Hoover & SDot Discuss The State Of South African Hip Hop

by Phil Chard

Hoover (Co-founder of Rapfornication) had sit down with SDot (South African Hip Hop writer, Cheka Digital) sat down to shoot the shit on the current state of South African Hip Hop. The conversation went a little like this

Hoover: Yo first off, I’d like to give you props and dabs on the impact you have on social media with regards to this Hip Hop shit. I can’t speak for others but when you tweet your views, I listen.

SDot: My dude, I appreciate. I never look at what I’m doing or who I’m touching. I just speak my mind because the truth is there are men that are running scared or taking sides instead of being about the game.

Hoover: That’s very true. I mean as a dude living in CPT and looking at the game from the outside I see this. Dudes is taking sides and closing up the genre. That kills the growth of the game and hinders where we could be as South African Hip Hop.

SDot: Very true. I mean, dudes trying to eat. I can’t fault that. It becomes a select few and everyone scrapes for whatever is available.

Hoover: And we hear what you’re saying in the music too, rappers have been vocal about it. Do you ever feel like the pie is too small for all our rappers to be eating? Because year in and year out it’s always the usual suspects on our TV’s and radio.

SDot: I don’t think the pie has a size. I mean Cassper filled up the Dome. There were Black Motion fans that supported Hip Hop that night. There were Black Coffee fans, there were South Africans and just people in general. I think we look past the size of the pie, we can decide on the size we want. Speaking of the size of the pie, do you think the attention is mainly on JHB than any other area?

Hoover: Yeah the attention and focus is predominantly on JHB. I mean for example Caps City is right next door to JHB but I ain’t seen any lenses on that movement in a while. Durban is Durban. They got their uniqueness and more importantly, the city supports their acts fully. Maftown rappers have to move to JHB to make it and CPT and Eastern Cape rappers are pretty much overlooked. I can’t really blame Hip Hop or the media for that though. The hub is JHB with regards to our show business. When you look at it, it’s pretty much systematic.

SDot: Very true. I had to vacation to Cape Town to have a sit down with FonZo. I feel that the Hip Hop game is emulating the job industry. People gravitate to the City of Gold. I’ve been a fan of Ill Skillz for the mere fact they are an incredible group. I believe, and might be stoned for this that Cape Town is to SA Hip Hop what New York is to USA Hip Hop. I still believe being territorial is a good thing. It means your area supports your area. Each area can bring out their strength. Charity starts at home.

Hoover: Very true on the last point and I’m inclined to agree with you with your Cape Town and New York Rap comparison. They going to have to stone us both if they disagree haha. I wanted to ask you this for a while now. Does SA Hip Hop really have legends?

SDot: Look, I believe a lot of guys have done a lot. Some might see it is a little but the genre is still an emerging industry. I mean we gotta respect Ready D, we gotta respect Emile YX, and we gotta respect Tumi. It’s just difficult to say “Respect the Legends” because we have so little of them to celebrate.

Hoover: I’m hearing you. In terms of the discography and projects that are out, it might not be enough but their impact and what they been doing for the growth of Hip Hop in country is not be questioned. That shit must be documented and remembered forever in Hip Hop circles.

SDot: But are we comfortable with having our greats and legends only celebrated in Hip Hop circles? Your Bra Hugh’s, your Don Laka’s, your Brenda Fassie’s, can we honestly put our legends in the same breath as them?

Hoover: it’s a mismatch right now G. The legends that you mentioned are not only legends in our country but they are icons in Africa too. Like you said, the game is still young, and that can also be said about Hip Hop on the continent. The prominent rappers right now are on that path of greatness. So for me it’s only a matter of time till our rappers can be pictured in the same light as say MaBrr. It all will happen with time.

SDot: What’s your take on bars in the game? Are bars a necessity in the current climate?

Hoover: I don’t want to say bars aren’t a necessity right now because I mean you just have to go to the albums and mixtapes being released right now. You will find plenty. We can’t however get away from the fact that rappers here making singles for the radio. So that means hook over bars in most instances. To be fair though, rappers are going back to the culture of spitting and that’s great for Hip Hop in South Africa. What’s your take on it G?

SDot: I think now more than ever, bars are becoming a necessity. As you say dudes is aiming for the radio but radio is a business that plays what we as listeners like. In this day and age, radio doesn’t break records, it hypes them up. So if we say Tumi is a legend, why aren’t we hailing the same silver lyricists? I don’t have an issue with turn up music. I love it but dudes getting lazy. They are spewing garbage in favor of a radio single. I’ve always believed turn up is ignant, have ignant lyrics not hogwash.

Hoover: You just walked straight into my next question. Do you think rappers here are following the American Hip Hop model?

SDot: Definitely, WTF is a carbon copy of Rae Sremmurd. Look at it this way, USA is the biggest Hip Hop demographic in the world. It’s seen as the trend setter. It’s not just turn up, which is growing cause of the number of clubs and events, but everything else. From promotion to marketing, a lot of them are emulating.

Hoover: When you put in that way, you make us question if we can call it “ours”. I mean we got Skhanda, Motswako and the other emerging sounds that have African and township roots to it.

SDot: Yeah, we have sub genres. But what we do have is our stories? Americans have 40s, we have iNgud. We have 11 official languages, tons of heritage. I believe we see a working formula and then adapt it. To be internationally recognised, maybe, but that doesn’t make us stand out.

Hoover: And that’s exactly the difference between African Hop Hop but more specifically Nigerian and our Hip Hop. The states and the world wants to hear WizKid, D’banj and etcetera because there’s only one version of them.

SDot: And they are the only people that can do what they do. I mean, take Youngsta. That accent is unique to Cape Town. That’s his heritage. That’s him. That should be at the very least, what others areas of South Africa gravitate to. He is proudly Cape Town. Proudly South African

@Hooverpapi @SDotJR_

This articlcle originally appeared in Rapfornication