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He's probably one of the busiest and most passionate artists in the local Gospel industry. But ChitChat's Astar is not about to slow down any time soon. His most recent project, CTA (Cleaning The Airwaves) has seen him release, not without quizzical looks from some quarters, free full-length albums to fans, roping in other big-name artists like Rigga, Webi and the Mavuno Worship Project. Now working on his long overdue sophomore record, Astar talks to us about CTA and his upcoming anthology, whose second single Adios already has the airwaves buzzing:
Mwafrika.com: Thanks for making the time to talk to us man, we know you're a busy man. Let's start with CTA - what's that about?
Astar: The main agenda behind CTA is to 'clean the airwaves', reason being that music influences people to act the way they do. Criss-Cross started wearing baggy pants, guys started wearing baggy pants. The word bling came across, people started saying bling. So, the whole idea is to shape the content that the youth are listening to through positive music.
Mwafrika.com: So how does the campaign work, is it just about giving out loads of free music?
Astar: Well, the CTA campaign is actually in three stages. The first stage of the whole process is actually something we call Mentoring the Messenger - which involves taking in artists and mentoring them for a whole year, in terms of their spiritual walk and performance as musicians, studio etc. The whole thing behind 'Mabadiliko' is about working on the messenger before launching them out. Then there's events. When the message is given from God to the messengerand he communicates it to the consumer, that's where change happens. That's live interviews, concerts, that's Mabadiliko 100 High Schools Tour. So we're trying to create different platforms for the artists to be heard.
Mwafrika.com: Pretty cool, that. And what's the third bit?
Astar: Then thirdly there's the whole content creation thing. So that instead of saying we want (a particular music videos programme) to end, we say we want it to stay, but fill it with positive content.We provide content to media houses, shoot videos for artists, like Eko Dydda's Niko Na Reason video. We go to DJs, to clubs, to make the music available as widely as we can.
Mwafrika.com: How is that going for you?
Astar: It's actually doing crazily well. We've had over a million downloads of The Light, a million individual downloads from all over the world. Of course I could never sell that much! I've gotten Webi, Rigga and MWP join the movement, and it's growing.
Mwafrika.com: Alright. Tell us about your new album...
Astar: Yeah I'm working on a new album, it's called Letting It Go. Again, the big motivation is to create content, shift the culture in a different way.
Mwafrika.com: What kind of album is it?
Astar: It's actually a mirror of The Light, and every song has a correspondent to The Light. Basically, there are just a lot of things I had to let go - good things, bad things, painful things, and so I thought the whole album was about letting it go, so I named it that. But as I start letting go of different things in my life, that's when God did a flipmode on me and showed me Genesis 22 - that's the story of Abraham letting go of Isaac.The funny thing is that once Abraham let go and started walking up the mountain to kill Isaac, he became a great man, and started walking in faith. And you know, you can never really walk in faith until you've let go of everything.
Mwafrika.com: True that. So when is the album coming out?
Astar: I don't know. But currently I've recorded about ten songs. 'Coz you know, I have to go through the process...I can't just sing about something that I haven't gone through...so I'm going through the process, but I'm hoping by December (2010).
Mwafrika.com: Anything else, about CTA or what you're up to, that you want to leave with us?
Astar: Wa, CTA is taking a new turn. CTA is basically the purpose of my life - to clean up the airwaves. Even the song Adios is about that - it's not a song to say 'I'm dead', it's about saying goodbye to everything else and focusing on my purpose. There's gonna be a monthly gig, called CTA Unplugged, we'll be starting that soon.
Mwafrika.com: Thanks you man, we appreciate your time.
Astar: Thank you.