He served as a Cabinet Minister and translator during the government of Kamuzu Banda.
[2] His brother, Boniface Msonthi, was an activist in the National African Congress, and a government Minister in the 1960s and 1970s.
[4] From 1958 until the 1970s he deciphered English into Chichewa using expressions, proverbs and metaphors that mesmerized Malawians.
[3] During the cabinet crisis of 1964, Msonthi, along with Yatuta Chisiza and Willie Chokani, resigned from Banda's cabinet to protest his dismissal of Kanyama Chiume, Orton Chirwa, and Augustine Bwanausi.
It was opposed by Michael Blackwood, a spokesman for European settler interests.