Kachamba was born on 18 October 1953 in Blantyre, Malawi and died 12 January 2001 in Chileka.
Beginning in 1972 Kachamba toured extensively covering 33 countries in Africa, Europe and the Americas.
In May 1988 he toured Finland on the invitation of the Institute for Workers Music, Helsinki, in May 1989 he performed at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zürich.
In September 1994 Donald Kachamba was invited to the colloquium "Music and Anthropology" in Lisbon to present one of his films.
[1] Kachamba was artist-in-residence at UCLA's Department of Ethnomusicology from November 1999 until July 2000.