Sizwe Sibiya
Over the past three years Mzansi has seen the careers of many male rap artists wasted as the music audience shifted their focus to amapiano, the ruling genre on the country’s airwaves.
With borrowed characteristics of most loved genres in Mzansi, amapiano was bound to rule the streets.
Verses and hooks from kwaito, hip hop and instrumentals are largely influenced by jazz and deep house music. There is everything for every music lover packaged in one serving called amapiano.
In Thokoza, Ekurhuleni, lyrical female rapper Nomfundo Yekani has taken social media by storm after her appearance on MacG’s Podcast and Chill on Monday.
“My name is Nomfundo Yekani, the daughter of Zweli and Phumla Yekani,” raps the rapper in the song “31st July”, which is her birth date and the day she lost her mother in 2008, she reveals in the song.
“31st July” is the first of seven songs on her 2020 EP titled Alpha.
Even though she grew up “struggling” with her father and brother, she said she was able to enrol at university after finishing matric in 2015, but dropped out to chase her dream of becoming a professional artist.
Her career is still blooming. But the few female MCs who have been on the commercial scene for the past 10 years – like Nadia Nakai, Rouge and Gigi Lamayne – cannot afford to branch out into amapiano like other male rappers. The space for female MCs will be too big to fill.
Reason, who’s known as Sizwe Alakine in amapiano, is one of the rappers, including Cassper Nyovest, who have released an all-amapiano album to increase the number of bookings.
But this only happened after the SA hip hop genre grew between 2009 and 2018, when rapper Kwesta brought international artists to the country, like Rick Ross and Wale, to shoot music videos on songs they were featured on.
The failure of a few hip hop record labels like RapLyf to nurture the talents of huge rap artists like Kid X, Makwa and Kwesta, to name a few, led to the downward spiral of the popularity of SA hip hop in the country.
Other labels like Ambitiouz Entertainments and Cash Time life also contributed to the fall of multiple male SA rappers.
“Thanks Chillers worldwide for giving me an ear….I can only build from here Now….cheers to the new beginning,” tweeted Nomfundo on Wednesday, thanking the fans who are called ‘Chillers’, of the MacG’s Podcast and Chill, which is hosted by MacGyver ‘MacG’ Mukwevho and Solomzi ‘Sol’ Phenduka on YouTube.
Image source: @NomfundoYekani
