The Choice nights are designed around promoting up and coming talent in the music industry. Choice Records was established last year, as a small record shop specializing in vinyl of most dance genres, it was formed due to a lack of decent vinyl records available in the mother city. The staff at Choice records noticed how many DJs were buying from them who had never played out before. This gave them the idea to give these DJs a platform alongside other industry luminaries. This platform is used to bridge the gap between bedroom and professional DJs to ensure a thriving industry. Now, every first Friday of the month we join forces with our Neighbor’s, a new club called Lepht, sharing the premises at 4 Buiten Street with us. We are showcasing 12 DJs from most dance music and related genres, most of them up and coming. Read on for more info and the flyer…

Cee-Rock “The Fury”, or Fury, as he is known to his friends and colleagues, is no new-comer to the Hip Hop scene. Born and raised in Jamaica, Queens, Fury has his roots in “Hip Hop Central”. Fury is featured on Sweden’s George remix of ‘The Things You Do’ (Written by Denniz Pop & Max Martin) which hit the Top 40 in Sweden. That same track became an import hit in the U.S. and was ranked by Billboard at No. 37. “The Fury” has been seen on MTV with Ananda Lewis, freestyled with the Rap Coalition (sponsored by Wendy Day); performed at the Apollo Theater; Video Music Box with Ralph McDaniels and Crazy Sam; Underground Ruff House with Uncle Jesse Barnes and can be seen in NAS’ video ‘Hate Me Now’, featuring Puff Daddy. And guess what? He’s coming to South Africa. Read more for tour dates!

Mic Check started in 1998 as a monthly Saturday matinee, which grew and by 2000 started hosting acts from Jo’burg and Cape Town. In 2001 we helped in the Durban leg of Black August (an international tour with a medley of American hip hop artists). In the same year, we also hosted English hip hop theatre performer Jonzi D. In 2003 we hosted the African Hip Hop Indaba, a national hip hop festival featuring a number of local acts including Spex and Mizchif. With the large number of talented artists we found, we decided to gather and record a compilation to help develop their careers…

I caught up with the talented Maylay Sparks during another stop in my town on his recent tour and he was down to do an interview for the Africasgateway community. Maylay has a deep catalog and has worked with the best of them but has never had that massive distribution or promotion so you are forgiven if you are still wondering who we are talking about. Do you want to find out more about Maylay and want to know why “Philly” hip-hop got that “fly-shit”? Then read on…

Tune in on Saturday the 27th of May at 10pm for a 90-minute “behind the scenes” look at the biggest hip-hop festival ever staged in SA! SABC1 presents The People Concert, in celebration of Premier Food s becoming the largest 100% Black-owned company in South Africa. The awesome TV Special includes inserts from the live concert in April featuring hip-hop heavyweights Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams, dancehall superstar Sean Paul , the R&B sensation Mario, and the best in local talent, including Freshlyground, Zola, Jamali, Morafe, Loyiso and HHP among others. This TV Special includes unprompted interviews with the artists, exclusive behind the scenes footage, Sean Paul’s emotional trip to Robben Island and Mario’s S oweto experience. Tune in to SABC1 on Saturday 27 May 2006, at 22:00, and join the people of Mzansi in celebration of the spirit of real achievement, youth and freedom . Let’s celebrate with our sponsor Premier Foods, as they continue to deliver their promise to their People – Izandla Ziya Gezana.

Bronze Nazareth’s debut album, The Great Migration, hits the streets May 23rd, 2006 on
Think Differently/Babygrande Records, Wu-International quickly catches up with the man himself for an interview

Since 1999 he’s been at the heart of hip-hop in South Africa. From Optical Illusion’s 1st album “Thought’s Illustrated”, to “Maximum Sentence”, “Expressions”, H2o’s “Amanzi ‘Mtoti”, Optical Illusion’s “Denitive”, Zubz’s “listener’s Digest”, Optical Illusion’s “The Offering” and Pebble’s “Playful Soul” he’s been one of the illest producers we know. With a couple of productions on other albums like the “Coca-Cola Collaborations”, ProVerbs “Book of ProVerb”, H2o’s “Sheleni”, Skwatta’s “Khut En Join” and now his own album, Tongogara Presents “the Beats Against the Beast” compilation. Featuring some of Mzansi illest lyricists like Mawe2, X-Rate, Maggz, ProVerb, HHP, Reason, Nthabi and many others, this album is to be another hip-hop collector’s item. Presenting his new label, Beats Against the Beast, Battlekat is on the hustle, trying to release the album for free so that the masses don’t miss out on this dope release. The album is half way done and is due in August.

Young Nations will be launching his CD on Friday 26th May 2006 at Chilli on Long (96 Long Street) Cape Town. The show will feature RTX, Lungelo and DJ’s Ozy and Kudu. For those of you stuck in JHB you might at well catch DJ C.Live at the Songwriters Club on the 26th May 2006. 40 bucks to get in. For info on both of these shows contact 073 899 5558.

How does it feel being the only Puerto Rican affiliated with Wu-Tang? That question can only be answered through the life of Napalm Recording Artists’ Killarmy member, now solo artist, Dom Pachino a.k.a. The P.R. Terrorist.

In mist of a hectic schedule, Wu-International connected with Dom P for this exclusive and informative interview, Enjoy.

This coming Saturday 27 May sees the return of another Perfect Combination event to Zula Sound Bar 194 Long St. As the name suggests this is a combination event, combining the most popular music styles such as Hip Hop, Electronica, Breakbeat and Drum n Bass into one event. This Saturday we feature 4 Live Acts ( Eastern Robotics, Sammy Sparks, Tone Def Junkies and Sibot) and DJs ( Atari, Soulo Starr and JDL Quake) For a chance to win free tickets to the event, sms “perfect Combo” with your name to 084 868 91 00 (normal SMS rates apply). Door opens at 21:00 , cover charge is set at R20 before midnight, R30 thereafter. Read on for artist profiles…

It’s a wet day in Dar-Es-Salaam today, the Saturday traffic is buzzing as usual, congestion, horns are blaring, near misses, Chaos! Im calmly negotiating through the maze of Daladalas (Private minibuses that are central to the local transport network in Dar-Es-Salaam) and SUVs making my way to Bongo Records studios! The occasion? Exclusive Listening Session for Fid Q’s long awaited and much anticipated debut album aptly titled ‘Vina Mwanzo, Kati na Mwisho’.

This week Laurnea Saphong (BBC Africa Service) interviews Metaphysics (not to be confused with the other Meta from NY), one of Southern Africa’s most prolific rappers. Metaphysics is well known to those who follow the African hip hop scene closely.  You can also check out an interview with him on the Afrolution DVD (go seek that).  In this interview he talks about his role on the Kunta Kinte Mixtape, his thoughts on collaborating with high profile artists like Slum Village plus more indepth information on the latest Kunta Kinte Mixtape. Read more to check out the entire interview…

Just wanted to draw your attention to what will be going down at da SA State Theatre this coming Friday the 26th May 2006. More than 20 hip-hop acts will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the SA State Theatre by blessing the PTA masses with some raw hip-hop talent. Included in this is the launch of the Beat oven Mixtape, which will see people receiving a free copy at the door. Read on for more info and to view the flyer…

For over two decades, DJ Scratch has been everyone’s favorite DJ’s favorite DJ. Acknowledged as one of the greatest DJs of all time, Scratch is the man who provided the flamboyance to EPMD and Jay-Zs’ stage shows. Throughout the years with EPMD, Scratch drove audiences into frenzies with visual and technical routines far beyond mortal DJs. One of his most famous routines is cutting Big Daddy Kane’s “Friday the 13th I’ma Play Jason” line as he emerges from beneath the turntable set wearing a hockey mask. Various DJ routines & turntable tricks created by Scratch over the past 15 years are still being duplicated by concert and Battle DJs today.

As an MC, producer, DJ and devout crate digger Cadence has been involved hip hop in one way or another since the mid 80’s when he was growing up in Cambridge MA. He started getting serious about making music in the early 90’s, but it was the 1995 release of the “Cycles” 12″ by Raw Produce (Cadence and Pitch) that brought him to the attention of most listeners. At the time, what many listeners didn’t know was that Raw Produce had already gotten their feet wet in the game by making beats for the legendary Tommy Boy label, but after shopping for (and nearly landing) a major label deal, they had grown disillusioned with the music industry an set their sites on making independent hip hop.