Hip hop identity in a township reality. - Poppunt

apartheid, somebody that passed away or the fact that the street is not a good
habitat for young people. When he has to do a performance, he firstly ‘screens’ his
audience to know which songs he has to include. He also adjusts his songs to the
mood the listeners are in.
“Say there’s a show when I get there I’d see how people feel / right there and
then / and do what will they relate to / that’s when I know which lyrics to
give to them like not to be irrelevant not just come up with something that
doesn’t fit in / so if everybody’s all drunk and happy and wanna dance
there’s a type for that too.”
X states that the power of music lies in the fact that there is music for every mood:
there are songs to listen to when you are happy, there are cheerful songs, and so
on.
Although most of his songs are creations ‘of the moment’, he does put a message in
some of the lyrics. One day he realised that he influenced the younger generation
that were fans of his music, so he thought it would be good to take some
educational topics and convert them into a rap song. X has a song, for example,
telling the people not to get involved with drugs and gangsterism, and he tries to
show that there is a way out of every situation, motivation is very important. He
predominantly uses the Xhosa variant of rap – spaza – to do this. He says this is a
good kind of rap because it contains less swearing than some other kinds and it
also spreads a message.
The reason why he has more lyrics describing negative things than lyrics about the
good side of life, is because of the situation he lived in himself and because of the
people he raps for. X thinks they can not relate to positive things because they
hardly experience that.
“Like living in Gugulethu if you gonna try and rap about nice things and
flowers and peaches and cream / people won’t get it / but if you tell them / yo
I’m suffering / yo my man got killed / there’s gunshoots/ and like if you say
people perhaps get an idea of what you’re going through / what you see /
what you’ve learnt and stuff.”
This viewpoint can be connected to why X prefers South African rap to American
rap. He can relate to the things South African rappers sing about because they live
or lived in the same circumstances he lives in.
“Because they also living in townships in more or less the same townships that
we living in / like he talk about guys who getting drunk / and guys who hide