It all depends on the us/hip-hop headz/rappers/backpackers/ whateva we call ourselves... if we remain stubborn and don´t take control of this hip-hop of our´s we´ll lose
by take control i mean -- i know alot of cats don´t like to hear this cause they "believe hip-hop is hip-hop, hip-hop is universal" but we must define our hip-hop, it must sound unique, i´m sorry to say this but tracks like "Omoya", which sounds like they from ATL, Hi-Tek/Jay-Dee-like beats and Pharaoh Monch/Canibus-like flows like Optical Ill and Co-Flow like- tracks from the likes of BMP are only doing more harm than good why is say that?
yes people are loving "Omoya", but honestly that´s some dirty south shit, YES, the track has Tsotsi Taal but rapping in Kasi Lingo doesn´t mean automatically mean your shit is originally SA/Mzantsi/Proudly South African (and on the other hand rapping in English doesn’t mean that your shit is not originally SA/Mzantsi/Proudly South African)
it’s only a matter of time till someone say “A simo States mo” (this is not States) or “Anis’yekeni ngale rap yeno, ha makoporosho” (you know that Mzeke songs)
look these kwaito cats are after what sells, so since Skwatta sold gold, they going to record half-hearted rap songs jus cause rapping sells. I’m sure you’ll watch TV on the Yizo Yizo ad – where I think it’s Javas and another cat driving on the Mandela bridge – Javas or whoever tells that cat that he’s a DJ and the cat tells him that he must play hip-hop to succeed…ie climb on the hip-hop bandwagon m’fanana.
You’ll see this December each kwaito CD will have a rap song on in even Mzeke/ Thembi Seete did on their last CDs, so what’s gonna happen is that they are going to make they half-hearted hip-hop and call it kwai-rap/ kwai-hop… ie South African hip-hop not what these hip-hop heads are doing. the same Oscar who said “A simo States mo” (this is not States) made “Mama Wami” and called it local hip-hop
What I’m saying is that whether or not hip-hop will kill kwaito – if we remain in our bedrooms with out hip-hop cause “we don’t wanna go commercial” kwaito cats will rename kwaito or they will say that kwaito is South African hip-hop – TKZee said it before, Senyaka claims he is the first South African cat to rap/ or record hip-hop, the same Arthur (yes, the King of Kwaito, who advised Chiskop to do kwaito and forget about hip-hop) said on Phat Joe that he was the first cat to rap on his track “Vuvuzela”.
Back to my first statement about “Omoya”, BMP and Optical Ill, Last years there was a forum on this site about the Skwatta and one cat forgot the name asked a very interesting question He said that: are we now supposed to like that Dirty South, are we supposed to act like the Dirty South is the shit I know that I’m not quoting him right but it was something along those lines. I know that Mkhukhu Faction is till a matter of debate… they can lie all the way to the bank but Mkhukhu Faction is not their ideal hip-hop CD, they are not fans of the Dirty South, so why they recorded such a song – the powers that be at Gallo told them that’s what sells do it or do it or releasing you.
As for Optical Ill I think the only reason you respect them is cause they bite cats you respect ie. Hi-Tek, Canibus and the AG favourite Pharaoh Monch, same goes for BMP – the bite Co-Flow and all that other backpacker good stuff.
What we have to do is come up with a sound that ours by that i mean f*** we have untapped Xhosa sounds, Zulu sounds, Sotho, Shangaan, Bushmen sounds and yes kwaito combine that shit and come-up with some ill shit yet original shit (RZA combined Shoalin/Chinese sounds and look what happened) so that when Gallo tells that “Dirty South is the way to go you tell them yeah if you are in Atlanta, but down here this is what works playing them you CD… or else we record what we think is hip-hop and sell it ourself
hope I make some sense – I know that I got off the topic a bit there…
;-)
