Shyman!

Meet Michelo Siavwapa (above, with an unnamed fan in the background) aka ‘Shyman Shaizo’, one of Livingstone Zambia’s hottest music stars and Guest on the most recent edition of the Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Souldchild Kaufela – that’s our regular Sunday night radio show airing at 20.30 hrs CAT on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station, and streaming live on the internet here or here. Each week we give away a dinner for two at the lodge during the show to the first person to text us telling us who’s singing our oldie of the week – just imagine that no-one knew Chris de Burgh sang ‘Lady In Red’ – so the prize went begging on this particular show!

“Why are you called Shyman?” Asked Milli Jam at the top of the show “are you shy”? The man denied it, saying that the name had happened ‘out of the blue’ and that he had ‘never been shy’. The fan behind giggled….Shyman told listeners that he was a Livingstone lad and it was only in 2005 that he had shifted to Lusaka in order to further his musical career. In 2008 this had resulted in the production and release of his only album to date. It had been a big success and he was very much hoping that his second album would be forthcoming before too long. He gave praise to musician Petersen whom he said had been a tremendous help to him in furthering his musical aspirations.

We featured two of Shyman’s tracks on the show – ‘Salary’ and ‘Iwe Na 1ne’ – the latter with Petersen and Ben Blazer, and it is clear that the man has a lot of talent. George who recently produced and recorded some super new jingles for our show and who is campaigning said “Richard, did you hear that the first track was called ‘Salary’ and did you know he was singing about people getting paid more money?” My reply? “Thanks for the jingles George!” Recently Milli Jam had Ne-Yo’s ‘Let Me Love You Until You Learn To Love Yourself’ as his pick of the week and we were delighted to report that it had debuted at number one on the UK pop charts that very day, so we played it again and patted ourselves on the back! We also featured Enrique with Sammy Adams ‘Finally Found You’ and Flo-Rida’s ‘I Cry’. This week Milli’s pick of the week was Liquid Deep’s ‘Still’.

Shyman told listeners that he was ‘very single’ (the fan behind giggled again) but father of a baby girl aged 1 year 5 months. He said he had played shows as far away as Mozambique and South Africa but his biggest crowds were in Namibia where Zambian music is very popular. He did not like football but wished there was volleyball in Livingstone, which he enjoyed. He was very proud to be involved in an empowering project with other musicians to teach and educate orphans. He had his first break as a musician as a youngster when he played trumpet in a Salvation Army band. He said his father had been the one to encourage him in the musical field.

Asked where he would like to be and what he would like to be doing ten years from now, Shyman replied ‘In Livingstone, Zambia making it big in music’! No doubt!

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