Videos
Official Music Video
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- country:Malawi
- region:Central Africa
- style(s):Afro, Kwela
- label:Spare Dog Records
- artist posted by:Spare Dog Records
Line up
- Gasper Nali (Babatoni)
Links
Gasper Nali is a Malawian one-man-band. An old video of him playing his 3 metre long one-string bass guitar has been watched over 18 million times online in the last 12 months.
Gasper's incredible instrument - a Babatoni - is all homemade, and is played with a beer bottle and a stick while he's singing and stomping a locally fashioned kick-pedal on his cow skin bass drum. His music is bouncy and catchy, Malawi Roots to the core, and very danceable. Songlines Magazine summed it up very well in their 4-star review of his album: "...simple but joyous, and totally infectious." (issue #115, 2016)
Gasper, 35, lives a quite modest life in the small town of Nkhata Bay on the shores of northern Lake Malawi. In his younger years, he and his brothers would travel a bit with a family band in order to make money, but these days he lives alone in a small house in Nkhata Bay, mainly supporting himself by playing regular shows at venues in town.
Since Gasper's video exploded on the internet, he has recorded his debut album ‘Abale Nkdikuwuzeni' with Spare Dog Records, on location in Malawi. On 7th December 2015, the album, who's Chichewa title roughly translates to ‘People, I Want to Tell You’, was finally released.
Spare Dog Records will be attending WOMEX16, in part to be working towards building a coalition of parties that can further the music and careers of Gasper Nali and other fantastic Malawian artists on the international stage.
