hours of Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of my greatest feel to perform in front of you, when Busy Signal is performing, I do not care where I am at, once I am performing its gonna be 100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said receiving a huge cheer from the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Busy signal is performing at a school for kids it\u2019s gonna be 100, if I am performing at a wedding it\u2019s gonna be 100, if I am performing for the water in the lake it\u2019s gonna be 100, if I am performing for the Warm Heart of Africa in Malawi it\u2019s gonna be 100,\u201d he said before belting out \u2018One More Night.\u2019<\/p>\n
He jumped on stage to a delirium of cheers from the thousands of people from all walks of life including Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania.<\/p>\n
Busy Signal stormed the stage at exactly midnight soon after Malawi\u2019s leading reggae group The Black Missionaries had warmed the stage. Busy went straight to business, performing with all the energy, showing his verve in dancing and singing.<\/p>\n
The musician, who was in Zimbabwe last week Saturday before his performance in Malawi dished out several songs including cover hits originally done by other artists before killing it off with the hit \u2018Dreams of Brighter Days,\u2019 which he wrote while he was in prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am so honoured to be here tonight, it\u2019s a pleasure for me to be here, it\u2019s my first time coming here and I feel at home tonight, it\u2019s been so much travelling and so much travelling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got this call when I was in Jamaica and I was like I have to be there, there was a lot of speculation, there was a lot of people talking this and talking that, but Busy Signal is in the Warm Heart of Africa tonight,\u201d said the musician on stage.<\/p>\n
He then hailed all those involved in the organisation of his show citing among others Sand Music Director Lucius Banda.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig up to you the people, you are the main reason why this is happening tonight Malawi.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahead of his performance on Saturday, Busy Signal humbled himself to join the audience on Friday but his presence went unnoticed.<\/p>\n
Busy Signal who started off with dancehall and later shifted to reggae music said during his performance that \u201cwe are all one people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBig up to our brothers and sisters who travelled all the way from Jamaica, we are all brothers and sisters, we are all one people.<\/p>\n
\u201cMusic unite the people, music make the people feel energised, music give the people entertainment, music make the people feel peace, unity and love,\u201d he said before chanting Rastafari\u2019s name which the audience responded to in unison.<\/p>\n
Featuring a keyboardist, a drummer, a bass guitarist and fellow musician Wayne Ford Levy, known by his stage name Exco Levi — who did not get on stage until late on — Busy Signal also performed the song \u2018Smoke Some High Grade,\u2019 in which he calls for legalisation of Marijuana.<\/p>\n
He also performed \u2018Reggae Music Again,\u2019 which BBC ranked number seven on their Top 25 Albums of 2012 listing.<\/p>\n
Born Glendale Goshia Gordon and nicknamed Busy Signal by his friends because of the fact that he is constantly busy; he also had a request session towards the end where fans had time to request for songs they wanted him to perform.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am impressed, this is what we call a performance, I am happy, I am happy, sindinabetse ( paying K20,000) was worth it,\u201d said one of the fans Abraham Longwe, who travelled all the way from Mzuzu.<\/p>\n
After his performance, Busy Signal — who was expected to depart yesterday \u2013 held a press conference where he said he will live to remember the energy and vibe of Malawians.<\/p>\n
Lucius said they have been given a challenge with Busy Signal\u2019s performance this year and now they want to do more for Malawians.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some hiccups but we are satisfied, people supported us, I have never seen such a huge audience, we thank different companies for the support and Busy Signal for coming, he is such a humble person,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Sunbird Sand Music Festival started on Friday but on a low note with performances starting 10pm on the main stage.<\/p>\n
Despite promising the fans three stages, only two were active and there was some disorganisation as regards the programme for the performances.<\/p>\n
This however, did not prevent the fans from enjoying the festival to the fullest as they sampled several acts on Friday although rains which came late at night affected some performances including musician Ben Mankhamba\u2019s set.<\/p>\n
But despite Busy Signal being the toast of the moment and officially getting Sunbird Sand Festival busy, gospel songstress Ethel Kamwendo Banda was one of the local acts who sparked on Saturday.<\/p>\n
She was simply as she showed that experience matters when she delivered a power packed performance that kept the audience on their toes throughout.<\/p>\n
Apart from music performances on Saturday, there were also other activities on the day which included boxing, poetry and fashion show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jamaican musician Busy Signal lived up to his word at the Sunbird Sand Music Festival on Saturday when he offered a scintillating performance until the early hours of Sunday. \u201cIt\u2019s one of my greatest feel to perform in front of you, when Busy Signal is performing, I do not care where I am at, once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11311,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11308\/revisions\/11311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}