by Sabelo Mkhabela

written by Sabelo Mkhabela and Sipho Fako

Kideo, though menacing on wax, doesn’t talk much in person. When I’m not asking him any questions, he’s mostly silent, passing a blunt back and forth between him and one of his boys. The rapper’s going through a transitory phase, as he’s steadily working on his first solo mixtape, Spunk Reign. As he moves on with the times, not all his fans are impressed with his new sound.

Circa 2008, Kideo was a deity of some sort, in spaza (Cape Town Xhosa rap), which was popular at the time. The rapper, the youngest member of the then-popular five-man group Backyard Crew from Cape Town’s biggest township Khayelitsha, had struck a balance many emcees spend a lifetime pursuing.

Hip-hop heads respected Kideo for his clever wordplay and slick delivery. So did the casual listeners for his humor and “swag” – a concept that was frowned upon in the subgenre that was built around social consciousness and street-centric rawness.

On both his solo and Backyard Crew tracks, Kideo proved himself over and over again that he wasn’t a chancer. For instance, his 2008 track “Iphupha” was pure genius. On the track, which is a gymnastic roller coaster of emotions, he plays around with the concept of death, throwing some humorous similes and metaphors. Towards the end of the track, he asks death to give him more time on earth by starting its mission in another house: “Kuluzizi lusizi ndiziva ndi-dizzy/ kufa asseblief khaw’qale kweminy’imizi.” He was rapping over whizzing pads anchored by a head-bobbing rhythm courtesy of the Backyard producer Mashonisa.

Kideo has always been next-level, and he’s not showing any plans of slowing down. In 2016, now rolling solo, he’s still sharp as ever, as indicated on songs like “Mtye Mali Yakhe” – a cautionary tale of a typical payday weekend in the ‘hood that involves well-off young men drinking themselves to a stupor and humping whores, among other hedonistic missions. The rapper’s storytelling is still unmatchable. Let’s not get started with the slang on “Pizza Zamadoda”, the first official single to Spunk Reign. Or his relentlessness on “Nku Axo”, a diss track to fellow rapper Axo.

The 26-year-old rapper’s on a mission to, in his own words, “make spaza fresh”. The subgenre has lost the momentum it once had. A lot of artists are distancing themselves from it. One reason is because, save for maybe Driemanskap, Kanyi, Pzho and a few others, there aren’t that many success spaza stories.

Given his rapping skills and his willingness to progress with the times, Kideo still stands a chance. “I’m planning to make it big,” he says as we chat in the studio in which he’s recording Spunk Reign, in Khayelitsha. Killa B, the producer of his latest single, “Show Off”, is chatting to a few of Kideo’s peeps, who are also rappers. On the other side of Khayelitsha, people are queueing to cast their votes for the municipal elections.

Kideo is not about that life. He feels voting doesn’t change shit, and he says it so nonchalantly you can tell he genuinely has no ounce of interest. Today’s just another day in the ‘hood for him. He’s hanging around the studio, a backroom shack behind his producer’s house. He’s rocking a high school blazer, knee-length black shorts and black and grey sport sandals.

He chants “Spunkrrrrr” in the adlibs on “Show Off”, which is playing in the background as we chat. Spunk is a subgenre of spaza, he says. “It’s a new colorful lifestyle mixing fashion with music,” he says. “We fuse spaza with crunk – we use 808s and synthesizers mostly.” Well, it’s not really crunk, it’s trap. But the term “crunk” has stuck to spaza heads, since the late 2000s and early 2010s when cats who were rapping over beats that had pattering snares and hi-hats instead of a boom and a bap, were sneered upon. They were known as “iicats ze-crunk” – crunk cats.

Kideo himself, was deemed “uLil Wayne Wasekasi” – the township Lil Wayne. He admits that Weezy was and still is one of his inspirations: “I used to rap over a lot of his beats. I had a hit track called ‘Move’ which I did over Lil Wayne’s ‘Ransom.’ And other songs.” This Weezy influence led to Kideo trying codeine – which he went to use for two years. “I’m clean now,” he says. He tells me that after I ask him about a line from "From The Era" a song by the popular spaza rapper Ndlulamthi – “I’m from the era iBackyard ibizom’lelwa uKideo kwaba bathi uy’parapara” – the line basically insinuates Kideo is on drugs. “Maybe it’s the energy I bring when I perform,” says Kideo with a chuckle. “And I also have a motto: ‘I’m on drugs,’ which means I’m powerful.”

Another trait he shares with Weezy is his consistent music output. His Kasi MP3 and SoundCloud pages are full of albums worth of music, a reasonable amount of the songs “freestyles” and “remixes” of rap hits like Juicy J’s “Benz A Make A Dance”, Young Money’s “Roger That” and others. He tells me now, though, that he is done giving out his music for free. He also plans to sell merchandise with his album. Basically, the only language he speaks right now is money.

Which is understandable. It’s been a long road for Kideo, and not one that’s been smooth, too. He smiles shyly when he relates the tale of how he became a Backyard Crew member: “I started getting involved with Backyard Records in 2003.” He was 13 at the time, having started rapping at eight, inspired by kwaito, particularly the artist Gciwane, who rapped in Xhosa.

“In 2009, while in grade 11,” he continues, “I did songs at Backyard Records, and the Backyard manager asked me to join the crew.” He had met Phoenix, one of the Backyard Crew members, in high school, who then introduced him to Mashonisa, the producer responsible for all the brass-laden bangers which became the Backyard signature sound.

“He was making beats,” says Kideo about the producer, “but they weren’t rapping over them. He thought he was wack.” He chuckles before he continues, “I recorded my first track by him called ‘Nongqause’. It only had one verse. Some guy from Masho’s school stole the track, and it leaked. That’s when I got excited because people started knowing Kideo.”

The track saw a rudimentary but promising Kideo rapping over a pure Fruity Loops beat which barely had a snare. It consisted of hollow strings that had no effects or tweaks – Mashonisa was still an armature. It did however indicate the direction he was taking with his production. Though he hasn’t been on the scene in the past few years, Mashonisa’s name is still hailed with a unanimous reverence among spaza fans.

Backyard Crew had a great run in their active years. According to Kideo, they wanted to take spaza beyond the township by performing in gigs in the CBD, which they did. The crew’s video single “Baby Girl” got some spins on the national channel SABC 1.

Their 2009 album Sebenzel’eYadini is a collector’s item. All crew members – Mashonisa, Pointwo, Phoenix, Van de Merwe and of course Kideo – were exhibiting their diverse personalities but the project was still a coherent body of work with a monolithic sound, and it still managed to elude monotony.

The tragic death of two Backyard Records members Chankura and Van de Merwe, in 2012 crippled the crew. In an earlier interview I had with Kideo, he told me that was some form of a wake-up call to him. It acted as a reminder that he wasn’t going to be here forever, and so he wanted to make the best of his time while still on this realm.

Which is why he’s adamant on releasing his first solo album, which was due in June, but is suffering a major delay, because the hard drive his songs were saved in recently crashed. He was eight tracks deep. He’s now planning to drop the project in September. “It’s a blessing in disguise,” he retorts, slouching on the studio couch, “because I’m gonna work on new music. I feel inspired.” He still hasn’t finalized the features on the project. He told me earlier this year he was planning to work mostly with “new school” producers, and of course Mashonisa who he refers to as “my Dre”.

The criticism for Kideo from staunch hip-hop heads right now is real. It’s mostly on Facebook – fans who knew the rapper since his early days aren’t too pleased with the new direction his music has taken. But Kideo’s a natural renegade. His stoicism can easily be mistaken for defensiveness when he says “I don’t care about those [who don’t like my new music]”. But he really doesn’t care. He tells me his fans, who he stays in touch with via Facebook, have already committed to buying the album when it comes out.

Though he doesn’t articulate it, Kideo is clearly that kind of artist who gets bored with doing the same thing over and over again. Even if it means replicating other artists, which is something one doesn’t get away with in the spaza scene. For instance, his track “Messed Up Nomakhwezi” – released around 2010 – with a rock influence and deliberately off-tune singing, was an obvious lift of Lil Wayne’s “Prom Queen”. It was at this time that the rapper started losing some fans. They started making comparisons between the old and the new Kideo, and consensus favoured the former. He never slowed down, though – he kept on churning out spaza trap bangers.

His latest single “Show Off” indicates that the rapper is aware of where hip-hop currently is. Apart from the burly trap production, on his verse he chants like he has hiccups, he spits his Xhosa bars discretely – adopting that flow made popular by Rae Sremmurd and other modern hip-hop artists from the US. His Xhosa is still intact, his lyrics still lofty and replete with comical double entendres.

He may have changed a bit, but one thing he never did is fall off. Hip-hop heads are stereotypically anti-progress, and Kideo is a victim.

Listen to a playlist of some of Kideo's key tracks. His album is due for a September release. Get at him on Facebook.