Meet Alicia and her mum Valerie Sutherland (pictured above), Guests on the most recent edition of ‘The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring Kaufela’ – that’s our regular Sunday night radio show airing from 20.30-21.30 hrs CAT on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station. At age nine, I think I’m right in saying that Alicia was the ‘youngest Guest ever’ to grace our show! Shy? No way! Mum Valerie appeared recently on a video with our very own Kaufela featuring Roberto on a track called ‘Good Woman’ – here’s the YouTube link if you’d like to watch. We played the track on the show and Alicia surprised us in the studio by knowing all the words of the song and rapping along! Great stuff. The cute little girl is a student at Musikili Primary School in Mazabuka, on an extended ‘holiday’ due to a recent operation to remove her tonsils.

Valerie told listeners that she had initially qualified in the tourism and hospitality sector following her education at St Mary’s Secondary School in Livingstone and had subsequently joined Bushtracks Zambia as an assistant manager in their activity centre at Sun International Hotels. During this time she undertook most of the available tourist activities including, to our surprise, the bungee jump! After a two year stint with Bushtracks she decided to branch out on her own and recently opened Bee Hive Cafe in Livingstone, (opposite Protea Hotel) – a trendy bar and night spot with a live band – Stag Vibration – at weekends. The Bee Hive has recently introduced a menu of Zambian speciality foods with a view to attracting tourists keen to sample our traditional dishes.

The music on the show was great, Kaufela coupled his track ‘Good Woman’ with T-Sean’s ‘Boza’ (lies). At the top of the show we featured Daft Punk’s ‘Lose Yourself To Dance’ back to back with ‘Heart Attack’ by Demi Levato. Milli Jam played tracks from Lawson ft B.o.B and Carly Rae Jepsen. Our oldie of the week was ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ by The Supremes, but no-one won the prize of a dinner for two at the lodge given to the first person to text us telling us the name of the performing artist. My pick was Stooshie’s ‘Slip’- fairly reminiscent of that Supremes track?

Valerie said that she’d written the lyrics to loads of songs and we urged her to start performing with the live band at The Beehive. She also told listeners that Alicia has a younger sister and, on being asked if her appearance with Kaufela on the video meant something deeper replied unsmilingly – ‘I am in a relationship’! We swiftly moved on! Music wise she said she likes tracks ‘with a good meaning in the message’ and that her favourite artist was Usher – she had recently been to one of his shows in Johannesburg which she had loved. She was not into football but was into motor sport especially F1. She admitted to enjoying a night out in a club once in a while and favoured East Point of the available night spots in Livingstone.

 Asked where she would like to be and what she would like to be doing in ten years’ time, this young, vibrant ambitious entrepreneur said she hoped to be happy, healthy, wiser and thriving, going forward to meet her goals! We did not doubt it!