Photo courtesy of the Mount Holyoke College Communications Office.
Chmba Ellen Chilemba ’17 returned to campus, which she said “built [her] confidence,” to DJ Danielle R. Holley’s 90s-themed Inauguration Party.
By Mariam Keita ’24
Editor-in-Chief
Today, many on campus know Chmba Ellen Chilemba ’17, better known by her stage name CHMBA, as the DJ who performed at President Danielle R. Holley’s 90s-themed inauguration party.
The talented musician has opened for musicians like American pop star Madonna and Benenise singer-songwriter Angelique Kidjo. Her second EP, “Okongola Caucus,” came out earlier this year.
Chilemba never intended to go to school in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It had all been a big misunderstanding. She realized her mistake upon arriving in the United States for an admitted student weekend on campus and boarding a two-hour bus out of Boston, where she had believed Mount Holyoke College was located.
“I was like, ‘What have I done? Like, what the fuck is this?’”
However, once on campus, Chilemba “absolutely fell in love with everyone.”
While studying at Mount Holyoke, Chilemba kept busy. Her time at the College was spent receiving accolades for running a non-profit organization called Tiwale from her dorm room and dipping her toes into music.
“I wasn’t in the producer space, but I was just really in love with the whole live music world. I was addicted to seeing people perform live,” Chilemba said. The artist also described facing familial pressure to study economics. “So I was doing econ on campus, crying through econometrics and all of that. [Music] didn't feel like something that I could do in a way.”
The one-time economics major often spent her weekends off campus watching live performances off campus to learn about music production. “I admired the space, I would observe. I'd be like the weirdo standing next to the DJ who was DJing, just watching them turn,” Chilemba said.
Eventually, Chilemba built up the confidence to DJ at small functions around campus using her computer. In her junior year, her friends gifted her with her first DJ controller for her birthday. Her first time using the device was at a woods party on the Mandelle Hall Hill. “Campus really built my confidence as well,” Chilemba said. “I was surrounded with love, to try and really fail, and then eventually started getting it right.”
Chilemba credits her time DJing unsanctioned campus parties, where she often had to dodge Campus Police — now known as Public Safety — with helping her overcome feelings of imposter syndrome she had developed.
The artist recalled being the only Black person in her Computer Music course at Hampshire College. “I remember, like, Hampshire used to have a lot of producers [and DJs] on campus … and most of them were like these really privileged, cis white guys. … I think [I was] the only international person also,” Chilemba said. “Everyone was focused on this very electronic ambient music, very white music.”
During group listening sessions for the course, Chilemba noted that the criticism she received was often about the musicality of her pieces. As she tried to “bring in Afrobeats and combine elements of electronic [music],” she heard feedback about adding “too much percussion” or how her sound “wasn't really as musical.”
“But there's a whole thing about [how] African sound hasn't always followed music theory because music theory is very Western, and so the rhythm sometimes can't be computed musically,” Chilemba said, explaining why she ultimately decided to drop the course. “It just felt like I was trying to get into a [musical] world where I wasn't as welcomed.”
This did not deter her musical career. Chilemba released her first EP, “Mtima Rising,” in 2020.“That EP is my favorite, even compared to my most recent one, ‘cause it was so raw,” Chilemba shared. “I'd just lost my mum the year before, so it's a grief EP.”
The playlist opens with a track called “Wasowa.” The title is a term in Chichewa, Chilemba’s native language.“Wasowa actually means a lot to me. I still play it every once in a while with my sister,” Chilemba shared. “When you say ‘Wasowa,’ it's like ‘My existence is missing you,’ which I think is very powerful.”
Working on “Mtima Rising” was a way for Chilemba to process her grief. Shortly after releasing the EP, Malawi experienced what Chilemba described as the worst wave of COVID-19 to hit the country.
“I have so many friends that lost a parent. Just almost everyone was losing a parent,” Chilemba said. “People started coming back to [Wasowa]. It was sad and special at the same time, but it really just created this grieving space. … sharing that [music] with my sister, and then eventually sharing that also with my community.”
After releasing the EP, she received an email from the professor who had taught her Computer Music course at Hampshire. “He didn't acknowledge anything, but he just said, ‘I wish we had had more time to spend and venture into your sound,’ so that was like a little reaffirmation there. “It was sad. I did deserve more time, more space,” Chilemba said. “But also [I felt] pride that I found my way, and I didn't let this thing bury this dream or this fire that was within and decided that fire within was valid.”
Unlike many of her white male peers within the Five College Consortium’s musical realm, Chilemba’s sound was heavily influenced by African artistry. Before coming to Mount Holyoke, Chilemba attended the African Leadership Academy on the outer edge of Johannesburg, South Africa. “The way South Africans take in music and the way they interact with it is something out of this world,” Chilemba said. “A lot of it was also from the anti-Apartheid movements. Chanting, singing, protests, musical protests — and so there's just something very deep about the way South Africans sing.”
The DJ has interacted and collaborated with other African artists who have achieved success in their musical careers, including South African artists DBN GoGo and Maya Wegerif ’14, better known by her stage name, Sho Madjozi. Chilemba and Wegerif both attended Mount Holyoke at the same time.
Chilemba was inspired by watching Wegerif leave a job at an NGO in Senegal and become recognized for her music internationally. “Seeing her break out and doing her own thing … I was in a similar space. I was working for this non-profit that was just terrible in New York City, working from like 6 a.m., sometimes coming back home at 11 [p.m.],” Chilemba said.
In 2014, Wegerif spearheaded a student movement called #Mohonest when she was arrested by Campus Police and taken into custody after they questioned her for allegedly trespassing in a residential hall at Mount Holyoke. #Mohonest sought to platform conversations about the adverse experiences that students of color were having on campus, especially in regard to policing. “I think #Mohonest was happening at a time where the Black Lives Matter movement was forming, and so there was this parallel,” Chilemba said.
Chilemba further recalled that at some point when she was on campus, Public Safety rebranded to Campus Police. “I mean, there was already policing, but it really emphasized that aspect of policing,” Chilemba said. “It was toxic and trippy, and I remember a lot of my friends — and even me — I think we all just started really working for our paper to get our degree and head out and dip because [campus] just became very toxic. … We [students of color] didn't feel that the leadership was listening.”
The imbalances Chilemba observed in people of color’s experiences on campus were not just limited to the student body. “We also saw some professors that we really wanted to stay on campus not get tenure, especially professors of color,” Chilemba said.
Chilemba also recalled the irony of watching Campus Police driving new cars around campus as she and her friends considered withdrawing due to financial constraints.
“My parents were in a crisis. My father had lost his job, my mom's business wasn't doing well, and I reached out to the financial office,” Chilemba shared. “I was on the Mount Holyoke website … and here I am struggling to pay my fees ... They refused all of my appeals.”
For her, it was especially difficult given that the College had so publicly heralded the work that she had done with her non-profit Tiwale.
“You're on the [web]site, and they're sharing your name, sharing your work, and yet you're struggling as a student just to survive,” Chilemba said. “I was working three campus jobs and barely getting through my classes, so there's a disconnect there. … I talked about this changing of financial situation, so it was hurtful to feel tokenized, used in that way.”
She also described feeling uncomfortable declining to participate in promotional events for the College back when she was a student. “You feel powerless,” Chilemba stated. “It's like, ‘Okay, I mean, they did give me money to be here, and so, yeah, I'll let them have me on the website, or I'll go speak at this event.’ So there was a power play there that was messed up, fucked up. … I felt shame a lot of times.”
Chilemba relied on support from faculty and friends to get through her undergraduate degree. She described her advisor, Professor of Economics and Critical Race and Political Economy on the Ford Foundation Lucas Wilson, as “a really great space.” “I did Marxist economics, and so we'd just sit in [his office], and he's like, ‘Let's talk about class,’ and I'm like, ‘I really wanna rant man,’” Chilemba recalled. “He was very, very supportive as I thought about what I was doing, because I also wasn't sure.”
It was Chilemba’s former dean, Marcella Runell Hall, who invited the musician to DJ at President Holley’s inaugural party after noticing that Chilemba would be back in the United States in September to perform for the United Nations. “[Runell Hall] was really helpful and a very supportive ally for us as students during that time,” Chilemba said. “I felt that when she came in, we started feeling a lot of change [on campus].”
Chilemba explained that things felt different when she returned to campus for the inauguration gig, “Especially when I saw Black folks jumping on stage,” she said. “Mount Holyoke always felt like a place that maybe we [people of color] would never fully claim, but in a way, I felt like, ‘Oh, you know, like this shit is ours. It's ours, too.’”
Although she has mixed feelings about her time at Mount Holyoke, Chilemba had no doubts that the friendships she made were the main reason she was able to finish her degree — one loaned her money junior year to help her remain on campus.
“Honestly, we all would say this jokingly, but we would say, ‘If y’all weren't here, I wouldn't be here.’ Then, we would say it casually, but no, it was real talk. It was really like we're holding on to each other,” Chilemba said. “We would always say, like Mount Holyoke is the people, the people, the people.”
It has been more than five years since Chilemba graduated, and her feelings toward the campus have begun to shift. “Now, when I come back, I think I feel mostly gratitude,” Chilemba said. “That little campus really shaped who I am today.”