By Brainiak

The Brainiak was listening to a number of tracks from Malawi lately. After being criticized for not representing the Malawian musical ear brainiak took some time off to try and familiarize itself with what’s really good on the Malawian musical front. And hey, what do you know? We dug up some pretty interesting art-facts (not to mean something old skul and relics but actually…a fact in art).

If it will help anybody out thurr, my iPhone still has Dominant 1’s Moto Wa Yaka Volume 1, Young Kay’s Exhale, Marvel’s The Pride and The Last Testament from D’n’M playing thru and thru. And what’s recurrent in all these LPs? Collabs!! Marvel has Sally Nyundo (I hear he a reggae head), Stix (close sources say he done morphed into David) and Drew among others. Young Kay has Blacka Moore, GD and Dezert Eagle on the list of guest artists for his LP. I coulda said D’n’M has GD and Marcus from The Daredevils appearing a lot on their album but you probably get the point by now, no?

Which brings me to the following questions: why do a collab? When should an artist do a collab? How should an artist do a collab? And maybe most importantly, with who should an artist collab?

Your homie Brainiak kind of likes Goodson Gomonda’s contribution on Young Kay’s ‘I’m Home,’ GD does justice to ‘Where the Wind Takes Me’ by D’n’M, and Naphi doesn’t have a lot of trouble to lace a hook on Marvel’s ‘Far Away.’

I am tempted to say that Dezert Eagle’s rap doesn’t seem to add anything to Young Kay’s Amazing (should have stuck to the hook only, maybe?) and Marvel didn’t try the slightest to make Simudzandiona a comfortable track for Sally (both of them are not as half-good on the track as they really are…no?). My opinion, I really don’t want to step on any toes.

So, should an artist just do a collab for the sake of it? How much effort should an artist put into ensuring who is on what beat of his/hers? Or does it (not) matter? Is this where issues of understanding a song’s concept fall?

If I were a DJ, I think I wouldn’t mind playing ‘Akuti’ by Wisdom (I hear he’s Qodesh now?) featuring Barry One the whole day and most of you wouldn’t choke me for it. But is it just me or Biriwiri’s Pompo-pompo sounds like four different beats?

Well, to all my Brainiak homies, wrap your minds around this and hit the Brainiak with what you think. Later, peeps!