I WOULD RATHER FAIL AS AN ARTIST THAN AS A MOTHER, TOWELA KAIRA TALKS TO BBC – THIS IS AFRICA 

PLEASE NOTE: This is a continuation from PART THREE of BBC’s This Is Africa hosted by DJ Edu on a special episode focused on Zambia tittled “Zambia Ku Chalo.”

Earlier, DJ Edu was talking to Zambian singer Yo Maps. You can read his interview HERE.

Towela Kaira introduces herself, “Hello, you are listening to Towela Kaira all the way from Lusaka, Zambia, and this is my song titled YOU.”

DJ Edu, “Towela Kaira is one of Zambia’s most successful female artists, she’s also Zambian music royalty being the youngest sister of Macky 2 and Chef 187 both established stars in Zambia’s music scene. She honed her musical skills in bands and as a backing singer before launching her solo career via Nigerian Afrobeats enterpreneur Mr. Eazi’s Empawa scheme which gave mentoring and international exposure to ten African artists back in 2020. Towela’s breakthrough song was DELAY, which featured both of her famous brothers. Her latest single is STICKY, and it features JC Kalinks and Kays Adamz.”

DJ Edu continues, “So we are in Lusaka, Zambia, and it’s a privilege to hook up with the one and only…”

Towela Kaira, “TOWELA KAIRA!!!”

DJ Edu, “The new song Sticky, let’s talk about that.”

Towela Kaira responds, “Sticky was such a fun song for me, I was in my experimental phase last year, I wanted to try more upbeat, more dance, you know, more like fun stuff. It’s just about having fun, you know. Seeing a nice girl and like come close to me, come close to me now. Yes, it’s just about women feeling themselves, and you know, like I’m the baddest, yeah.”

DJ Edu, “And do you find that the conservativeness of this space in Zambia allows you to be as raunchy as you are and do whatever type of music style you feel like and to really express yourself artistically?”

Towela Kaira, “I do cross the line with what they are comfortable with here and there but not enough to be a problem, but I will be soon watch out, watch out, watch out.”

She continued, “I think people love that I’m a free spirit. They are intrigued by how I don’t care about bad things, and I’m just living my life. It’s like I wanna be like that, you know, I don’t wanna care what people think. I feel like that’s a superpower because most time I’m just like, oh! There’s such a thing? Or your brothers are gonna see you in a bikini, oh well, it’s the internet, what are gonna do? You know, just live your life on your terms.”

DJ Edu, “And another special song was the one you did with your brothers. How was the dynamic in working on the DELAY song? How was that?”

Towela Kaira, “Ooh, it was so refreshing because I sent them three songs to choose, and they both chose the same one, and they put their verses, and I was like, oh! Yes, lord, this is it. Have you ever had a song and you are like – THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE ONE! They were very supportive, they came with me to my interviews, I think Macky 2 arranged my first radio tour, he’s like(does Macky 2’s voic) TOWELA DON’T BE LATE! (laughs).”

Towela continued, “I always knew I was going to be a musician, I just didn’t know how and everybody would put pressure on me like oh your brothers are famous why don’t you start, why don’t you… my time will come, and when my time comes, I will know.”

Towela Kaira added, “And when the song came out, it was so evident that was the time God had set for me because I did struggle, I did push. All my struggles were in a different field when I was doing the live band, when I was doing backup singing, I was doing karaoke here and there but when time came for me to do like professional stuff, the mainstream stuff, it flowed so well, I could have never planned it any better.”

DJ Edu, “You being helped by your brother as you say, coming up in the industry not having to face so many challenges that other females face.”

Towela Kaira, “Do you know how sometimes producers will make try to… or try to pursue sexual relationship with them, I’ve never had that, I’ve never had other musicians try to be flirty to give features or collaborations, no, it’s always, oh Towela! oh, okay! The respect they have for my siblings has trickled down to me.”

DJ Edu, “Tell us how it was for you growing up, coz your brothers have been there for you and they’ve protected you but you had bad news when you were growing up, a couple of thing did happen to you that were very instrumental to how you guys are now.”

Towela Kaira responded to DJ Edu by saying, “Yeah, we lost our parents really young, so that really made us learn how to thrive without help. You learn to rely on yourself, and you learn to believe in yourself because you are your first cheerleader. So I’ve felt like that resilience really has helped us to survive even until now. My brother Mark, he’s been in the music like 20 years now, can you imagine still doing music, still looking fit. So many artists have come and go but he is still there, you know what I mean. So I feel like growing up in a situation where you needed to rely on yourself has really impacted all of us, we always put our best work.”

DJ Edu, “And how was it for you growing up having not experienced that whole family life?”

Towela Kaira responded, “Obviously they love you as best as they could, but nowhere feels like home, so it affected me in the sense that I felt an abandonment wound when I wasn’t even abandoned So now instead of using that negatively I just pour love into other people, now i’m more empathetical with people, I’m very loving and present with with my own child because you know anything can happen.”

DJ Edu, “And speaking of your child, how are dynamics of you being able to sustain a success career and being able to impact this growing being that you know you have to take care of.”

Towela,”You need to separate the artist from the parent, so the parent always must be present. I’d rather fail as an artist than as a parent because, ultimately, you are responsible for creating a functional adult, I feel that’s a bigger responsibility than anything else. You know, sometimes your first child is a trap, so you have more kids. That’s my trap right there. She’s so easy, she listens, she sings, she’s interested in piano now, ah she’s just brilliant you know.”

DJ Edu, “So let’s take it back to the music and other songs you’ve done and really proud of.”

Towela Kaira, “I love Gold, I love YOU, I Love MARIA. GOLD is about a flame burning world. It was good love at one point, then you just got lost and the routine. And sometimes when things get boring we think we’ve fallen out of love so it’s like we love each other, can we go back to the times when things were beautiful?”

She continued, “I love these three songs because they have meaning, because sometimes on the Zambian music scene or just globally, we are caught up in the songs for vibes, eh one drink one tea, let’s dance lets eh, you know. While that’s great, let’s have timeless songs, something you can listen to in the night and think of a certain moment, you know what I mean? Yeah.”

DJ Edu, “Tell us about Maria.”

Towela Kaira,”Maria is basically talking about a woman who has found out her man is dating a 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10, wakes up hair done, make done, everything done and you are just like I can’t find a flaw in you, you are perfect I see why my husband likes you, I see why my man wants you but please!”

She continued, “I wanted to use it from that perspective to be vulnerable because you know sometimes women have pride, you’ll never out lively say, oh I was telling her to please leave my man, you’ll always be like(makes quarrelling like act) hey if you don’t leave my man, eh eh eh! You know what I mean? So I always liked talking about the difficult nitty-gritty of love because yeah, it’s great when love is loving, but most times, love is complicated. Love is hard.

DJ Edu closed this edition of three episodes featuring several Zambian artists, DJs and producers from Roberto, DJ Twizie, Mag 44, Xaven, Chef 187, Pompi, Yo Maps and Towela by saying, “Towela Kaira bring this special edition of This Is Africa from Zambia to a close.”

You can catch all other episodes on our website by searching, “BBC This Is Africa.”