Sean Magner takes a peek into the world of production duo Christian Tiger School by way of a review of their latest release, Chrome Tapes.This article is part of a series on music producers throughout the African continent called #RespecTheProducer. Check out daily updates on tumblr and follow the Instagram account. Having emerged from a bedroom of Vredehoek in 2011/2, Christian Tiger School appeared something new and fresh relative to their Cape Town micro-context. Lacing Hip Hop with post-internet/chillwave/blogwave tracks, they had forged a new mould for kids caught up in the new musical intersections being provided by the Internet. After the release of their debut album Third Floor (Bombaada), Christian Tiger School had already reached a critical mass. Headlining every festival from Durban to Barcelona, the context in which they had emerged was fluid and developing faster than many could keep up with. How, then, do two young Capetonian producers deal with it? Rip it all up and start again is how. Chrome Tapes is Christian Tiger School’s second album and the first to be released off of New York Label, Tommy Boy Entertainment (De la Soul, Handsome Boy Modelling School). The album is 10 tracks of progressive and immersive electronica. If anything, it’s evidence of a group that understand radical content demands radical form. A group that have finally released something illustrative of their true potential. Opening track "Mikro Brothers" is a prime example of the new blank canvas. With a sparse gong, we’re welcomed into the world of Christian Tiger School, reimagined. Previous work has also been dense and heady, but the new work exhibits a more mature understanding of aural landscapes where the negative space is as important as the rest. Further progressive tendencies emerge with the inclusion of Okmalumkoolkat. Bringing his  unique Zulu-compurra flow on "Damn January", what we have here is the frontier of both South African music production and South African rap finally converging. It seems almost decades ago that we were crying out amidst the Cape Town electronic music scene: “Where are all the rappers though?” Personal favourite "Zloz" is a techno behemoth that lumbers and aches over a full six-and-a-half minutes. Deftly accented with a crystalline synth, the track marks the beginning of a progression toward the heart of the album: after segueing through the Fuck Buttons-type seer of "Handmade Mandarin" and the self-referential "Star Search Phezulu"; the epicentre of Chrome Tapes stands tall in all of its resplendent glory. "Chorisolo" raises the tempo to that of the likely heart rate of the dogs in the music video. With a menacing thrust forward, the track erupts into maximalist-yet-refined splendour. The warped vocal track, looped and contorted, is knotted throughout the track and manages to create a hook that is both melancholic and ecstatic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX0mPgiAe2w This part of the album is likely owing to the group’s obsession with dance music and having not listened to that much hip hop in writing the LP. But they haven’t shed their love for hip hop entirely; "Ultimate Frisbee', "Mikro Kousins" and "Demamp Camp" hark back to the boom bap of tracks past but still manage to reposition the viewfinder forward, incorporating more distinct samples -- less murky than on previous releases. While this may signal an opportunity for the group to fall back into their past iterations, "Cinderella Rocafella" is able to provide the perfect concluding chapter. Meeting almost halfway between the progressive electronica and their hip hop roots, the track offers a mission statement over 8 minutes, suggesting the group’s intended trajectory. With a brutal drumline, the track gallops and strides amongst a synth that shines like an expiring supernova only to give way to another, otherworldly, complex creation. Since Third Floor’s release both Luc Vermeer and Sebastian Zenasi were able to explore their respective musical inclinations and what appeared obvious was that Christian Tiger School were never going to be the same. Too much has happened in the interim. With Seb it was dropping out of UCT Music school and experimenting in other various musical groups like Fever Trails and Yes, in French. Luc further developed his taste for rap, hip hop and everything these genres touch by way of his solo alias, Desert_head. At the same time, the South African music scene over the past three years has welcomed a new wave of rap and hip hop while also seeing its electronic scene blossom and spiral into myriad new avenues. While their CTS back-catalogue has never really felt basic per se, with the release of their new album Chrome Tapes the contrast is evident, and I don’t think the duo would have it any other way. Chrome Tapes is a bold release, likely to scare off some fans. But it’s nonetheless admirable in its quest for development and progression. And it’s this progression that was so necessary: Christian Tiger School had routinely become encased in critical cliché: “aural soundscapes”, “LA-Beat-Scene inspired”, etc. It’s all so trite, yet fails to ever recognise what the two producers behind it all are actually doing on their own terms. Chrome Tapes, thankfully is that moment where CTS have owned their creation. They are no longer a sum of their various influences; they’ve transcended stereotype and placed themselves at the new frontier. * You can stream Chrome Tapes on Deezer or buy on iTunes.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyhozI2l04k  

This article is part of a series of articles on music producers throughout the African continent called #RespecTheProducer. Check out daily updates on tumblr and follow the Instagram account.  Tongogara "Battlekat" Ntlokoa was the most sought-after producer of his era. As in-house soundcrafter for Outrageous Records, he oversaw production duties on a handful of the indie label's releases, many of which now occupy classic status in the hearts of many a South African rap fan. His work on Maximum Sentence and Expressions, two compilations released in a period of frantic output between 2002 and 2003, stand as testament to his ability to hop from chopped-up and pitched-up loops backed by hard drums and crusty snares, to soulful cuts with deep, pervasive and enduring basslines. He contributed music to Zubz's Listener's Digest and Proverb's Book of Proverb -- debut albums by revered emcees who'd cultivated a small but cult following. This helped further cement Battlekat's place as a noteworthy producer in South African hip hop's broader context. Add to that his work with Optical Illusion (or Optical Ill), the four-man rap clique in which he was both rapper and chief producer, and it becomes evident that this cat single-handedly ran an era. We meet with Battlekat at Flabba's memorial service. The two had worked together on a song called "Accelerate" which appeared on Skwatta Kamp's Khut en Joyn album. Flabba, an emcee who'd figured out how to mix street smarts, cut-throat lyricism and shock value to astounding effect, passed away after being stabbed following an altercation with his partner on 9th March 2015, a Monday morning. The woman accused of his murder shall stand for trial in August. Below, Battlekat speaks about the session which bore not only the Flabba track, but a feature on Optical Illusion's pre-label project called Thoughts Illustrated. Wasn't there an album between you and Flabba that was supposed to come out? Well, it was a thought, not an album. It was a thought that we had. So the "Accelerate" joint, was that just a single cut? What had happened with "Accelerate" was, it wasn't even a single. At the time, we weren't even planning albums or anything; we were in college. At the time I wasn't even...I was still practicing, you know, beats and everything. It was just a matter of 'yo man, I'd like to give that joint a beat.' He [had recorded] over a Cypress Hill beat; I think it was a Wyclef/ Cypress Hill beat. It wasn't necessarily for Skwatta; it was just me knowing him from college, I just wanted to lace his joint with a beat. For that, he gave me a verse for the Optical Illusion album. Since I knew him for being vulgar and extreme, there was a song I wanted to do. I got influnced too much by Eminem, and I knew Flabba would be...we just went crazy. He was just too bare man, and for that song I knew [that] he was the dude. On the day that we did the song for Optical Ill, I gave him one of the beats that I had for that joint. He was also looking to do a solo [project] at the time, before Skwatta. Were you in the same session, or did you just give him a beat? He came to the studio with Initial M on the day. [Initial M] was supposed to be on another Optical Ill joint. He recorded the verse, [we] actually lost the material for that song. It was called "Impossible to picture." Initial M was on that one, and then Flabba was doing "Crack a finesse" and his joint as well on that day. It was a cool session; everyone was there! Well, except for Opticall Ill -- it was just me, Jerrah, Intial M, I forgot who else. Where did you record that joint? Braam. There was some...I think it was an NGO or NPO called Joint Centre for Political and Economic studies. My dad worked for that company and he'd persuaded them to have a studio there, because I was doing sound (at Allenby College, where Proverb also studied). After school, that's where I would go and record with dudes like Optical Ill, Mad Scientist, everyone! [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/207440594" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]  

Cape Town-based wordsmith Youngsta's been in Johannesburg for a few weeks, here on a mission to build bridges and shake a few industry players' hands, all the while invading the city with his brand of Kaapse rap. It's been roughly five years of steady hustle and grind for the emcee whose claim to fame is having released 24 mixtapes in a period of eighteen months. Youngsta's gone on to perform music with DJ Ready D, release albums with well-renowned DJs such as Hamma (who used to rap in Braase Vannie Kaap way back when), and form Deurie Naai Alliance with Arsenic, one of the Cape's most consistent producers. He's also built a movement called Y?Generation, an "army of street soldiers" by his definition. The idea to build a community-centered movement  was inspired by the sense of stillness and helplessness anyone who grew up in the hood has felt or experienced at different points in their life. Things didn't pan out as envisioned. Instead of loosing momentum, Youngsta thought he'd stiek uit and reach out to people in different areas whose life outlook and focus were as sharp. "[Knowing] we all had common goals in music & social developments, we joined up," says the affable and engaging rhyme-spitter when talking about Y? Generation via e-mail.. Youngsta invited me along on a mini-tour of the gully and gutter streets of Hillbrow the other day. The goal was to go from one end to walk the length of its streets while taking the odd picture. It turned out to be a session filled with interactions only possible in Jozi -- a spaza shop owner who could recite Nas' '94 album Illmatic line-for-line; a walking 90s rap cliche (Fubu gear, Timbs, durag) who looked well into his forties and had a stall which resembled his personal wardrobe; and a homie who tried to charge us money in order to have a picture taken, while trying to sell us crusty weed at the same damn time! All in all, it was an incredible day! More pictures are on Youngsta's facebook page.

Andrew Miller's a Jozi-based freelance scribe. Years spent with a muscle disease have allowed the writer to patiently hone his writing craft as well as flex his philosophical biceps with Jozi's artists, writers and passers by at his dinner table in Melville, Johannesburg. A tireless six years of editorial bench pressing has saw him produce his very first novel known as Dub Steps, which won Dinaane Debut Fiction Award. Kagiso Mnisi speaks to him about the writerly life and white male privilidge, among other things. Tseliso Monaheng shot a video segment which you can watch here. Peering into the sci-fi we meet Miller's chief character, Roy Fotheringham, who is neither an anti-hero nor intent on saving the day. He is a plain old pathetic as a human being. There is no shred of redemption in Roy as his middle-aged frame continuously gets gushed and mangled by past and present failures. Miller's version of the future is of immersive virtual reality, hyper-augmentations, and holograms. It presents an alternative paradigm of experience. After a night of binge-drinking, Fotheringham is thrust into a still Joburg without human activity, just “the occasional bark of what must have been a dog” and roaming “free pigs.” With a chip on his shoulder the chief character meanders the country and circumlocutes back to Jozi. His relations to the few people he encounters further precipitates his self-loathing amidst an air of survival. Kagiso Mnisi: You cut your teeth in the Jozi poetry scene of the late 90s and late 2000s. This was a time when it was a thing to be a poet. How would you describe the stories that emerged? And did you ever carve yourself a space in that scene? Andrew Miller: For me it was an interesting time because being a whitie in the city was interesting thing and the only reason why I got into that scene was because my wife and I had opened a gallery, so there was ample exposure to the wave of poetry that had mushroomed. You would have poets wanting to use our space for their sessions and being a writer myself I thought it fit to participate. So for me it was a very exciting time and having viewed poetry as no-hoper, much of the excitement came from being immersed in the militantly creative abyss that Jozi poetry scene was. I was inspired by the socially angry stuff spat by poets. The hard core polemic posturing was a thing of the times. You have two independently published works, namely Hintsa's Ghost and Getting Up. The former is an anthology of poetry and the latter a collection of essays. How was it going through the indie route to produce these? Yeah, we started a little independent publishing company with a couple of people. It was interesting because I being the only whitie in the house brought on a perception that I possessed mlungu [white] power. This is a perception that one has access to cash and corporate networks. And all of us as a group were interested to see whether that theoretical access to this monied world of corporates could be leveraged to everyone's advantage. And so we experimented with what it would be like to publish what was happening in the city at the time. For me Hintsa's Ghost was a nice little poetry book that worked out well. Getting Up was extremely flawed in every possible way. There was some material that  was good in it. However, I think it could have been a better book if I had been exposed to an editor. That is part of the problem if you're a writer being involved in publishing, designing and marketing the book. You kind of lose your editorial head, which is what happened. Literature, or the written word at large, mostly serves the age it lives in. Phaswane Mpe's Welcome To Our Hillbrow took a stab at inner city blues post '94 as well as the contradictions prevalent in an urban Jozi. Kgafela oa Magogodi offered the experimental Itchy City which chronicled the millennial hustle and bustle of Jozi. How is Dub Steps a tale of its times -- or its future times, for that matter? I think it reflects the weirdness technology has brought us, and continues to bring us. We're only at the very beginning of the techno revolution and yet the changes in the way we communicate, and what we seek to achieve through communication, have been profound. Within this context I think it also reflects just how fragile South African society is at the level of human relationships. We're living in an era of Hyper Morality - supported by ubiquitous communication and a very obvious communication obsession - but we struggle to speak to each other in the most basic way. Your main character, Roy, in Dub Steps is neither a hero nor an antihero in the traditional sense. You've even went on to describe him as pathetic. Why did you opt to create such a figure? He became alive as I wrote him, and he grew to be more narcissistic and self-referential as the story grew. I guess this reflects in some way my reality over the last decade, where I've been one of few white people working in an office full of black people. In this context, it's blindingly obvious how much your peers have to carry you along with them in terms of language and culture. I was always very grateful to have been dragged by my peers with such grace and humour during our shared office time. Roy - as a pathetic hero - reflects all this, which is, I think, a very common South African paradigm at the moment. There's always a hint that he could come to life and act in a meaningful way, but he never does. Now that the book is done and out there, this is probably my favourite part about it. The obviously pathetic character of the protagonist -- it's a very South African thing. In the post-apocalyptic world of Dub Steps, human relations are put to the test in a 'new desolate world', what would you say is the greatest challenge in modern day Joburg for co-existence? History. Each individual has a choice to make about where history begins, and what that means in terms of how we interact. Does our history start in 1994? 1948? 1913? During the hundred years war in the Eastern Cape? How you choose to answer that question dictates a great deal about how you choose to behave -- commercially and socially -- in modern Joburg. Because we all make such different choices as to where history begins, it's very easy to get caught on the wrong side of assumptions you didn't even know you had. #Rhodesmustfall is just the beginning, in my view, of the SA history challenge. Joburg, because it is often ahead of the rest of the country in terms of racial, social and class interaction, will face this challenge first. We all know that the best-selling formats here in South Africa are sports autobiographies; political analyses by opinianistas; motivational books and, of course, CSI-type hack work packaged as literature by some folks at Primedia. You on the other hand went on to write a sci-fi riddled with popular urban cultural paraphernalia. Where is the method in that madness? The best-selling formula is well-established in SA, as you say, but it only serves a tiny portion of the populace. When you line real life up against what's on the shelves and on the TV, it's obvious that huge swathes of local culture, lives and lifestyles aren't represented. I wanted to write a story for people who listen to hip hop and dance music; who make art and hold street fashion shows and who dress like bums and avoid the office block and the call centre as much as possible. [People] who push for something new and different through things like poetry and art. There are a lot of young and not-so-young people out there who live in this context. I wanted to write something for them. I also wanted to write a story in the classic sense, where the polemic content lives well below the surface -- a story that entertains, first and foremost. I'm not sure whether there's any commercial logic to this approach, but at least I enjoyed the process.

Kassav are a band formed in Paris in '79. They were in Johannesburg recently, where they played to a capacity audience at the Bassline in Newtown. I attended the show without having heard their music prior. Neither was I familiar with how they looked, save for the posters which started going up on lamp posts some two weeks before their show. It was exactly how I preferred it! The band had just finished their first set when I arrived, and had taken a break. This presented an opportunity to ask a few people their impressions on first set. The people I spoke to stuck to short and punchy, ecstatically-delivered phrases, possibly because they were still trying to digest what they'd just experienced. The feedback was affirmative overall. [caption id="attachment_90866" align="aligncenter" width="770"] The minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba[/caption] It was the weekend following the week of attacks against black people from other African countries. Mainstream media outlets had had a productive week, ceasing every passing moment and using it to broadcast their pornography of violence. The protagonist in this saga: A black man, portrayed this time around as an angry, panga-wielding, war-ready overlord, capable of bringing terror to big cities, mid-size ghettoes and small towns. The minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, opened the second half of Kassav's set with a message assuring Africans from elsewhere on the continent and those based in the diaspora that "South Africa is your home." The audience listened intently to the minister, cheering him on with every punchline in his speech. "[The government says] so because [it] knows the role that African played toward the liberation of this country," continued the minister to more cheers. "And so we say away with xenophobia! Away with Afrophobia! South Africa is your home, enjoy it!" [caption id="attachment_90869" align="aligncenter" width="770"] Kassav Live @ Bassline[/caption] The first few beats into the second set threw me back to my radio-obsessed childhood in Maseru where our national broadcaster had a show dedicated to the finest Zouk tunes around. It was capably-hosted by Treaty Makoae-Mosese, the late, larger-than-life empress of Lesotho's entertainment scene. She was cool as a bird's wings when they flap. She made listening to Radio Lesotho on a Saturday at 12pm while waiting for lunch to get served fun as hell! She was rocking print fabric and schooling an entire nation about different African music scenes before it was stylish to do so. As flag-bearers of Compas/Kompa and grand innovators of Zouk, Kassav provided a live and direct passageway for me to connect to that time. It wasn't only visceral, it transcended. The music, it was powerful! The band have roots in Lesser Antilles regions of Guadeloupe and Martinique, and its members have lived in Senegal, France and elsewhere. Their music is just as unbounded; founding members experimented with genres ranging from rock to disco before settling for Kassav's Zouk sound and releasing their first album, Love and Kadance. Pictured above is Jacob Desvarieux. He was working as a studio musician when Pierre-Edouard Décimus approached him with the vision for Kassav. [caption id="attachment_90872" align="aligncenter" width="770"] Jocelyne Béroard[/caption] Though founded in Paris, Kassav are very much a Carribean group. Jocelyne Béroard and Jean-Philippe Marthély shared main vocal duties during the night, each playing off of each other's strengths like friends who've spent enough time bouncing ideas around and getting to appreciate each others' qualities; and are gracious enough to let the other shine at any given moment. Jean-Philippe joined Kassav in 1981 on Kassav n°3; he is known, through his solo work, and the "inventor of Zouk love (links to French website)." Other members in the band have solo projects on the side. Jocelyne, for instance, is regarded as the first Carribean woman to release a gold-certified album. Kassav seems to be the mothership of sorts; a launchpad for alternative worlds and imaginations. It was open groove season from the moment the band got on stage. No one really stopped dancing, save for a brief moment to take a selfie or three with friends. The message was love, overall; it was enacted through gyrating hips, endless sing-along's, and clapping of hands, and shouts and screams for more. More. More!

Foodzone is an eatery situated in Lakeview, Soweto, right next to the Rea Vaya bus station on the T1 route. Looking outside from the interior -- Foodzone's located inside a shipping container housing a variety of musical instruments in one corner and a stove where meals are prepared in another -- one can see Regina Mundi church to their right and Thokoza Park to their left. South African afro-psychedelic future pop sextet Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness (BCUC or B-Cook work just as well) are not only part-owners of the venue, they also hold their rehearsals in here, on a floor space they clear up to make room for their instruments. The band consists of Nkosi "Jovi" Zithulele, Kgomotso Mokone, Thabo "Cheex" Mangle, Mritho Luja, Lehlohonolo "Hloni" Maphunye, and Skhumbuzo Mahlangu. Mosebetsi Ntsimande of the band Uju is a featured bassist. Between them, they rap in eloquently-phrased Sesotho verse; they howl fire and brimstone to the tune of a thousand angels; they harmonize, play nose flutes, bang bass drums; they jiva ispantsula to the shy rhythm of the tambourine; and they do the 'tribal thing', you know, feet-in-the-air, indlamu, Zulu warrior, live-wrangling for the hood, the 'burbs, and the outer-skirts thing?! Word! Thrown into the mix: whistles (izimfijoli) commonly used by amaBhaca, but also found in Lesotho where mokhibo/moribo women use them to rally up the audience's participation and liven up the song; and imbombu, an instrument roughly 3 meters long, invented by Shembe adherents with the Biblical trumpet as inspiration. I first saw BCUC live at Oppikoppi festival two years ago. It was on a late afernoon, Saturday, and they were performing at Skellum -- a stage neither big nor too small, perfect for a band whose reputation as live performers rests on their willingness to compete against and out-match the last live show they put on. They had everyone tripping towards dizzying heights, entranced by their Nazareth Baptist-style chants. Their manic, relentless, hard-hitting zeal and their head-bopping humdrum rock-n-roll attitude turns them into miracle workers on stage. A few months later, we were all squeezed into rapper/producer Joint Pusher's home studio in Cosmo City, north of Johannesburg. BCUC were working towards an album and decided to decamp to JP's in order to test out a few ideas. It was hot outside, sweltering even, mid-Summer highveld vibes. Regular swigs from a cold water bottle were vital! The room, fitted with a couch and not much else besides JP's studio equipment, became a hub of activity. JP started the session by programming the drum pattern under Jovi's guidance. After getting the basic groove, an assortment of percussive instruments the crew had brought along were added -- shakers first and then, ultimately, Cheex's nimble hands producing complex sounds as they caressed the twin congas. [caption id="attachment_90239" align="aligncenter" width="770"] Cheex of BCUC[/caption] Cheex comes across as quiet and reserved, almost reclusive, in person. He's the antithesis to Jovi and Hloni's hyperactive personas, almost in the same energy spectrum as Luja. Put congas in front of him, however, and these notions and comparisons cease to exist. He transforms. He becomes a beast, each percussive line feeding a style of playing so free and unhindered it sounds like he's charting new territory, coursing along with jugular jungle styles while getting drunk in the punch of the conga gods. The session's well underway by the time Kgomotso adds harmonies atop the loop. At this point, BCUC's signature imbombu, hand-crafted from the finest zinc by merchants at Kwa-MayiMayi in Durban, has also graced the song. "She is just black," Jovi sings, in a soft voice far from the guttural growls he reaches during a live show. Four other people join in on the chorus: 

Just like Kingston, Jamaica [she is just black]/

Lagos streets in Nigeria [she is just black]/../

Jo-hustleburg and Berea [she is just black]

The song never gets released. Jovi tells me that they didn't like the final mix and hence left it out of their album, a live affair named The Healer recorded at the SABC studios some two months after the "...just black" studio sessions. [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/59243414" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /] "When we started the band, we didn't start it because we wanted to make money. We wanted to start the band because we felt like there is a voice that is not there, you know?!" Jovi utters the words while cooling off under the tree shade following the second round of rehearsals for the day. Luja's preparing food for customers who've just ordered and Mosebetsi, the featured bassist, has left for other missions in the city. The rest of the crew, along with a few friends, are seated on the same restaurant bench underneath the tree with Jovi, sweaty and hyperventilating. The s'camto's (conversation) about their roots. Back in the early 2000s, Jozi had a buzzing underground scene out of which noteworthy names emerged: Sliq Angel and MXO; Simphiwe Dana; Lebo Mashile; Tumi Molekane and his (former) band The Volume; and the now-defunct Kwani Experience -- perhaps the closest to BCUC, at least in their militant, pro-black philosophies. "We are older than most of them, obviously, in terms of how long [we've] been together, you know?! The difference between us and them: I reckon they wanted to make money with the music, and thina we wanted to make music and then money will follow, because obviously when you do music, then money should follow. We wanted to be this voice for the black urban [youth who] are culturally inclined [and] proud of [its] musical heritage," says Jovi. [caption id="attachment_90237" align="aligncenter" width="678"] Luja of BCUC[/caption] The collective wanted to become a bridge between what they call 'muzik wa diplaas' and 'muzik wa ko kasi' -- essentially, an alternative to traditional music, and kwaito and house music. "Back then, we were annoyed by i-digital music, but now [it's] got these guys who are using other machines, and they make it almost live now. You mention abo-Fantasma [and]Goldfish - at least you can respect that." The aim, therefore, was to play music that utilised instruments, and secondly to say something with substance. What was the central message at that time, I ask. "Black music, it hasn't changed," says Jovi and Kgomotso, almost at the same time. Hloni calls it 'shebeen muzik', the type you don't get to hear on radio. It's the type of music sung by everyone. "I think we're speaking about ourselves," says Kgomotso. "Our ideology, B-Cook's sense of consciousness is not about us going outside of ourselves to find enlightenment. It's about finding out who we are within our families. Ko-ntlung (at home), what's happening? How do you incorporate it with what happens in Cheex's place? At Hloni's place? At Jovi's place? [It's about] how we build bridges and how we educate each other to be better people. For us, that is the consciousness -- just being good people and putting that positivity out there." [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeBztrgW588]

*

The pap and chicken giblets I'd ordered from the restaurant have been served. A few of us take turns to dip the pap into gravy and relishing it with chilli sauce. The s'camto continues; talk of the EFF's parliament stunts, current South African rap favourites, and what BCUC are plotting next. Their next stop is Bushfire Festival in May, with Oppikoppi following in August.

* All photographs (c) Tseliso Monaheng

Rendani Nemakavhani (alias Missblacdropp) is a Johannesburg-based graphic designer and illustrator who initiated the collaborative project 30 Days & A City featuring her work and that of eight fellow creators who live and work in the city of Johannesburg. We caught up with her during the exhibition opening to speak about what inspired her to curate the collaboration, and also where she'd like to see it headed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UuGar-TdSE

Nakhane Touré's itching to make some noise. His acoustic guitar-strumming fingers are ready to shred some shrewd chords on the electric. He wants to scare sixteen year olds and piss off conservatives who use "authenticity" as a cubicle for their ignorance. He wants to forge forward, not so much a revolution, but a rebellion against any (pre-)conceptions of what his 'sound' is. Nakhane's ready for a change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or6PmoX5BOM&feature=youtu.be The immediate plan is to release an EP, Violent Measures. It's a collection of songs which riff off of Frantz Fanon's pages, using the seminal Afro-French thinker's seminal essay Concerning Violence as a sparring partner. "The first song on the EP is called 'Violent Measures.' When I was listening to a demo version of the EP I realized that each song concerns itself – partially or wholly – with some act of violence. Whether it's physical or psychological, it has many different facets – positive or negative. Some violence is good, some isn't," he says. Then, with a cheeky streak, adds: "You'll just have to find out when you listen to the EP whether it is good or not!" Before a live show at the Bannister Hotel in Braamfontein, Johannesburg recently -- where he called kindred Eastern Cape spirit Bongeziwe Mabandla along for the ride -- Nakhane set aside a few moments to break bread regarding the way forward. He was quick to clarify that the EP's no less important than the album; that it serves as a bridge between Brave Confusion, the debut LP which won him a SAMA award in 2014, and his currently untitled sophomore release. Describing Nakhane as a "SAMA Award-Winning" artist feels like a cop-out; like one is giving in to laziness and refusing to engage with the person by treading well-worn tropes instead of being the vessel through which the music, Nakhane's music, reverberates. With Violent Measures, Nakhane seems hopeful to make enough noise to turn even the emptiest of vessels into agents of change. His change! *This article first appeared here. Nakhane Touré plays a show with Nomisupasta on Thursday in Johannesburg. Go here for details, and check out our video profile on Nomisupasta here.

In 2014, South African Hip Hop was allowed longer strides on the mainstream's catwalk. The line between artist and celebrity got blurred as rappers continued to package themselves into products ripe for mass consumption. Meanwhile, marketers clawed further into the consciousness of an artform they dared not be associated with ten years prior. For the most part the music was good, but that's as far as it went. The beats were nice, but mostly generic. Imported flows and concepts were given merit as long as the content was 'local'. Hip hop didn't scare anyone, nor was it likely to incite mass action towards any socio-economic cause. To remain relevant, South African Hip Hop engaged in ego-boosting PR exercises masquerading as beef. Moments of brilliance lay scattered in the field of pop aspirations. By-standers stood silent through it all, perhaps overwhelmed by the weight of the shadow that hip hop globally has allowed itself to become. In 2004, South African Hip Hop embarked on what felt like a maiden voyage to its now-widespread acceptance. The seven-person rap crew Skwatta Kamp won a South African Music Award (SAMA), "Best Rap" category, with an independently-released and distributed album called Khut en joyn. One year later, they managed to sell 25,000 copies of their major label debut Mkhukhu Funkshen. A second SAMA followed. In 2005, a rapper signed to music producer DJ Cleo's Will Of Steel label sold 50, 000 copies. Going by the name Pitch Black Afro, and bolstered by a call-and-response single which no one could stop singing along to, the Soweto-born emcee became - and, at time of writing, remains - the first solo rapper to go platinum. And he did so at a time when it really mattered, both critically and commercially (gold and platinum certification has since been re-adjusted to 20,000 and 40,000 copies sold respectively). The 2004-2005 period felt like the apex of events which had been brewing some years prior. Rage Records had cemented itself as a respectable, if boutique, label through compilations such as Expressions and Maximum Sentense, and through signing acts such as Proverb, Zubz and producer Battlekat onto its roster. Another rap group, Cashless Society, had managed to secure a deal with DJ Bobbito's now-defunct Fondle Em label to distribute their single "Blaze the breaks." DJ Bionic's Eargasm Entertainment had released Mizchif's Life From All Angles EP; the Hymphatic Thabs had single-handedly written the manual for how to thrive as an independent hip hop artist in South Africa with his debut release, Error Era. In Cape Town, African Dope Records had experienced some amount of success with Goddessa and Moodphase 5ive. The former, an all-female trio, broke through with "Social Ills," a single which did well to solidify Cape Town's image as the more 'conscious' of the two cities. The latter, a multi-genre outfit led by emcee D-Form and vocalist Ernie, implanted itself in Jozi's hearts with their appearance at Club 206. "We were on our first African Dope tour in April 2001... We arrived at 206 and Moodphase rocked it so hard the power went down. They rocked it even harder with an impromptu acoustic jam while the power was down..." recalled African Dope co-founder Roach in an interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMs9JwILIIU Billing itself as "South Africa's No.1 Hip Hop Magazine" and with distribution spanning not only South Africa but neighbouring states as well, Hype Magazine hit the shelves in 2004. The print publication's first two issues were guest edited by DJ Ready D: champion turntablist; community builder; car enthusiast and, most importantly, co-founder of Prophets Of da City and Brasse Vannie Kaap -- two globally-revered cultural institutions with roots in the Cape Flats. It was fitting, then, that Ready D was chose as the one to ignite the torch for the magazine. The lantern has been burning since, changing hands through a shifting roster of contributors and editors. Hype may have dished out more than its fair share of mediocre content through the years. However, it'd be unfair to not commend them for the good work they've done, most notably their continued relevance, in a shaky South African print environment. As former editor Simone Harris attests in the magazine's 10th Anniversary issue, Hype is "a history book that has served our [South African] hip hop heritage well" as well as a "brand which has kept up with each new generation of hip hop enthusiasts." The year 2014 was filled with great rap releases. K.O. of the group Teargas came brandishing a brand new set of flows on Skhanda Republic, his debut solo outing. "Caracara", the second single from that album has amassed an upward of 1 million views (inspiring spoofs like this one in the process). AKA ended off a gruelling 2014 by winning in four categories at the third annual South African Hip Hop Awards. His sophomore album Levels had been producing strong singles such as "Kontrol" and "Congratulate" well before its mid-year release. The album best showcases how, over the years, hip hop in South Africa has learned how to produce songs which can work collectively or as singles. The latest, "All eyez on me," has guest raps from JR and Da Les, with hook duties masterfully handled by Burna Boy. The song premiered via a Google+ hangout and was simultaneously broadcast on radio stations in Kenya and Nigeria. AKA answered questions from the anchor Lee Kasumba and from guests in the hangout. The song continues to gain traction and has recently entered A-list rotation on BBC 1Xtra. Cassper Nyovest's Tsholofelo played like the scattered thoughts of an artist still figuring out what approach to music works best for their audience. It showcased his breadth as a rapper, sure, but it failed to establish him as a fully-fledged artist. However, it's only his first effort. https://soundcloud.com/mkosi-3/fresh-start When it wasn't arguing over who the best is via a list curated by a satellite television broadcaster; engaging in c-grade social media antics; or writing open letters to radio stations, South African Hip Hop did extremely well for itself. Away from the glimmer of the mainstream, Cape Town continued to quietly nurture its own class of talent. "We had to deal with so many gatekeepers, turned down so many times by people already on the scene," said Laneave Hansen of Rude World Records, the independent label which, besides pop sensation Jimmy Nevis, boast artists like Kita Keetz, BoolZ, and Namibia's Black Vulcanite, acts who are giving an alternative take on the genre and expanding the rap conversation beyond the confines of eJozi (the city of Johannesburg). There's also Andy Mkosi with her traditionalist approach and real-life raps; Miss Celaneous favours hard-edged, finger-up-your-nose-type lyrics. In one fell swoop, she lists all that is wrong with the 'scene' as she raps: "all I gotta say/ I am bored as fuck with the game in SA/ same old naaiers (fuckers) get the fame/" on "#Checkmeout", a song which utilises Nipsey Hustle's song of the same title. Away from the mainstream, Jozi's a hive of active movements, like the internationally-acclaimed Scrambles for Money battle rap league; innovative rap cliques like Revivolution; and mind-bendingly dope delivery a la Gigi Lamayne. Boyz 'n' Buck$, a crew of creative entrepreneurs with associations in music and fashion, have crafted a visual identity which resonates with their fanbase. Okmalumkoolkat's one of the members, alongside the likes of Riky Rick and Bubhesii -- the former an artist whose debut album, Family Tree, is about to disrupt the way South African rap is set up, while the latter is a Jozi rap mainstay who's collaborated on music with the likes of the P.O. Box Project, and recently launched a mobile boutique store with his wife. Okmalumkoolkat's been the quiet architect for a lot of trends in South African Hip Hop. While the likes of HHP and Morafe may have been doing what's now termed New Age Kwaito for more than a decade, it's Dirty Paraffin (Okmalumkoolkat + Dr SpiZee) who acted as the bridge not only through introducing experimental beats favouring bass-heavy frequencies, but through their slang, and through the means through which they chose to distribute music -- mostly on-line, for free, and with no strings attached. It's a strategy which has worked for Cassper Nyovest. In a recent visit to Zimbabwe, he stopped by the 2 Broke Twimbos' studio to chat about his career. Talking about his team's music distribution strategy, Cassper said: "Our music is free and anybody can download it; you'll never know where it'll end up. It probably started with one kid in Zimbabwe who played it to his friend, and then it ended up spreading, [and that was] before we started playing on radio." Nyovest is worthy of mention for re-writing the rule book on how to make it as an artist in South Africa. He came as an independent off the bat, and retains ownership of all of his music to this day. How he achieved nationwide acclaim with two songs to his name ("Gusheshe" and "Doc Shebeleza") is a topic all on its own. He's nominated under five categories for the 2015 SAMA Awards to be held in two months' time. [caption id="attachment_87629" align="aligncenter" width="770"] Rappers Blaklez and Nveigh @ Maftown Heights 2014[/caption] There's elation in the air. South African Hip Hop is the media's darling. Headlines such as 'South African Hip Hop wins big at [insert desired award ceremony name here]' are easy to come by. It's a good time to be a part of it all -- as a by-stander in the pit, shouting your lungs out word-for-word to your favourite rapper's songs, at the expense of carrying the baggage that comes with being a rap fan. Less discussed is the danger of having any single, "authoritative" voice on the scene. South African rap writing needs to be elevated beyond an eighty-odd-page monthly print issue which can be read in one sitting, in under an hour! There is room for more voices; alternative voices; voices of change, of discontent, of outrage! In a scene which measures success by the amount of radio spins a song receives and values awards ceremonies -- which couldn't give two shits about hip hop were they held at gunpoint -- over everything else, this vital voice is rendered mute. It's the voice of a section of South African Hip Hop dedicated solely to dope beats, dope rhymes, having fun, and being 'nice with it.' This legion of heads is scattered across the country, bubbling in their locales yet never getting the 'spark' to make it onto the mainstream. They toil to upload songs onto the Internet; to share links on social networks; to e-mail blogs requesting for interviews. They are the foot soldiers of South African Rap. Alas, 'keeping it real' doesn't pay the bills. Now also a good time to innovate; to disrupt the trend; to build pan-African institutions inspired by hip hop!

It’s all my father’s fault! Sometime towards the end of the nineties, I remember him bringing along a heavy-set, pale-skinned man into our home during a lunch break from work. The man wore one of those green-gray shirts which only come in size XL and above, a pair of shorts, and veldskoens. This look rendered him more a farmer than a technician who’d come to fiddle with our computer. He asked for the telephone end-point, the one onto which the telephone receiver gets plugged in, and began fiddling with that too. In no time, I’d figured out that either that evening or the next day (it all depended on ‘activation time’), I’d be able to access ohhla, spitkicker, and a small fortune of websites I’d only heard of or read about. The World Wide Web had landed on my desktop at a record-breaking speed of 56kbps and I was going to usher in every bit of it! Around 2002, I was set in my ways; I'd become an Internet-dependent delinquent prowling night and day for hyperlinks to rap music websites which I’d spot on magazines, see written at the end of television shows, and hear as they were announced radio. It was during these solitary digging missions that I discovered Africasgateway. Almost instantaneously, I fell in love with its forums – a buzzing community of like-minded heads waxing fanatical about rap music from the African continent and beyond.

"I'm from an area of South Africa that is very secluded in many ways," says Rushay Booysen - community activist, public speaker, connector, and Internet prowler of note. Rushay was an early adopter of Africasgateway and its forums. Speaking over a Skype connection from his house in Port Elizabeth, he shares invaluable information about the website which was founded by Shane Heusdens, a Dutch national who'd migrated to Cape Town from Namibia in 1989. Rushay was alerted of Africasgateway's existence by his then-girlfriend who understood just how much he loved hip hop and desired to connect with like-minded heads from all over the world. It's the same desire which still informs his world view to this day. Through Internet communities, Rushay has connected with heads from all over the world. "When you looked at the web at that time and you [didn’t] know the specifics and the dynamics of running or hosting a website, it just [looked] like a corporation. It [didn’t] look like it could be one person doing that thing," says Rushay. He drafted an e-mail introducing himself and stating his intention to get involved and sent it over to Milk (short for Milkdaddy, Shane's alias on the website). Milk, whom Rushay had spoken to over the phone a few years earlier, responded by inviting him over to his house in Cape Town. “He had this coloured accent,” he recalls. "I just took a bus to Cape Town and knocked on the guy's door," he adds. Arriving in Cape Town, Rushay's perception of how Milkdaddy might look was completely altered. Milk was still living with his wife at that time; she's the one who opened the door when he knocked. “You meet this woman with her husband and it's a white dude, a white Dutch [who] grew up in Namibia. It was just like 'this is crazy!'” says Rush, relaying the shock of that initial meeting. Other website at the time Africasgateway didn't exist in isolation. There was also Africanhiphop and Hip Hop Headrush (HHH). The latter is the first ever website to exclusively documenting South African Hip Hop and the culture around it. The site was last updated in September 2007. Africanhiphop, Milkdaddy notes, is what inspired Africasagateway. He’d connected with its founder, an Amsterdam native called Thomas Gesthuizen, through music exchanges. “He was interested in stuff coming from where I was [Cape Town], so I would send him stuff that I would come across, and he would send me stuff from the Netherlands or from [wherever], you know?”says Milk, who’d begun teaching himself how to code using html while not working his day job. Milk registered the domain name and started populating the website with local hip hop news and album reviews. In true web 1.0 fashion, the site was static, meaning he had to manually update all sections everytime new content became available. Eventually, he decided to use a Content Management System (CMS), enabling Africasgateway to scale well with increasing traffic. Forum functionality could be enabled within the CMS. “The forums [were] primarily just about local African music, African hip hop. And then it just went massive. I mean, it got so large at one point it was…I had to move servers several times,” says Milk. A community of users could log in and partake in any of the topics being discussed – anything from general issues, to audio production-related discussions, to rap battles, to epic discussions about the latest rap releases. Initially, users could comment anonymously on the thread, but a username was later required as a means of discouraging trolls.

South Africa-born, UK-based Massdosage of HHH was a Computer Science student at Rhodes University during the mid-nineties. The website was an off-shoot of a prototype he’d built while hosting the Hip Hop Headrush on RMR, Rhodes’ campus radio. He’d publish the show’s tracklisting on the website and, occasionally, put up “a really bad, short [real-time] audio clip” for people to listen to and/or download. This was late 1995. He completed his studies and moved back home to Johannesburg where he started work at a multimedia company in 1999. “The account I had at Rhodes was going to get closed. I had to keep paying for it but I was like ‘what’s the point?' But then I realised I was going to lose the web space,” says Massdosage of the free server space allotted to him while still a student. He decided against letting the website go, aided in part by the potential he saw in the Johannesburg media space. He had contacts who helped him with interviews. “I thought we can make this bigger than just the radio show,” says Massdosage. After trying and failing to register hhh.co.za (the initials of his radio show), he began thinking of alternatives. It turned out that hiphop.co.za was available so he snapped it up, got a designer with whom he completely overhauled the website, then went live in 1999. Massdosage would go to events at clubs like 206 to film the likes of DJ Ready D during their performances. Through the website, he was able to host a live chat with Dead Prez during the South African leg of  their Black August tour. “I’d also get certain artists to give me songs to put on-line, to distribute. But I would always discuss it with them first…it was like promotion for them,” he says. These artists included the P.E.R.M collective (Zee, Strawmoon, Space2wice, Kju52, Tumi, Richard III, McWillie, Neo Shamiyaa, and Diliseng), Skwatta Kamp, and the late Mizchif. Rushay recalls this period: "[Massdosage] was the one guy running the site, he was updating it. It was very basic, but it allowed us to share. We did an event, we shared photos, we shared the story of the event. It was this sharing platform which was one of the first of its kind in South Africa." The status quo Nowadays, Africasgateway is but a shadow of its former self. It succumbed to the ripple effects of Myspace and Facebook. “Having sites that had that control—not the control but like, where you could kind of congregate everybody—everything just kind of like went flat. And so that's when the site just kind of died. And a lot of sites around the world went the same way,” says Milk of the website’s demise. Africanhiphop.com is still being updated, but is more active on twitter. They have archived their once-vibrant forums which helped in facilitating many a cross-continental collaborative projects. There are more websites and blogs focused on posting South African Hip Hop-related content, from the African Hip Hop Blog’s editorials, to Heavyword’s snapshots of the latest gems. Chekadigital, more a lifestyle blog which sometimes focuses on hip hop, is also doing its bit, as are blogs like Kasi Music Kona, Sistersnrap, and others. Slikour Metane, solo artist and [former?] member of Skwatta Kamp (and participant to the Africasgateway community) runs a (Jay Z’s) Life + Times-style blog focused on easy-to-digest content. “I am not a blogger, but I love the music, so if I am going to write it with my bad writing skills, know that I did it for the music. I haven’t even scratched the surface as it is a five-year plan,” he told one publication in an interview. Phiona Okumu was a contributor to Hip Hop Headrush in its heydays. Nowadays, when she’s not traveling the world, she writes about urban African music for The Guardian and is part-owner of Afripop. As one of the earlier purveyors of South African Hip Hop writing, both on-line and in print, does she see a future for the movement on-line? ​“I can't imagine why ​not,” she responds via e-mail. “​S​outh ​Africa has had no real ​definitive ​Internet place ​for hip hop ​to call home since the days of hiphopheadrush ​or [Africasgateway].” Phiona points out that it’s not only with hip hop, but “with pretty much all the urban musics.” She recalls the days of the Black Rage Productions-owned rage.co.za, and says it’s strange that “no site has taken up the baton to represent SA urban culture in the way that Rage did.” (Black Rage went under with the 2008 financial crisis). “​Today, for better or for worse, anyone with a Wordpress and the time can set up shop. ​That's why it blows my mind that there aren't more kids doing it,” she says after noting that the Internet was a different place during the days of Rage. She also credits artists such as Okmalumkoolkat whose on-line presence has been instrumental in catapulting them to mainstream acclaim. Journalist Mookho Makhetha expresses another view in her article entitled For the love of music:

As large as the online music blogosphere is, it is still left on the fringes of “normal” life. Most bloggers have day jobs and do not have the resources to invest in exhaustive tales about an artist’s music. Some blogs while engaging and well-written (even better than most journalistic pieces) do not have access to the artists. That music writing is not a worthwhile pursuit, that it is something that one does in their spare time and will often play second fiddle to people’s “real” careers is precisely the problem.

We should be recording this The comparatively low costs of web hosting coupled with the rise of blogs and social media have democratised the playing field for South African Hip Hop. It's important to recall a time when this was not so, and to celebrate the prospects and promise of a South African Hip Hop which fully embraces the internet. As it stands, most artists treat these platforms as a stopover, a mere mask to cover up their ultimate desire to congregate at the behest of radio and television so as to feel like their music genuinely matters. Phiona, in closing says:

Many from my generation feel like there was something of a golden era that played out between 2003-2004. I think that now, ten years later, the real dawn of an era is happening where for once, hip hop is being given the same weight as Kwaito was. We should be recording this...

Footnote: both Milkdaddy and Juma 4 of Africanhiphop.com reference Shamiel Adams (alias Shamiel X, formerly of the DJ collective The Beatbangaz) as having influenced them to start their individual websites. Attempts to get input from him proved unsuccessful. *Milkdaddy's interview was conducted by Lorien Hunter

In 2010, I acquired an illegal copy of The Clonious' Between the dots LP after hearing him play a set on Mary-Anne Hobbs' Generation Bass programme which used to be hosted on BBC Radio 1. I instantly fell in love with his production style, a gently-grinding jazz crusade characterised by lush-sounding synth pads and a general preference for warm and all-encompassing instrumentation. During that period, I also discovered that the UK's LV had collaborated with Okmalumkoolkat, an emcee originally from Durban whom I'd discovered a year earlier via his own blog. Both artists have become better masters of their techniques ever since. While most of Between the dots was space jazz-leaning, The Clonious' production technique has expanded to include elements of Chicago footwork which, combined with Okmalumkoolkat's Umlazi-dipped universal swank, suggest multiple pathways for which South African electronic music in general can head. Cid Rim, The Clonious' partner in Affine records and forthright producer on his own right, shares behind-the-board duties. Okmalumkoolkat's rap lexicon has grown in leaps and bounds; he's become better at injecting ancient mythology, futurism, and current pop trends into his lyrics. He shouts out Credo Mutwa and envisions phone calls by AllBlackKats to gods who came as humanoids. If you pay enough attention, Okmalumkoolkat steadily reveals layers of himself to you. He's not one thing, that's for sure: "I'm eating sushi/ owusu/ no-phutu/ my hat is from Lesotho/ my bloodline is Zulu/ starsign is leopard, my spirit is kudu" he raps in "Ijusi". Another way to view the music is as live portraiture. Okmalukoolkat has a natural inclination to throw ideas which, at first glance, seem disconnected from each other. However, with every stroke, key details are revealed, and a fully-fledged picture is eventually formed. Holy Oxygen's strongest point is that the lyrics and the music merge beautifully; that nothing sounds coerced. It's festival music, club music, sure; but it's also get-busy-while-cooking-in-the-kitchen music; it's what you play when navigating the mania of the innercity; and it's what your mind can consume to get transported into distant worlds and multiple galaxies. The way in which we consume music is changing, and it's time to perhaps think about not only how it's made, but also how it gets written about. My relationship with both artists begun on-line; it wasn't facilitated by the radio; I didn't go to a show. I experienced a telepathic connection to the sound via mp3 - that's a new phenomenon, a new layer of relating to sound. In Holy Oxygen, Okmalumkoolkat introduces a batch of similarly new layers. Some are works in progress; some are mind-boggling. Their combination translates into a definitive body of work which is reflective of the times, and of the city in which he lives - Johannesburg. Okmalumkoolkat is also a universal being. You can't quite pin him down. At one point, he's strolling up and down the hilly expanse of Umlazi hunting for the next gqom party; next, he's in Nairobi talking digital art; or he could be either recording or on tour somewhere in Europe, and spitting venom to festival audiences which, in no time, shall grow and expand. Towards the end of last year, Okmalumkoolkat tweeted that 2014 was his. After hearing this, one of his many victories this year, there is no second-guessing that statement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIXy9Z7x0tI *This article is part of Africasacountry’s series on South African Hip-Hop in 2014. You can follow the rest of the series here.

I remember being awe-struck by a picture I saw in on the Sunday papers somewhere around 2005. The members looked militant in their shades and flowing locks. There was a sense of urgency in the female lead's look which stuck with me: black shades, black beret, all-black everything! They reminded me of Peter Tosh and the Dashiki Poets at once, with a hint of the Black Panthers Party to smother the masses. They were Kwani Experience, a band which had been bubbling in Johannesburg's underground music circuit for a hot minute before being picked upon by a record label, releasing two albums, and somewhat disbanding. Somewhat, because Kwani's gone through many phases. While some members have gone on to pursue other interests, there's still a core connection which bleeds through different their various musical pursuits, be it on vocalist/percussionst Bafana Nhlapho's two-step cross-continental wails, or multi-instrumentalist Mahlatse Riba's explorations into the deeper elements of roots sound as one half of the house music project Sai & Ribatone. Kwelagobe Sekele, Kwani's emcee who now performs as the P.O. Box Project, has recently released his Maru EP which he refers to as a "digital Kwani sound" in a Mail & Guardian feature tracing the trajectory of the black band over the past decade. Maru is the culmination of over six years' worth of stop-and-start recordings, all the while sharpening that very concept. The initial sessions were with Ribatone, but P.O.'s focus shifted onto other projects. Work continued in 2012, the same year he shot this video for "Moni" which was c0-directed with Justin McGee. Maru is available to stream on bandcamp. I got in touch and asked him to explain the album title's meaning. This is what he had to say:

"The silver lining. Because clouds are ALWAYS there, even when you don't notice them, even when they come and go. That's my presence in this industry, during this 3-year Kwani Experience hiatus. The title is also an indirect homage to Bessie Head who wrote a book by the same title. This is my little 7 chapter book.

http://vimeo.com/104345894 *You can purchase Maru on iTunes

Brian Soko is not a happy man! Not only is he having to deal with the trauma of a daylight break-in at a cottage he’s renting while on a three-week work-related trip to Jozi, but the rappers he’s supposed to be having a studio session with the next day aren’t picking up their phones. I’ve been tasked with following him around for the next two days, photographing him as he works with artists like Cassper Nyovest and Teargas. For now, we’re on the N1 highway headed towards Centurion where Chad da Don, another rapper, is due to complete his verse on a Soko beat. As we race to beat the traffic, the producer sheds more light on the break-in incident. He’d barely been gone from the cottage for thirty minutes. Returning with the groceries he’d gone to buy, he discovered that his iPhone, Macbook, two external hard drives, sneakers, and his girlfriend’s jewellery had gone missing. The cleaning ladies knew nothing; neither did the cottage owner nor the gardener. Going to the police didn’t yield results.

*

Born in Chiredzi, a small town to the South-East of Bulawayo, Soko was initiated into hip-hop by his elder brother Prince with whom he now runs the Anashe Media Group, a management, marketing and production company focused on the African music sector. His other brother Arnold and a third partner are also involved. The story of his initial forays into music production follows a similar trajectory to that of many producers: he’d started off as a rapper, but instead of him feeling like he wasn’t good enough, he realised that there was good money-generating potential from making beats. He then switched to that trade exclusively while in high school. “I used to sell my beats online,” he said in an interview, referring to early start-ups like Mp3.com which enabled independent artists (or ‘bedroom musicians’) to generate income from their music. His banker father re-located his family to America after a brief stint in South Africa. Soko’s athleticism – he played football at one point – took a backseat when he decided to study sound engineering. He met his current production team, The Order, during his freshman year at college in Tampa, Florida. Among them – there are three other members – The Order have produced for A-list artists such as Rich Gang, Future, and Drake. There’s also Beyonce’s “Drunk in love” which was [wrongly] attributed to recording artist Detail. I ask Soko about this. “It’s all industry politics,” he tells me. Later, he’ll reveal: “I made that beat about four years ago.” In Centurion, we’re greeted by two apes which belong to Chad da Don. Chad’s mother, a hip-hop lover of sorts, comes out and invites us into their home. Maggz, the Soweto-born rhyme-spitter who can rap circles around many a rapper, is present, as is Chad’s producer Ashleigh. After brief introductions, Chad invites us into his studio. Soko’s still concerned about the break-in, but his mood instantaneously changes when Ashleigh fires up the studio workstation. He’s most at peace making music, it seems. The producers go through songs which have been placed on albums due out later this year. Pusha T’s name gets flown about; Rihanna’s too. Next is Chad’s unfinished song with Maggz who’s in the same room and has already recorded his part. The playback elicits something of a collective mini-orgasm when everyone hears it. “I pray we take it, to the next level/ change the game and let the cheques battle/ when you state your name they’re like ‘yessus’/ into ziya jika mfankithi/” Maggz’s cadence is unmatched! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlX7o1F0VCI The last time Soko was in South Africa, he did production work for Cash Time Life – first KO’s “Mission statement”, then DJ Vigilanti’s “Sgelekeqe” which features stately rap contributions from Ma-E, Pro, and Maggz. Both songs went on to dominate radio charts and establish KO, especially, as somewhat of a lyrical monster outside of the Teargas collective (of which he’s part, alongside brothers Ma-E and Ntukza). Over the next two days, Soko’ll host a roster of producers and rap artists either at the tipping point of their careers, or currently riding the crest of an ever-brittle and elusive ‘top’. Cassper Nyovest will make a stop to record “Phumakim”, as will Ganja Beatz, the production collective responsible for producing bangers for Reason, Okmalumkoolkat, and Riky Rick, among others. I pull Ma-E aside during one of the sessions to ask him how the working relationship with Soko developed. He tells me that the producer used to contact them (Cash Time Life/Teargas) via e-mail with links to his soundcloud. KO decided to open one of the links and went on to alert Ma-E. “In two seconds, I was like ‘yo, this guy’s the deal! When he comes down, we’ve got to hook up!’”

*

On our last meeting, Brian comes across a post from October 2012 while scrolling through his Facebook timeline: “I make Weird beats on purpose!... 1 of theez days imma set a trend.” With one of last year’s biggest songs under his belt, and song placement on some big name artists’ upcoming projects, Brian may well be on his way to accomplishing his goal. *Originally published in Mahala. **This article is part of Africasacountry’s series on South African Hip-Hop in 2014. You can follow the rest of the series here.  

"The thing about Joburg," observes rapper and producer Sam Turpin "it's kind of on the scale of rich and poor." Sam's music explores themes of growing up in a changing South Africa. He's constantly questioning, learning and adjusting according to the dictates of his environment - oftentimes one not receptive and trusting of white people and their intentions. Sam will, in stream-of-consciousness fashion, jump from discussing his love for Outkast to questioning why its so hard for some people to learn a second language in South Africa. He's an artist whose thoughts are in flux; his music, his raps, his style - it reflects an unsettled version of South African hip-hop seeking to carve its own space and claim its right to exist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IlOgNzDSu8&feature=youtu.be In this video profile, set around Braamfontein and featuring scenes shot in the Wits Art Museum, Sam introduces himself and gives the motivation behind the title of his debut EP, "Eternal Sentiment". The segment also features footage of him performing with collaborator Illa N at an invite-only event where the two previewed music from their collaborative EP "Cold Chinese Food". *Sam Turpin's Eternal Sentiment is available on bandcamp.

I was home alone one Friday night around 2001 watching, as was tradition, one of the music shows which came on at SABC 1 during that period. It could’ve been Studio Mix during its dying years, or Basiq with Azania, or Castle Loud with Unathi and Stoan. The first video played after a Telkom ad. It featured a tall-ish man in an afro with what looked like a (mobile) telephone; I assumed it was a continuation of the advert. Roughly ten seconds in, I realised that this was an actual music video and began to pay attention. I immediately pressed record and managed to capture Mizchif’s “Fashionable” video premiere in its entirety. It was my introduction to an emcee who went on to release one of my first South African hip-hop CD purchases in the form of his 9-track EP Life From All Angles. He’d be on YFM during the Sprite Rap Activity jam providing a crucial dose of hip-hop news, or on Channel O presenting some video programme or another. He even had a breakout hit with kwaito artist Mavusana called “Summertime” which was big on national radio. Then, silence! Forward to 2008. I ran into Mizchif in Cape Town; introduced myself and let him know how much of a fan of his work I was. A year later while hosting a hip-hop show on the campus radio station, listeners would regularly request Mizchif songs to be played. My copy of Life From All Angles had since been misappropriated, but we managed to find a copy of "Fashionable" on the campus’ local area network and would play it. And thus began my brief re-introduction to Mizchif’s music. It’s easy to fall into wistful nostalgia and wax philosophical about how ‘great’ and ‘legendary’ he was. Indeed he was a dope emcee. But much like Robo, King Daniel, and to some extent Mr. Fat, Devious, etc., Mizchif has joined a growing line of fallen soldiers who were/are all but forgotten by the movement they helped build. Instead of reinforcing the ‘poor, starving artist’ trope so commonplace in the music industry, perhaps it’d be best if South African hip-hop came up with ways not only to chronicle its present, but to ensure that the contributions of its purveyors don’t fade into obscurity. If anything, we should do it for posterity, because it’s paramount to ensure that the culture isn’t muddled in the fleeting romance of celebrity. We can start by acknowledging that there are people whose stories need to be told and re-told, because they too matter. The first (and last) time I saw Mizchif perform was at the South African Hip Hop Awards in 2013. I cannot say I was moved. Not only was he in bad shape, he could barely remember the lyrics, choosing instead to rap over certain parts – as a fan rapping along would. It wasn’t a good sight. The music lives on! [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/166452974" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="300" iframe="true" /] *Opening image: Mizchif performing at the South African Hip Hop Awards, 2014 *This article is part of Africasacountry’s series on South African Hip-Hop in 2014. You can follow the rest of the series here.

As member of the hip-hop quartet Ba4za, Hakeem Lesolang presided over one of the most fertile yet under-appreciated eras in South African hip-hop. Capcity Rapcity as it was referred to by the bundles of heads scattered across Mzansi, fed our collective appetites the fuzzy memories of yester-year hip-hop through a steady stream of boom-bap rap music. Flex Boogie is the artist that emerged when Hakeem decided to explore what lay beyond the jazz-leaning loops and banging drums characterized by production from the likes of Nyambz. His career took a fashion-conscious direction, a decision which had the unintended consequence of giving him the distinction of the largest fedora hat-collecting rapper in the country. It's the tenth year since Ba4za's introduction to the South African hip-hop scene. The four Muslims – two brothers named Malik and Muhajir, and Hakeem and Abdul Qadir – still maintain a strong brotherhood but haven't recorded music collectively in years. Flex Boogie is growing his network as an independent artist. He had performances lined up for the full duration of the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, and shall soon be on a tour which will have him play dates in London, New York, and the UAE. This is what he had to say post his performance on the second last day of the Fingo Festival. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W3-p86htMQ&feature=youtu.be *This article is part of Africasacountry’s series on South African Hip-Hop in 2014. You can follow the rest of the series here.