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The rise and rise of Yo Maps

  Yo Maps Originally published in the Zambia Daily Mail  By VICTOR KALALANDA For any ardent follower of Zambian music, there appears to be enough reason to believe that celebrated Zambian artiste Yo Maps (real name, Elton Mulenga) is nothing short of extraordinary. If he was average, as his detractors would desperately have us believe, he wouldn’t have lasted more than six months on the local music scene after releasing his smash hit song “Finally.” He would have disappeared like snow in the summer sun. The unwritten rule in the music industry is that without a decent prior music catalogue, any artiste who happens upon instant fame is destined to become the infamous one-hit wonder. In any cut-throat field of human endeavor, big doors don’t swing on small hinges. The roots must run deeper than outward appearances, or else nothing lasts. For an artiste that keeps exceeding public expectations since rapturously coming to the notice of the nation in 2018, Yo Maps proves that not on
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Response to ‘I’m no atheist, am Christian’

 

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The Pilgrim, July 15, 2022*

My column two weeks ago, on July 1, 2022, ran under the title ‘I’m no atheist, am Christian’.

I wrote it at the request of a reader, Immanuel Richie, who was an atheist at UNZA and who wanted to know if we’ve as many atheists at my university in America as we had at UNZA, where we both studied for our mass communication degrees.

In that column, I concluded with a quote that some people choose atheism over Christianity because they don’t want to obey God but rather want to continue living in sin. I also noted that my American university, as USA in microcosm, tends to be steeped in unbelief because of unbridled materialism.

Below is Immanuel’s response:

“Just about [two weeks] ago, I emailed my good friend Victor, who’s currently studying at Southern Illinois University [Edwardsville] in the US. I asked him to do a comparative article for his Zambia Daily Mail column ‘The Pilgrim’ [regarding the popularity], if at all any, of atheism or religious scepticism at the US university he is studying and contrast it with the University of Zambia. He was pleased by my request and assured me he would do just that.”

“Fast forward to the Friday July 1, 2022 issue of the Zambia Daily Mail, I rushed for the newspaper to check for the long awaited article. Perhaps I should first shade off some layer of conceit before I make my case in response to Victor’s article by simply saying the man is a gifted writer. His charm and wit through his mastery with the pen can break a bone. I have been reading his Daily Mail feature stories since first year back in 2018. Thus, it should be said without hesitation, I have great respect and admiration for him.”

“To start off, I felt right from the outset and the header wording for the article ‘I’m no Atheist, am Christian’ was soaked wet with an overly inward-looking approach which is far torn from what I had initially requested for via email.”

“It’s almost as if Victor couldn’t resist the temptation to muddy the contrast analysis between the two universities with his personal take on belief and unbelief. I can say that with some lofty level of certainty because immediately after giving a paragraph-long description of my journey from belief to unbelief, he was quick to say: ‘I am not an Atheist myself and the reason is simple: God has done so much for me that I cannot entertain a wavering thought about his existence...’ I respect that one hundred percent. But in all my conversations with Christians of various shades, my arguments for my religious scepticism have been surrounded around my inability to reconcile the Biblical narrative with mainstream science.”

“My point is, this article ought to have been neither about Victor’s personal beliefs or mine, but rather about the prevalence of unbelief at Southern Illinois University [Edwardsville] contrasted with UNZA. And to also add what likely would play as factors in the differences, from geopolitical reasons to the very nature of the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville academia.”

“However, just as I had assumed, prior to Victor’s first-hand observation, it seems clear that many students at his university aren’t so given to religious belief as they are at UNZA, only with an exception of some female hijab-wearing Moslems. From Victor’s words “the atmosphere that governs the university itself is very secular.” He even went on to add “you would have to strain your neck to find the kind of Christians or religionists we have in Zambia.”

“I greatly enjoyed reading the article despite its conspicuous bias and overly simplified conclusion which came across as a low hanging fruit. How can the gradual growth or the prevalence of unbelief be simply summed up in such a generic and cheap oversimplification as ‘wanting to continue to live in sin’ and evading compliance to God’s commandments? Allow me to digress a bit by simply saying, the journey from belief (theism) to unbelief (atheism) is usually muddled by ardent reading, research, hard conversations and the nerve to dare to think beyond the purview of common human reasoning and not a hypocritical hankering for sin and evasion of sacred screeds.”

Next week I’ll share my response to a confession by a notable Zambian journalist, who renounced his atheism in a recent Times of Zambia article.

*This column is published every Friday in Zambia's leading newspaper, the Zambia Daily Mail

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