The Sunday Mail
Fatima Bulla
GOSPEL group CCAP Voice of Mbare feel they are now experiencing a rebirth almost two decades after they released their debut album. The all-male 17-member group has eight albums to its credit after a well-known debut production whose title track “Nganganga”, sung in Chewa, became a hit.
Due to lack of marketing the gospel group seemed confined to singing for Church of Central Africa Presbyterian congregations whose roots are in Malawi – even five albums later.
Having started with five members, one of the two who have stuck with the group, Andrew Macdonald, believes the initiative by their chairman to focus on promoting their productions has been fruitful. “This has been achieved through our leadership. We have been promoted in a lot of ways such that we have a number of albums out in the market, raising our profile through the media,” Macdonald said.
The group sings in Chewa, Shona, English and Bemba.
Chairman William Mikaye believes language has never been a barrier.
“I think we are doing enough to market ourselves. If you look at our hit song it was in Chewa. So I don’t think Chewa language was our barrier. It was ourselves to blame. We did not market ourselves.
“But now on the other side we also look at the producers. We managed to engage one of the best producers in MacDee (Macdonald Chidavaenzi).
“Added to that the current members want to progress and also to be known. So those are the other contributing factors,” Mikaye said.
After launching their live DVD album, on which they collaborated with Malawian gospel musician Skeffa Chimoto, last Friday, Mikaye sees the group breaking into the Southern Africa region.
“I think we have gone a mile ahead in the sense that we are still planning to go regionally. Knowing that Skeffa is well known in most of the countries it is now easy to penetrate the regional markets like in Malawi. Even the South African market where he has another fan base.”
While many a group have failed to survive the migration of members to other countries to defeat the trend, CCAP Voice of Mbare has made it a policy to replace anyone who has left.
And in a bid to make up for lost opportunities the group has made it a point to showcase songs from older albums during live performances.
With not much recognition for 19 years of sweat, CCAP Voice of Mbare feel more invitations that have come to perform at corporate functions and their recent nomination for the Prophets Emmanuel and Ruth Makandiwa Invitational Concert and Awards Ceremony night is indication of good times coming.
“We feel so excited and maybe short of words being a group from CCAP then finding yourself being nominated under an Apostolic Faith driven kind of church.
“We are shot of words but God has a purpose.
‘‘It is something that was a wish of every member to maybe come up on top like this being nominated on such kind of platforms. We feel great,” group member Charles Chisale said.
Other members of the group include brothers Luke, Herbert and Enock Chisale, Samson Sentilawo, Arthur Meya, Ben Banda and Oscar Chamba.
Amos Justin, Martin Vuyani, Lazarus Muhoni, Emmanuel Amos, Jeffrey Amos, Blessing Sande and Samson Chasauka complete the line-up.
