The Urban music artist called Armstrong and now called by a-not-so-musicalsounding name Onesimus is said to have broken a record earlier this month when his track \u2018Miracle Money\u2019, found in the album with an equally strange name \u2018Epikaizo\u2019, was uploaded on the country\u2019s leading website at Malawimusic.com.<\/p>\n
I listened to the track and even watched the video and I am surprised that it had to cause a traffic jam on the website for 30 minutes when users mobbed it to download it.<\/p>\n
The track is said to have enjoyed a record 11, 340 downloads in a space of 12 hours. Previous record holder is Gwamba, whose hit track \u2018John Tembo\u2019 had 9, 000 downloads within 24 hours.<\/p>\n
The track has perhaps attracted such attention because its message borders on whether it can be described as a Christian or secular music.<\/p>\n
In the track he is only talking about miracle money in his pockets, wallet, handbag and bank account.<\/p>\n
And that his Major Prophet Bushiri has to do something.<\/p>\n
Nothing is being said about using the powers of God or Jesus Christ in generating the so-called miracle money.<\/p>\n
It therefore becomes a song that is composed to idolise Prophet Bushiri for moving Armstrong from a poverty trap to a lace of wealth. \u2018Miracle Money,\u2019 both audio and visual prominently features Prophet Shepherd Bushiri.<\/p>\n
I therefore find it difficult to share the views of those that think he should be called a South Africa-based gospel musician because to me Armstrong Kalua has demonstrated that he is still consumed by secular acumen.<\/p>\n
Before this album, he released six single tracks just after he transformed from secular to gospel, and the tracks never made any headlines.<\/p>\n
As you can rightly see, his album is titled Epikaizo Volume 2 and he rightly told The Daily Times in the week that this is a continuation of a journey that \u2018my father\u2019 Major Prophet Shepherd Bushiri started since he also has a musical album titled Epikaizo Volume 1.<\/p>\n
The musical aspect of the album is a typical Armstrong album and, with tracks done in genres of Afro as well as R&B, Armstrong boasts that the 14-track album sold 10,000 copies at FNB Stadium recently.<\/p>\n
Like I have, many people too have misgivings with this particular track as, tongue in the cheek; Armstrong also says \u2018Miracle Money\u2019 is a gift from God. Unless it is being said in the other language being used in the track, there is no where I am hearing that.<\/p>\n
The young man says it has taken him two years to produce the album and that I am one of the 10 percent of the people who are criticising this song \u2018Miracle Money,\u2019 and he is therefore happy that the other 90 percent of people\u2019s comments said it is worth it.<\/p>\n
Gospel artists sometimes flounder to be creative and as a result they are stuck in the mud of plagiarism and this is why I also have problems with the adoption of the \u2018Miracle Money\u2019 beat which is Nigerian. At the moment, the Nigerian beat is selling like hotcake and what Armstrong has done, like his so-called father, is to take advantage of this fame and ride on its back.<\/p>\n
Last time I said that it is clear that the problem that is killing Malawi\u2019s nascent music industry is the artists\u2019 struggle to do something without knowing what they want to become.<\/p>\n
Mentality is of essence when any one person decides to venture into music; lack of it only proves the saying \u2018garbage in, garbage out\u2019 unnecessarily true.<\/p>\n
Now it becomes so abhorring when, once again, the gospel is given a dummy by being coated in something else that I do not consider gospel regardless of who is behind it.<\/p>\n
Is Miracle Money a gospel song because it has been done by Bushiri\u2019s hand clapper or because it is indeed a gospel track?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Urban music artist called Armstrong and now called by a-not-so-musicalsounding name Onesimus is said to have broken a record earlier this month when his track \u2018Miracle Money\u2019, found in the album with an equally strange name \u2018Epikaizo\u2019, was uploaded on the country\u2019s leading website at Malawimusic.com. I listened to the track and even watched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16047","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=16047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}