Some criticise today’s Cape Town hip-hop artists for being too concerned with themselves as a brand and not concerned enough with what they’re saying in their songs. But the landscape is rich with conscious, interesting artists who are wrestling with the city's fraught history through their rhymes, writes Sihle MthembuIf you’ve been reading #Trending for any stretch of time, you’ll know who YoungstaCPT is.
Secondly, what is also true about South African hip-hop’s pioneering spirit is that it forms a loop around itself – it seems as if everything has been done so nothing new can be done. But a truly original concept is at the centre of 3T – a time capsule of coloured history in this city and in South Africa.“We have a variety of cultures and ethnicities, but, in my opinion, it’s the Cape coloured people who make Cape Town unique. I mean, we even have the word ‘Cape’ in our name,” Youngsta says.
3T is a work whose value extends beyond the reach of hip-hop. For the first time, we are allowed to eavesdrop on an intergenerational conversation between two coloured men born and raised in a city that tries to push them out. 3T is an extension of work done by Eusebius McKaiser in his books of social criticism such as Run Racist Run, as well as that of film makers Sarah Summers and Kelly-Eve Koopman in their web series Coloured Mentality.
So how do you cut through all this noise? Well, the city’s artists are finding new and innovative ways to connect directly with music consumers and develop new audiences. Exhibit A: Mkosi. She has been on tour for the past year and a half – and all shows have been sold out, even though she is mostly unknown outside of Cape Town. This is because she hasn’t been bringing her brand of chill ego rap to huge stadiums or high-end music venues.
The tropes of the Cape Town hip-hop scene are familiar. Usually, they’re artists from poor and underserved communities who are forced to weave their way in and out of each other’s circles to reimagine the city’s sound, culture and slang, and to document the contradictions of life in the area. One of them is E-Jay, a notorious Cape Town rapper whose relationship with cliques is promiscuous at best.
“I think the amount of money and the focus on it is a little dangerous because it makes people so willing to compromise their values. If you want to see what some of these artists are really about, just put money in front of them and see how they react. That’s why not so many last,” says Stehr.
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