Qabaniso Malewezi, also known as Q, (born 1979) is a Malawian musician and poet. A former producer for the hip-hop band

Real Elements The Real Elements is a Malawian hip-hop band that gained notoriety in the 1990s and 2000s in Malawi. The group consisted of Marvel, Plan B, Stix, and Q. The group holds a special place in the Malawian music industry because it propagated Malawia ...

, he has since authored several collections of poems including the audio collection ''People''. In 2015 he received an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...

from

Mzuzu University Mzuzu University is one of the principal universities of Malawi. The school is located in Mzuzu, in the northern region of Malawi. It was founded in 1997 and accepted its first students in 1999. At the time the university opened its doors, the Cha ...

Biography

The son of Justin Malewezi, a former vice-president of Malawi, Malewezi grew up in

Lilongwe Lilongwe (, , ) is the capital and most populated city of the African country of Malawi. It has a population of 989,318 as of the 2018 Census, up from a population of 674,448 in 2008. In 2020 that figure was 1,122,000. The city is located in th ...

. He developed a love for music at a young age, learned to play the guitar, and spent his teenage years performing and recording music. As an adult, he moved to the United Kingdom, where he studied performing arts at the

Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) is a performing arts higher education institution in Liverpool, founded by Paul McCartney and Mark Featherstone-Witty and opened in 1996. LIPA offers 11 full-time BA (Hons) degrees in a range ...

and the

Academy of Contemporary Music The Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) is a music academy in Guildford, Surrey, England providing contemporary music-based courses. The school of music has a focus on rock, pop music, electronic dance music and a vocational approach. T ...

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

, Surrey. While in the United Kingdom, Malewezi became the producer for the group

, which performed hip-hop and became popular in Malawi and several other countries. They were active from the late 1990s to the first part of the 2000s. In 2004, Malewezi temporarily returned to Malawi to be with his father, who campaigned unsuccessfully for the presidency of Malawi that year. After a short return to the UK, Malewezi returned again to Malawi in 2005.

Poetry

Malewezi's first poetry collection, ''The Road Taken'', was published in 2011. The book was edited by Pascal Kishindo, and included photos by the author, Justin Malewezi Jr., and graphic designer Fred Coelho. Poems from the book have been included in several writing courses. In 2013, Malewezi published his second poetry collection, ''Little Discoveries'', written in English, and in 2016 he published the audio poetry collection ''People''. At its launch, Malewezi performed his poem "Wikipedia". Malewezi has been featured on

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

's African Voices,

BBC World BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and S ...

, and

The Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...

. In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate from

in recognition of his contribution to the arts.

Bibliography

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References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Malewezi, Qabaniso 1979 births Living people Malawian poets 21st-century Malawian male singers People from Lilongwe