Rappers Delight In The Vaal

Hip Hop culture has, throughout its extensive existence, proven to be quite controversial and paradoxical in that it has evolved and assimilated a plethora of social expressions and refined them into a collectivised protest aimed at systems of oppression so pervasive in our times. This notion sprung into my after attending a session at Zone 6 Venue, where artists such as 9^th Wonder who turn-tabled beats while Skyzoo dropped lyrical atom bombs and sent trigger-quick bullets through the microphone. That is where I encountered the selection skills of one DJZakes Mixmaster, and a throng of other Hip Hop heads navigating the murk and storms of a cult that is slowly consuming South Africa.

Basically, I was left wondering about the visible gulf between the young Hip Hoppers crunking their wares and flipping scripts to synthesisers and beat machines in simulacra to US bubble gum mainstream brands, and their older peers who still scribble papers of wails while blasting bootleg TDK tapes in automobiles filled with infants on their way to kindergarten. 

These are undeniably old school Hip Hoppers that have characterised the longevity of this culture within our borders, and who still blot the annals of SA Hip Hop history. Their contribution towards the steady growth of the culture in the country is to forever be lauded, but damn, most of them are now grown ass beard-spotting men with routine family lives and corporate responsibilities. I encountered a lot of them during the last couple of weeks when I began something of a journey of rediscovering the J-Sec and Vaal Hip Hop scenes.

The prickling exhilaration I felt at the SoCo Show held at Salsa Lounge, another dingy hovel that resembles a sheeben long abandoned by train riding men, took me back to those heydays of Boom Bap Hip Hop. This obscurely situated hangout, minutes from Kwaggas Station train tracks which are hotspots for stuff-riding, pulsates with urchins and brutes that populate the joint. And you would be certain they just hopped off one of the metal serpents clanking along to the sounds and rhythms spewed by worn-down and rattling speakers.

This is Sebokeng or SBK as it is fondly referred to by its seedlings, and I am having  an induction smack dab into the Vaal Hip Hop scene, headlined by hard lining MC’s from the inner sectors of die-hard crews and raucously ambitious contenders on the battleground filled with lyrical slingshots and ambushed punchlines.

A week passes, soon I am at Punchline’s album (Thiba Nta’oo) launch, which was hosted at Intersexion Café, Sebokeng Zone 13, a somewhat ‘up market double storeyed hideout’ for the crème de la crème of local celebrity. Dope session and a marvel of market diversification it catered. One could clearly notice the age differences between each of the crowds at the respective venues I have so far visited, but this also seems to speak to categories and clique mentalities spawned by the financial objectives of profitability for hosts of such shows. But I must admit, here were some well-organised gigs in the midst of a township not known for many Hip Hop spots, let alone events, which further echoed the difference between struggles of suburban Hip Hop and Kasie Hip Hop.

There are obvious long standing beef and rivalries ushered by class divides between various aspirants and admirers of Hip Hop in the Vaal, which though characteristic of the mainstream myth spread by the media about Hip Hop, end up in actual fatalities.

As the evening slowly progressed with my receding day’s hangover, sultry women street-smart conscious-type began to crowd the venue. With all abandon they danced stilettoed and bounced delightedly stimulated by rhymes and beats by Kaydo. Kitch disco lights danced blue on their faces, and smoke machines made clouds for fantasia of their making. Subdued eroticism of Freeky’s lyrical swerves kept their airs misty and wet, and these were but two among some emerging and notoriously recognisable artists from the Vaal, sending masses skyward with deck selections mingling with vocal acrobatics.

Street creed disciples HERBEX stepped on stage to admiring screams and stomps, and cold stone thuggin’ Mr KOMMANDA Obbs (from Maputsoe, Lesotho) kept trashing sissy boy poses of city slicker rappers, sending parable ripples through a frenzied crowd in abandon.  Then Golden Shovel grabbed the microphone, where even his freestyle drooled voluminous testaments of township brutal realities. So rest assured,  content is key for most of these MC’s, and the idea that the commercialization and eroticization of hip hop into a trashy expression of pent up sexual fantasies is not a norm at all here. These are MC’s who can adorn sex with honourable gowns it deserves, especially when music is not to be a tool of misogyny but an art form deifying the female form.

Dreadlocked heads bobbed to Dilla and Primo classics rammed down parched voiceless throats of young Africans making language of their protest against cruelties of a boring contemporary existence.  DJ White Dog on flaming decks, arms flapping to Craig Mack’s Project Funk while grown men mimed to Biggie’s Suicidal Thoughts. They were slaughtering youth’s troubles at midnight under suspiciously spying looks from lazy cop in cars jamming vacant intersections, hours ‘Killing Them Softly’ like refugees who don’t want to return home. So, basically SBK nights will never be the same with lyrical brawls in cyphers replacing hostel attacks on civilians.

Images by: Khahliso Matela