WITH RICHARD CHIROMBO:<\/p>\n
Talent, for all it is, is arbitrary.<\/p>\n
That is why, from the root of the same biological family, one can be a preacher, another a hooker and yet another an artist.<\/p>\n
Talent, whatever people say, must be arbitrary. Forget what those who believe in karma say. Yes, I am talking of the folks who, either high on something legal or low on something illegal, tell us that a man\u2014 and woman, of course. Why are you looking at me? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! <\/em>\u2014 is born seven times.<\/p>\n Yes, seven times of separate life spans. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. The circle is complete.<\/p>\n Okay, let this be talk for another day.<\/p>\n Thing is, one Thomas Chibade has the arbitrary chance of having arbitrary talent throw music at him.<\/p>\n Maybe it happened in his sleep. I mean, the realization that he was one of a kind. A musician.<\/p>\n Maybe it happened in daylight.<\/p>\n Whatever. For us, Malawians, it happened when he walked [drove or flew?] to the studio, recorded one song and, boom, Thomas Chibade was born. In our hearts I mean.<\/p>\n Chibade sings. That is why he is hired to perform in various podia.<\/p>\n He has done it with Lucius Banda. They call it a collabo.<\/p>\n He has done it with others. They still call it a collabo.<\/p>\n And one day, he had to spice up an event at Motel Paradise, where Malawi Police Orchestra, Charles Nsaku and others were on song.<\/p>\n That is in December 2016.<\/p>\n Well, Thomas Chibade found me at the gate. I was in the act of forking out a K2,000 banknote and paying to whoever set a roadblock between the outside world and the stage at the venue.<\/p>\n That is when Thomas Chibade [no short cuts here, as I here. Thomas Chibade is Thomas Chibade and not Thomas or Chibade. Again, don\u2019t look at me. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!<\/em>] popped up.<\/p>\n He did not have an identity card. Remember, the National Registration Bureau had not embarked on the registration exercise then.<\/p>\n For Thomas Chibade, his face is a national identification card. You see a Thomas Chibade, you see a national identification card.<\/p>\n I mean, the fella is famous. He needs no introduction.<\/p>\n But, then, perhaps the guards from the security company that had been hired were high on something legal, or low on something illegal, for, at the setting of a new sun [because it was not late; the sun had just gone beyond the other part of the mountain on the western side of Malawi] the guards did not want to see the face before them\u2014 that of Thomas Chibade\u2014 as an identification document.<\/p>\n They demanded to know who he was and when he told them who he was, they did not believe it. They demanded an identity card.<\/p>\n Thomas Chibade was in the act of getting angry\u2014 I saw it on his face\u2014 when one of the organisers popped up and asked the guards to let him in.<\/p>\n You should have seen what I saw. A puff of anger, that had now made Thomas Chibade\u2019s face puffed up with anger, getting deflated as a tubeless tyre \u2018stabbed\u2019 by two sharp thones.<\/p>\n But, then, Thomas Chibade went on to give a scintillating performance\u2014 spicing his songs up with those of Lucky Dube\u2014 as if nothing angering had not taken place. Things, it seems, work well for Thomas Chibade.<\/p>\n That is relief. The ability to forget and let go.<\/p>\n Of course, they paid him thereafter. Another form of relief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WITH RICHARD CHIROMBO: Talent, for all it is, is arbitrary. That is why, from the root of the same biological family, one can be a preacher, another a hooker and yet another an artist. Talent, whatever people say, must be arbitrary. Forget what those who believe in karma say. Yes, I am talking of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68114","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\/68114","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=68114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68119,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68114\/revisions\/68119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}