“I FEEL like the world is anybody’s oyster. If you want something, go out and get it, pray, put your mind to it. There is power in the mind.
“You know, if you wake up defeated and you tell yourself, ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘I am not good enough’, it will play on you and you will begin to feel like literally you can’t do it.”
These are Mutale Mwanza’s sentiments. She is renowned in Africa for hosting a lifestyle and entertainment show on African Magic channel called Kumwesu, a Bemba word meaning our place, focusing on countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
In Zambia, however, Mutale attained the celebrity status as a radio personality or Disc Jockey, starting from Flava FM in Kitwe where she worked for five years and has recently joined the Lusaka based Hot FM.
Mutale can best be described as a take-a-second-look lady, the type that would make a man want to stare at for the second time owing to her good looks and shapely body. Not only that, she has a good command in the Queen’s language, sweet voice, witty, intelligent and above all God-fearing.
Those attributes coupled with her drive have enabled Mutale not to limit her potential and thus continued to excel in life.
“I am a driven person, that’s one thing that I know. Sometimes I don’t even know how it’s going to happen, where it’s going to happen from, I don’t know but I know that I am going to sit and I will conceptualise an idea and I need to see it come to life. So go out and make things happen.
“When you look at people on TV, they were once amateurs. My first radio show on Flava sacked! It was bad! I was nervous; I don’t know what I was talking about! An expert at something was once an amateur,” she says.
Besides the already mentioned attributes, motivational speaker can be included on the list as Mutale seems to have a passion to encourage the discouraged and is a strong believer of the saying, “Practice makes perfect.”
Who is Mutale Mwanza?
That is the question that this author wanted her to answer during an interview conducted at Chicago’s at Manda Hill shopping mall recently.
Mutale describes herself as a daughter, mother, aunt and sister born in Kitwe on October 22, 1987 in a family of five, of which she is the third born.
Mutale did her primary education at Nkana Trust School from 1993 to 1999. She skipped Grade Seven by writing the Grade Seven examination whilst in Grade Six because her mother thought Mutale was smart and she passed!
From there, Mutale enrolled into Grade Eight at St Johns Convent School in 2000 but only for a term as a her grades had gone down, attributing her lowering grades to reluctance.
To avoid the grades from dropping further, her mother decided to send her to boarding school and that is why Mutale was sent to Ibenga Convent School where she did the rest of her secondary education until 2004.
Mutale then took up Business Administration at the Zamtel College where she graduated with a diploma.
Mutale joined Flava FM in Kitwe after her friend encouraged her to do so as she noticed that she had a good command in spoken English and an ideal voice for radio.
Mutale took a shot at radio through auditions and was able to impress the radio station’s proprietor Chishala Chitoshi Junior popularly known as DJ Gesh Groove.
Gesh Groove is not an easy person to impress but Mutale was able to convince him to take her on board in 2007.
Knowing how critical Gesh Groove is, he obviously wanted the best for his radio station and thus had to put Mutale and other successful would-be presenters on an extensive orientation process in 2007 before the radio station started operating in 2008. Mutale then went on to co-host the morning show called The Big Breakfast Show with Gesh Groove (a veteran and versatile DJ), for three years before the Flava FM head passed on the mantle to Steve.
Mutale and Steve continued with the show until her resignation.
In 2009, Mutale decided to pursue journalism and enrolled at the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation (MEF) in Kitwe where she got a diploma and did her internship at ZNBC Kitwe studios before going back to Flava FM.
Mutale used to be late for class for about one hour 20 minutes because of being on air in the morning and getting stuck in traffic as she headed to MEF.
“Journalism was not my passion at all; I actually wanted to be a lawyer. When I was at school, I dreamt of being a lawyer, however, I was always discouraged because of the closures at universities,” she says.
Mutale’s passion for law has since dwindled and would rather take up a course in Public Relations or International Relations.
While at Flava FM, listeners voted Mutale as the most popular female presenter whose prize was to travel to South Africa to feature on Channel O in 2009. She alongside Scazzy travelled to South Africa and presented a show on Channel O. It was after appearing on Channel O that Mutale cultivated interest in television. Her love for television grew stronger upon regularly visiting South Africa for holidays.
During her visits to South Africa, Mutale met with Zambian export to that country Chilu Lemba, a former Radio Phoenix DJ, musician and voice over artiste.
Chilu liked Mutale’s voice and felt she could make a good voice over artiste like he is and thus nurtured her into utilising her voice for voice overs and showed her how to get an agent if she wanted to propel her career in South Africa, among other issues.
After her orientation with Chilu, Mutale came back to Zambia, resigned from Flava FM as she wanted something more challenging to do.
She then relocated to South Africa in 2012 where she contacted Chuma Phiri, another Zambian based in South Africa and once Channel O Video Jockey, known locally as DJ Chuma, who invited her to the studio as he was working on a DStv show called Good morning Africa.
Chuma introduced Mutale to the production team. Through the interaction that ensued, Mutale impressed the production team with her voice, personality and energy thereby earning her a job! She worked there as a field presenter and did voice overs, among other works.
After working there for about seven months, yet again Mutale felt the urge to do something more challenging hence her decision to approach Ground Focus Production with the idea of coming up with a TV programme aimed at showcasing the beauty of Zambia and other countries in the SADC region.
Mutale noticed that there were no lifestyle shows on DStv’s Africa Magic channel focused on SADC countries and that marked the birth of Kumwesu, whose idea was well received by Ground Focus Production and DStv.
Kumwesu is Mutale’s brainchild and is the first of its kind Zambian named and produced show. Ground Focus Production is a subsidiary of Kitwe based Ground Focus Limited, a Zambian mining geo-technical consultancy and civil engineering company, owned by a Zambian Jimmy Mubashi.
Kumwesu involves interviewing celebrities and personalities in Zambia and other Southern African countries besides showcasing the tourism potential that the SADC countries have.
“Before it (Kumwesu) first aired (in 2013), we (Mutale and content producer Lebo) knelt down and prayed because I just wanted people to love the show, to accept the show, to embrace the show, to hopefully advertise on the show, for the show to grow on people,” she says.
Kumwesu has enabled Mutale travel to various African countries thereby broadening her understanding of the African continent, the various cultures, food, met all sorts of people and basically opened doors which she could not open whilst on radio.
Mutale laughed aloud after saying that one notable observation while filming Kumwesu was that bars close early in Botswana. Mutale is back in Zambia and has since stopped presenting Kumwesu but is putting in work in the background as a producer.
“I love producing. Being in front of the camera is lovely but being a producer I think is more powerful, it’s more exciting because you are putting together TV show, you are deciding okay, ‘What should we put?
Where should we shoot? What should we do? How should we structure it?’
“So I actually presented Kumwesu and I produced it. I find that producing was more my thing, I actually love it,” Mutale says. Working on Kumwesu comes with challenges such as restrictions in certain countries, delays by celebrities to appear for interviews, refusal by owners of certain properties ideal for Kumwesu shooting for fear that they would be charged advertising costs.
Mutale describes her widowed mother, a devout Catholic, as her biggest fan, who beams with pride about her daughter and loves to show her off to relatives and friends but is concerned about Mutale’s frequent travels and thus encourages her to be cautious always.
Mutale’s mother gave her a Rosary, which she carries wherever she goes and uses it to say her prayers (Hail Mary and Our Father).
Currently, Mutale is in a relationship with a “young gentleman” or “Zambian lad” and they have been in courtship for “some time” and hopes their love will culminate into marriage one day.
Mutale burst into laughter again when asked how she met him, saying she could not say as it was too funny.
“Next question!” she interjected and laughed again after being quizzed about her partner.
Mutale describes her dude as her Kanye West (famous American rapper and producer) and is also quite popular and therefore understands the consequences associated with fame and that is why he lets her shine like Kim Kardashian (Kanye West’s famous wife).
Mutale handles her fame by doing everything possible to be out of the public’s eye by staying indoors, being with her loved ones (family and boyfriend). She also prefers having fun outside the country.
Looking back, Mutale says she largely owes the entertainment knowledge she has acquired thus far to Gesh Groove as she was raw when she first stepped into showbiz but Chishala’s mentorship from scratch has greatly helped her to this day both on radio and television.
Mutale is indebted to Chilu for inspiring her into becoming a voice artiste such that she once became the official female voice for GOtv Africa.
Chuma helped Mutale get a job in South Africa besides showing her to go about the television industry in that country. She also partly owes what she has become today to Mr Mubashi for helping her greatly with the production of Kumwesu.
Mutale, an introvert whose hobbies are reading, swimming, dancing, travelling and watching television, is currently planning to come up with a multi-media company to focus on, among other things, talent management, television and radio advertising.
She also wants to introduce her own talk show soon.
Mutale’s fans can listen to her soothing voice on Hot FM Radio on the show Radio after six airing from Monday to Thursday between 18:00 hours and 21:00 hours.