Q Malewezi at POETRY AFRICA 2014

Qabaniso Malewezi, also known as Q, was born and raised in the capital city of Malawi, Lilongwe. With a passion for the arts, he studied performing arts at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) in the United Kingdom and The Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, Surrey. He later went on to work as a music producer-songwriter and also co-founded Malawi’s pioneering hip-hop group The Real Elements. Despite the accumulated expertise in music, Q found his voice in poetry and spoken word after returning to Malawi in 2005. His first anthology, The Road Taken (2012), was incorporated in the creative writing course at the African Bible College in Lilongwe. In the same year Q was the recipient of the Poetry Association of Malawi’s award for Best Performance Poet.

He embodies his life in poetry as a back and forth journey between his spoken and written word. Q has had prestigious international performances at events such as The SADC Artists Against AIDS Festival, Poetry Africa through Blantyre Arts Festival, Lilongwe Arts Festival, Harare International Arts Festival and Word N Sound Poetry Festival in South Africa. Q is a founding member of the Living Room Poetry Club in Lilongwe and also mentors young poets through “Project Project”, a programme that uses spoken word poetry to help young people find and articulate their voice on issues that matter to them and their community.