Poetry in motion

Read: 1382

A 50-year-old poet and playwright, Johnny Malunghisa, has taken spoken poetry to another level with his debut poetry album on CD, which was released a fortnight ago.

His album is titled Khombo, which can loosely be translated as “danger”. However, in the original idiom, the title carries more weight which also suggests for a deeper and broader meaning.

“I see myself as this person who has a duty to serve my society through spoken poetry,” Malunghisa told Limpopo Mirror. “This world is filled with khombo and anyone who wants to live safely and protected from all evils of this world needs to heed the messages contained in my poems.”

He stressed the idea that he wanted to see people getting and receiving the life-filled messages just like the Israelites who had always received both physical and spiritual provision from God. “I am giving you manna which you must collect and eat today,” he says. “Don't wait for tomorrow – for what if tomorrow never comes?”

The eight-track album contains poems in Tshivenda and Xitsonga. Although Malunghisa was born and grew up at Ravele village in the Sinthumule area (where Tshivenda remains the predominant language) and his first language is seemingly Tshivenda, he speaks fluent Xitsonga.

“We refused to be moved to Gazankulu in 1979 when the apartheid government used force to separate us from the Vhavenda in the name of the Group Areas Act,” he remembers. “They tried to give us elephant meat, so we could eat and believe there was enough food on the other side, but we still refused.”

His refusal to accept defeat is perhaps what made him stand strongly for all those many years before he could release his first album, even though he had discovered that he was a poet and playwright during his high school years.

The album has poems such as Maa-waku!!, Deal, Nwana a sa lili, Xiphephani, Tendani Mudzimu, and Bhomba. “There are a lot of people to thank for working with me on this album,” he said. “Among them are Balcan Sikhwari and Khuthadzo 'NewBreed' Rammbwa. They have good ears for the sound.”

He was inspired by his late father, Matsilele Charlie Mahwai, who lived in the Funyufunyu mountain. “My father used to play dende and mbila,” he recalls. “When he played his mbilaand danced, the stallion of the local chief would join him in the dance.”

Khombo is available in good music stores. For more information on Malunghisa, readers can call 071 361 0540 or 071 193 1387.

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.