The Pastor’s Donkey


Some time off yesterday and time to think made me remember this naughty but nice story from Judy in Australia. It has a nice point at the end!

The Pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won. The Pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in another race and it won again.

The local paper read:
PASTOR’S ASS OUT FRONT.

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the Pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.

The next day the local paper headline read:
BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR’S ASS.

This was too much for the Bishop so he ordered the Pastor to get rid of the donkey. The Pastor decided to give it to a Nun in a nearby convent.

The local paper, hearing of the news,
posted the following headline the next day:
NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.

The Bishop fainted. He informed the Nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey so she sold it to a farmer for $10.

The next day the paper read:
NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10.

This was too much for the Bishop so he ordered the Nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild.

The next day the headlines read:
NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE.

The Bishop was buried the next day.

The moral of the story is . . .. being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery . ..even shorten your life. So be yourself and enjoy life. Stop worrying about everyone else’s ass and you’ll be a lot happier and live longer!

Have a wonderful day!

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Slap Dee

George Mukwita aka Kaufela contributes regularly to the blog.

Meet Slap Dee from XYZ fame – Zambia’s number one vernacular rapper! Born Mwila Musonda on the 27th of April, Slap Dee, first got into the game of music during his high school years. Battling with school mates and winning recognition, he soon realised that he could make hip-hop a viable career.

His career began to get moving in 4 years when he worked on a song called ‘Asembe Isebenza’ and was identified by promoter Sync as a rising star. His debut album bearing the same name was a commercial disappointment but earned Slap decent radio spins and generated a buzz in the hip-hop underground. His follow-up effort entitled ‘So-Che’ catapulted the young rhymesmith to national stardom. Featuring hits like ‘Solola’ and ‘Takwaba’… So-Che confirmed what well-informed critics had suspected: the next big thing had arrived!

In between 2007/8 Slap Dee was embroiled in a bitter feud with crooner Mampi. As the beef raged, the listening public was spoiled with legendary tracks from the Makeni based MC like ‘Nizee’ and ‘Sunshila’. He also enjoyed a great working relationship with songbird Sutu, belting out duets ‘Kamba Che’ and ‘Disposable’.

Moving from strength-to-strength in 2009, Slap Dee released his third studio project entitled Black Na White to an overwhelming response from fans. Radio favourites included “Goldigger”, “Fo’Shizy” and “Chishinka”. Slap is currently in the studio recording his fourth album, his second under his very own record label “X.Y.Z Entertainment”. This project will be uniquely different as Slap will use it to showcase his own beat-making skills.

Slap Dee’s strengths lie in a unique ear for music, an intuitive understanding of the listening public’s tastes and his strong song writing skills. With the ability to compose a song hook, a strong 16 bar rap verse or a melodic bridge, this triple threat of beat making, song writing and rapping certainly make Slapdee a star for many years to come on African music. Slap Dee radio’s favourites include “Goldigger”, “Fo’Shizy” and “Chishinka”.and Chipanga’no featuring P-Jay which won him best Zambian hip hop video at the Born n Bred Awards last year in December.

This year be on the look out for this artist – you might wanna remember his name -Slap Dee!

Thanks George, we’ll remember you said…!

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Mao Kasonso


“Some say he’s recently been in UK working as ‘The Stig’ others that he built Victoria Falls, all we know is that he’s called Mao!” I declared, when I was asked by Milli Jam to introduce our guest on the most recent edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild. That’s our regular weekly Sunday night radio show airing at 20.30 hrs on Zambezi Radio 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s best loved local radio station. Why start like that? Well Mao Kasonso, in the picture above, to the right of George da Soulchild, is well known on Facebook and people often do Clarksonesque things with his name on that site. Anyway my intro took everyone by surprise, got a good laugh and got our show off to a happy start.

It was for us a ground breaking show, not only did we feature three international No 1 hits, but for the first time we had an additional guest interview by phone from Lusaka. This featured Mr Vezzy aka Lang’a Mweene, a musician with a smash hit in Zambia on his hands – ‘Imma Bad Boy’ – which we played on the show (for the second time). Lang’a talked to us mid-way through the show when Milli Jam asked him about his work, his music, his family and his ambitions – it went down well with the listening audience. I asked him how long he’d been on Twitter and what he thought about it. He replied “about 3 months and it’s the world”. More evidence, if it was needed, that Twitter’s popularity continues to grow in Zambia.

Mao Kasonso our studio guest is a well known figure in Livingstone. He was a club DJ at The Fairmount Hotel in his younger days and then for many years was employed by Radio Mosi-o-Tunya, starting as a volunteer and working his way up to become Head of Production. At Radio Mosi-o-Tunya Mao hosted a weekly show as well as managing his administrative duties. The station is a Catholic Church owned community service radio station and Livingstone’s other local radio station. “What are you doing now?” Milli Jam asked our guest, who went on to explain that he’s currently studying a one and a half year business management course. He has an ambition to set up his own radio station in the future and we wouldn’t bet against that. Vibrant, intelligent and hard working speak for themselves!

The music on the show was excellent – as mentioned we featured three international number one hits: Kenny Chesney’s ‘Somewhere With You’ – currently top of the US country charts. Britney Spears with ‘Hold It Against Me’ charted at number one in the US pop charts last week and ‘Who’s That Girl’ by Guy Sebastian featuring Eve – the Australian number one. In this regard I told listeners how we’d received blog comments querying our lack of knowledge about Guy on the previous week’s show! We all agreed that the track was excellent and we were happy to have aired it for the first time on radio in Zambia. Together with these smash hits we featured Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull with ‘On The Floor’, Lady Gaga’s ‘Animal’ and Ty2 featuring Scarlet with ‘Desire’ this last number the second of our two local tracks. Milli Jam chose a Nigerian track ‘Jupka’ by J Martins.

Mao greeted his wife and family at home, especially his 3 children Geen 10, Ben 5 and Melinda 2.5 and told listeners that he didn’t like football but loved music, particularly pop, rock and dance and that his favourite track at the moment was ‘Hello’ by Martin Solveig and Dragonette. We gave listeners their regular chart news – featuring for the first time the USA Ringtones Charts – that caught listeners’ interest.

Appropriately the question we asked for the prize dinner for two was ‘tell us the 3 letter name of this week’s guest on the show’ and ‘Mao’ was quickly texted and the winner rewarded!

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C.R.I.$.I.$ Mr Swagger Up For A BEFFTA

George da Soulchild, co-presenter of The Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient, our weekly Sunday night radio show on 107.7 fm in Livingstone, updates us weekly on the Zambian music scene:-

“Zambian Hip-Hop artist Chisenga Katongo, also known as C.R.I.$.I.$ Mr Swagger, has been nominated for the BEFFTA Awards to take place at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta next month.

The Black Entertainment, Film, Fashion, Television & Arts Awards, is a prestigious international event and a distinctly special awards ceremony, honouring the best entertainment and showbiz personalities in the black community in the UK, USA and globally.

“C.R.I.$.I.$. Mr. Swagger is nominated in The Best International Act alongside artists such as Sade (UK), M.I. (Nigeria), 2Face (Nigeria), Ali Kiba (Tanzania) and Fally Ipupa (Congo DRC). While those nominated in the Best Male Act include: Usher, Big Andre, Ludacris, TreySongz and Maxwell,”.

“Eventual winners of the awards will be decided by public/global vote, which will be carried out both online and also by sms. Each nominee will be given a nominee number for sms voting and also a link for online voting, which the artist can give their fans for them to vote.”

And Chisenga, who is currently working on a new album (B.I.G), in an interview said he had been persistent in trying to keep his music international and as such he was happy to get the recognition. “My New Year has kicked off on a good note. For a long time, some people have tried to discourage me and told me that it’s impossible for my music to be recognised internationally, but I have been persistent with my dream and I am far from over”. He said.

“The nomination is a good sign of where things are going. Most recently, we also saw my song ‘The Fire Inside’ take the number 1 spot on Channel-O across Africa, despite some sceptics not recognising it here in Zambia. I’m quite happy with the way things are going and, being placed among other great artists is an honour in itself. The nomination means a lot to me and Zambian music. I thank the BEFFTA panel for being able to recognise my work. Above all, I thank God.”

The BEFFTA Awards were launched in London in October 2009. This year, the awards will debut in Atlanta on February 23 as an integral part of the African-American celebrations to commemorate Black History Month in the USA.

Wishing C.R.I.$.I.$ the best of luck!

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Zambian Music Scene 2010 – Review


Here’s George da Soulchild’s piece about the 2010 Zambian music scene, George is pictured above:

The year 2010 can be recorded as a mixture of explosive moments as well as big flops in terms of popular music and performances in Zambia. Today’s blog takes stock of some of the highlights in the sector often hyped up by music videos.

It worked as an advantage to most artists to produce music videos as this became a faster way of promoting their songs, and with the opening of TV2 (ZNBC), airplay increased with many artists getting recognition. It’s also worth mentioning that despite the fame some of the artists enjoyed, others totally lost it. 2010 saw a number of uncontrollable releases, mostly singles, which created competition and at the same time paved way for songs like Chika’s ‘Lupupa’, JK’s ‘Soul Survivor’ and B1’s ‘Pillow’. This trend overshadowed a number of album releases especially from big names.

Copperbelt’s Afunika, whose style added a different dimension to the industry, came in with songs ‘Kakonkote’, ‘Miss You’ and ‘Tefumo Lyandi’ earning him popularity and a string of shows country wide. This made him 2010’s most played artist both on radio and in night clubs. Dandy Crazy’s 2010 effort wasn’t as good as his last project leaving fans disappointed – it couldn’t even match the muscle of up-coming artistes like PJ, B’flow, Bryan, Cray J, Alpha Romeo and B1 who took over radio – especially radio Charts.

Additionally, the year saw the growth of hip-hop music with Slap Dee and C.R.I.S.I.S both winning Born and Bred Awards. New talent P.O.M.P.I and The Zone Farm pushed Zambian hip-hop forward. Artists like JK, Dalisoul, Orga Family, Runell, CQ, Danny and ‘wonder boy’ Afunika had a successful year as regards music performances, as all of them had an album to promote though their rewards were unevenly matched. Runell’s offering ‘Addictive’ failed to beat his previous and probably most successful ‘Unexpected’ album.

Orga Family were a serious come back with efforts on ‘Koka Kola’ earning them an Ngoma Award and a nomination for the Born and Bred Award, while Danny enjoyed a country wide tour thanks to his latest work ‘Live’, making him the most consistent live performer of popular music in the last ten years. JK got the most awards at the Born and Bred and his quest for international fame finally paid off when he was selected for the One8 project singing alongside seven other African artists plus celebrated US musician R Kelly. His ‘Kapilipli’ Album produced by Raydo has significantly revamped his career. MC Wabwino and K’millian were among notable artists to come up with late releases – we’ll have to wait and see how their albums fare this year.

Petersen, Ozzy, Roberto, Mampi and Shyman are all soon to off-load their latest projects for 2011. Credit should be given to Exile and PJ who have probably been the most featured artists in 2010. Female artistes have not had a good year with Mampi not being as aggressive as the previous year. Artistes like Indi K, Judy and Dambisa have taken advantage.

Artists to look out for in 2011 both big names and up and coming are B’flow, B1, Camster, Manus, T-boy, TY2, Mozegator, OC, Roberto, Shyman, Yellowman, Ozzy, Petersen, Mampi, Afunika and Livingstone Based Kaufela just to mention a few. These artists are definitely set to turn the tables in 2011.

Music backed by traditional Zambian influences, the Amayenge ,Sakala Brothers, Mathew Tambo, Angela Nyirenda, Maureen Lupo Lilanda and new comer Mumba Yachy enjoyed a good year with tours outside Zambia.

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Zambian Music Scene


George Da Soulchild, co-host of our remarkably successful radio programme The Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George Da Soulchild (pictured above), writes a blog for us every week about the local music scene. Our radio show goes out for an hour every Sunday night at 20.30 hrs on Zambezi Radio 107.7 fm and features latest music worldwide, and chat. Guests are usually international and often resident at Chanters Lodge. Here’s George’s latest piece about Danny and Taonga.

Up And Coming Gospel Artist Taonga Gets Double ‘Born & Bred’ Nomination.
Being nominated for the Born & Bred music and video awards may be considered a great achievement for any young artist seeking recognition on the Zambian music scene. 21-year-old Taonga Nyirongo has been nominated not for one, but two awards this year. Firstly in the Best Gospel Video category for his song Chikondi which is popular on ZNBC TV2.

Taonga’s second nomination is for Best Promising Artist category, something which he says is an achievement knowing the fact that he is yet to succeed in the music industry. Taonga who also presents gospel show on Muvi TV says the music indutry is on the raise and the Goverment and the business society should invest as it does in other countries to ensure the growth of the Industry. Other nominees for Born and Bred include JK, Slap D, Alfa Romeo, Roberto, Brothahood Crew, Judy and Petersen just to mention a few.

Born n Bred Awards are set for the 16 of this month and will be aired live on Both ZNBC and ZNBC TV2 @20:30.

Danny Takes Album Launch To RSA
Danny Siulapwa aka Danny Kaya is set to take his ‘Live’ album launch to South Africa under the the auspices of DJ Tabs Entertainment. Danny,said his decision to go to South Africa for a show on December 15 was due to popular demand. So if you’re in South Africa on the 15th December, just make sure you attend the show.

And for that matter, if you’re in Livingstone on Sunday evening, make sure you don’t miss the Chanters Lodge Experience on 107.7 fm at 20.30 hours – you might even win a dinner for 2 at the fantastic Chanters Lodge!

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Isaac Mwanza & Mubiana Jeff Nalwendo


Our Guests on the latest edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient, featuring George Da Soulchild, were Isaac Mwanza (left) and Mubiana Jeff Nalwendo pictured above. Isaac is IT Manager at Zambezi Radio 107.7 fm and Mubiana is Production and Programmes Manager. Bit incestuous you’re thinking, considering our regular Sunday night radio show goes out on their station? Maybe, but they guys were there for a purpose.

As well as being part of the management of the station both gentlemen are very popular local DJ’s! Isaac goes on air as DJ Chin Cavaly 2010 and Jeff is MJ Fabulous! This Saturday 4th December the guys are organizing a show in Livingstone for upcoming musicians where the young and talented can display their music to the fans. (This stirred memories for me as we used to do the same sort of thing at Southern Sun Ridgeway Hotel on Folk Night, every Tuesday. A lot of older musicians in Zambia got their break on that show.) “Who’s starring for you”? I asked. “Locally it’s Kaufela” they replied, “but we’re bringing in BFlow from Lusaka, because we feel the fans should get value for the K15,000 per ticket they’ll be paying”. “Tell me about Kaufela” I continued. “George can tell you more” Isaac said. “It’s me” said George. “Yes” I said “you’re going to tell us about him”. “It’s me”! George said again, “I’m Kaufela”. Well, blow me down! I’d realised George was also a musician, but had no idea he was so well known on the local scene! MJ and Chin took the chance to thank all the many local companies that were helping to sponsor the show, including Chanters Lodge. The final line up of musicians had yet to be confirmed but it was announced that Milli Jam would be MC for the show!

Milli Jam wanted to know how Isaac and Mubiana had come up with their show business names. Isaac was reticent but said he changed his name every year and it was nothing to worry about. Mubiana said that at his father’s suggestion he had had used his initials, and it was the fans early on in his career at UNZAfm who’d added ‘Fabulous’. Mubiana is a graduate in Mass Communications from the University of Zambia and Isaac is expecting admission into the Copperbelt University next year to read computer studies. He’s already an expert in this field. MJ is famous for playing new numbers, Chin for hip-hop and r&b plus his chart knowledge which is legendary.

The music on the show was good but somehow drowned out by the noise! When DJ’s get together – and there were 5 in the studio including Tendai With An ‘i’ but not including me – they talk a lot. Anyway we played ‘Girls Fall Like Dominoes’ by Nicki Minaj, back to back with ‘So Alive’ by Skepta ft NDubz. Kaufela’s selection was ‘Hands Across The World’ by ONE8 the smash hit combination of R Kelly and loads of African artists including JK, a Zambian star. George coupled it with ‘Nibandani Ba Nzako’ from the new as yet unreleased K’Millian album. ‘Where are your friends when you need them’ was the translation. Milli Jam featured Rick Ross with ‘Aston Martin Music’.

Isaac and Mubiana briefed listeners about their roles at Zambezi fm as well as plans for the station’s new website and we gave away the usual dinner for 2 – won on this occasion by the manager of a rival local radio station! It was a good and informative show.

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Ideas


I loved this from Seth Godin – he didn’t mention Twitter or Facebook though…

Where do ideas come from?

1. Ideas don’t come from watching television
2. Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture
3. Ideas often come while reading a book
4. Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them
5. Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom
6. Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide
7. Ideas often strive to meet expectations. If people expect them to appear, they do
8. Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner’s mind. A little awareness is a good thing
9. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
10. Ideas come from trouble
11. Ideas come from our ego, and they do their best when they’re generous and selfless
12. Ideas come from nature
13. Sometimes ideas come from fear (usually in movies) but often they come from confidence
14. Useful ideas come from being awake, alert enough to actually notice
15. Though sometimes ideas sneak in when we’re asleep and too numb to be afraid
16. Ideas come out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower, when we’re not trying
17. Mediocre ideas enjoy copying what happens to be working right this minute
18. Bigger ideas leapfrog the mediocre ones
19. Ideas don’t need a passport, and often cross borders (of all kinds) with impunity
20. An idea must come from somewhere, because if it merely stays where it is and doesn’t join us here, it’s hidden. And hidden ideas don’t ship, have no influence, no intersection with the market. They die, alone.

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Advice From Steve Jobs


You can’t get advice from anyone much wiser than Steve Jobs from Apple when it comes to business. This, from BrandmakerNews made me sit up and take notice. It was posted on Twitter by @zazo

1. Embrace the opportunity in every situation. “Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, and less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
*(I used to teach ‘there are no problems, only opportunities to learn – ed)

2. Commit to doing great work and never settle. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking, and don’t settle.”

3. Make every day count. “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

4. Don’t miss your moment. “Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

5. Keep your priorities in check. “Manage the top line, which is your strategy, your people and your products, and the bottom line will follow. My model for business is the Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”

6. Attract remarkable people. “Building a company is really hard. It requires the greatest persuasive abilities to hire the best people and to keep them working at your company and doing the best work of their lives. We’ve been lucky to have great partners and to have attracted great people. Everything that has been done has been done by remarkable people.”

7. Choose the right horse to ride. “Apple is a company that doesn’t have the most resources. The way we’ve succeeded is by choosing the right horses to ride really carefully. We try to pick things that are in their Spring. If you choose wisely you can save yourself a tremendous amount of work, instead of trying to do everything. Sometimes you just have to pick the things that look like they’ll be the right horse to ride.”

8. Don’t stress…it will all work itself out. “If the market tells us we’re making the wrong choices, we’ll listen to the market. That’s what a lot of customers pay us to do, to try to make the best product. And if we succeed, they’ll buy them, but if we don’t, then they won’t. And it will all work itself out.”

9. Move on to the next great thing. “If you do something and it turns out pretty good, you should go out and do something else wonderful. Don’t dwell on it for too long, just figure out what’s next.”

10. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. “Much of what I’d stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.”

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Koan Float


I loved this from HTel Apartments about how to relax in Amsterdam – there are more ways (and no, it’s not what you think) if you click that link and check the piece. Anyway, here for now is the Koan Float

“Forget about trying to relax. You simply can’t avoid not relaxing in a tank filled with very salty water. The technique is not that well known:

Lower yourself in one of the tanks filled with highly salted water. It takes a couple of minutes to adjust, but then the unique experience of feeling weightless takes over. All muscles and organs get a maximum opportunity to relax. Your breathing slows down, the rhythm of your heartbeat calms down. The environment, the warmth, and the feeling of weightlessness combined provide an ideal way to let go of the turbulence of daily life. Your thoughts will disappear into nothingness. Koan Float welcomes you to a different dimension.”

Sounds brilliant, doesn’t it!

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