Malawian musician Giddes Chalamanda started playing music at the age of 12 but finally got his big break at 92. His chirpy reggae tune ‘Linny Hoo’ received more than 80 million views on TikTok, putting his small southern African country on the digital map
Last month the singer did both, thanks to his unlikely new stardom on TikTok, a social media platform beloved of youths four generations removed from him -- and one he can't access because he lacks a smartphone or even electricity to charge one.
"I did not expect that I would be invited to State House. It was such an honour," Chalamanda told Reuters at his red-brick home in his village of Chiradzulu, a green area of macademia and coffee farms 30 km northeast of the commercial capital, Blantyre. In his state of the nation address on Thursday, the president at one point said, "Ours is no ordinary nation. Ours is the home of the fine sounds of Giddes Chalamanda.""I did not go far with school. The British colonial teachers ... thought I looked too old to be in class," he recalls -- he doesn't recollect how old he actually was then.