Those insulting me over my Koswe song are simply dancing to it with their tongues, says satire singer Chama Fumba alias Pilato.

And Pilato has clarified that he only apologised to the PF last year because in his previous songs, he had mentioned people’s names; something he has vowed to keep away from.

Pilato is no stranger to controversy. Even though he does not have the vocal prowess, his exceptional lyrical skills; presenting current affairs in a satirical manner, leaves fans craving for more.

But his fans and haters are divided over his latest tunes.

Pilato was arrested and charged with defamation of the president in June 2015 for his song aLungu anabwela in which he was accused of branding President Edgar Lungu a drunkard, among other things.

He was released and now two years later, he has released an instant hit, Koswe Mumpoto.

“For me, everyone dances. It is either you are dancing with your body or you are dancing with your head. So even those insults for me, it is just the tongue dancing to the song. For me, that’s all positive, it is all part of dancing. It doesn’t matter which part of the body is moving. If you are responding to the sound that I produced, whether you are responding with your tongue or with the eye or whichever part of the body is responding. For me, that’s dancing,” Pilato says.

“It is very uplifting where you do a song and someone hates you and they insult your mother and then you are just thinking, ‘did I make them do that? Do I have that power?’”

PF insists the song is an insult to the Head of State, but Pilato wonders what his mother has got to do with it.

“Lucky enough my mother is dead. She was going to be so upset with me that I would expose her to so much abuse but they shouldn’t be insulting dead people like that. It is against our tradition. My mother was a very decent, beautiful Bemba woman,” he says.

The bearded singer says maybe those insulting him are experiencing low IQ levels.

“It is very disturbing that intellectual deficiency always has to be compensated with abuse. I don’t know, it is very disturbing. I wish there was a way we could compensate the mental bankruptcy. When you don’t have ideas, at least go for a run instead of abusing those that at least try to use their brains.”

Pilato insists that he is not a politician and has no ambitions whatsoever, at least not now.

“I am not a politician. I am an artist and my apology was basically because in my previous songs I had mentioned individuals. So my apology was on that basis. The beauty with an apology is that you do not have to be wrong to say sorry. If the other person is not happy, even if you gave them a million dollars and they were not happy, you apologise, it doesn’t mean that the million dollars was very offensive to them. So an apology is an act of respect of another person’s emotions, of another person’s feelings. So I apologised because I had been specific in calling out names of individuals so that is why I said ‘I am sorry’ and I think I will never do that again politically,” he says.

“I am not a politician and I do not have plans of joining politics. If in future I choose to, which I don’t see any time soon, I will say so. At the moment I am very happy with the power that I have as an artist.”

The Zambia Association of Musicians has distanced itself from Pilato’s song but he wouldn’t care less.

“I am not a member of ZAM, I am not answerable to ZAM, they are not answerable to me so I know there is a contest for relevance during a moment like this. Everyone wants to be relevant, everyone wants to be seen, so I feel ZAM is just trying to be opportunistic. They just want to say ‘oh! We are here also!’ I cannot deny them that opportunity.”

“We have had instances where ZAM would have been very useful. Maybe when some of us die, they will be able to afford a coffin. They had an opportunity to help out Mumba Yachi, a fully paid ZAM member, they couldn’t. We have had so many instances where artists needed some assistance but they couldn’t do that. So I would like to let them enjoy this space for opportunism.”