Over the last few years, ByLwansta has steadily been building his name as one of South Africa’s most relatable rappers. His come-up has been one built on consistency, growth, and respecting the audience, whilst flexing his creative dexterity. And while he’s not at the top of the mountain yet, he’s well on his way –…
“I spent a lot of time by myself so I never really engaged in what was happening” explains RRA of his childhood in Rustenburg. While his older brother lay his rap foundation by introducing him to hip hop in Primary School, his attraction to alternative sounds and artists came from scouring the internet discovering music…
The goal of feminism is to move toward gender equality and/or justice for people of all genders. To this end, feminism investigates and challenges the forces that cause injustice or inequality. However, those forces are not the same for all womxn, because forces of oppression (sexism, racism, classism etc.) intersect – cue intersectional feminism. TBH…
South London singer and rapper Elheist is on a mission. Specifically, she says she is “currently in the prime of the rebirth of my desired me”. Her medium is an intriguing blend of all kinds of UK underground sounds- grime, garage, cutting edge experimental production- with their raw edges smoothed over by her honeyed vocals….
A few years ago, I wrote about what I called the Somzification of the South African queer identity. The idea is premised on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s idea of the danger of the single story, the notion that we risk erasing essential identifiers of people’s lives or people themselves if we relax into telling a one-dimensional…
A photographic and filmic dexterity finding its nucleus in real life experience. Candid portraits that remain in cognitive thought. A stylistic virtue that comes across as haphazard play. Tyler Mitchell is a filmmaker and photographer from Atlanta currently based in Brooklyn, New York. A recent film graduate from NYU, his venture into photography was prompted…
Soweto-born, but raised in South Africa’s oldest township, Alexandra, the young rapper known as Richi Rich has been active as a rapper since 2010 when he was part of YunGunz crew alongside Suup Zulu and Hip Nautic Sean. “We all were different, so we all chose to go our individual ways and do different stuff, but we…
Hip Hop is often seen as a music of aggression and raw materialism, but the culture has always had a more abstract, psychedelic side. When I was a teenager, artists like Kool Keith, MF Doom or even Outkast transported their fans to other realms of consciousness. And in the last decade the music has only…
Converse fans are well aware that the Chuck Taylor All Star is the brand’s iconic silhouette. However, for those who appreciate the anti-hero, the Converse One Star encapsulates the spirit of those who operate against the rhythm, living fearlessly on the edge. Launched in 1974, and built for the basketball court, the sneakers were pulled…
Jlin‘s Black Origami was widely hailed as the one of the albums of 2017, with publications from Pitchfork to Mixmag featuring it high on their year-end lists. The second album from the US producer is a blend of visceral thrills and cerebral discipline, with pounding beats running into stretches of beautiful ambience. The album manages to…
Much like the printing press, the internet has democratised knowledge, spreading information that was once only available to a limited number of people all over the globe, simultaneously connecting people to each other. For those with a desire to express themselves through music, there has been no better time than now to learn how to…
I first came across Robin Thirdfloor in 2016 when I was booking acts for Outland, an ambitious music festival that was fun for the one time that it happened. I was looking for young hip-hop acts who were doing cool things but hadn’t really been on festival lineups. Sthembelo Dlamini, our hip-hop plug at Durban…
