Poverty, prophets and politics: ‘Marxist’ discourses in Malawi music, 1994–2012

Malawi, a British protectorate from 1891, achieved independence in 1964. Then, under Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Malawi quickly became a one-party state, which was highly intolerant of dissent, both written and oral (Short, 1974; Lwanda, 1993 and 2009; Ross, 2009). It had a ‘feudal’ political and economic climate, with an economy exploiting low wages (LESOMA, 1981, pp. 82–85; Pryor, 1990; Mhone, 1992, pp. 1–33), in which expression of socio-economic dissatisfaction was contained by political repression (Africa Watch, 1990)