Alexio Kawara: 12 Years Later

The first time I met Alexio was when a mutual friend of ours was his manager. It was at the Book Cafe and the glass-eyed singer was somewhere around the beginning of what has become a glittering career. On that day, he asked me to join him stage, and I did an impromptu poem.

I wasn’t there when he started musical journey in 1999. Scratch that, he said he wrote his first song when he was 14, a song called ‘She’s mine‘. He can’t say for sure if he had written the song first as ‘He’s mine‘ or if she had copied him. Copy is a word he would frown on.

He notes his first professional performance as being at HIFA 2000 at the Coca Cola Green. Then he was known as part of the fledgling Urban Grooves genre.

The future would hold something different for him though, as Lex would pursue the evolution of his style from Urban Grooves to Contemporary Afro-Jazz. In that journey he gave the world arguably his most popular track to date, Shaina.

In between all that he shared the stage with Ringo at the Arts Alive Jazz Festival in South Africa this year. Last year he was at the Blantyre Arts Festival.

Tomorrow, he releases his fifth album Tose which seeks to firmly establish him as one of the leaders of a new generation. The boy is one his way somewhere. We are watching.