For a while now people have debated why South African Hip Hop has not been creating the buzz it normally did a few years back. We have been hearing a lot of gatekeeping claims from various artists and some like Gigi Lamayne who even threatened to quit the industry.
Sizwe Dhlomo was a recent guest on Podcast And Chill with MacG where he touched on the state of SA Hip Hop and why it has not been doing so well as of late.
To be fair Amapiano took over for a minute but now Hip hop has revived itself.
“One of the things why hip hop was in a dire state as of late, is because a lot of the guys that got access to those platforms and opportunities then decided they want to be artists themselves,” said Sizwe.
“In my view, you can’t be a referee and a player at the same time. So if for example, your duty is to push talent then do that, don’t be jealous of talent in any way, don’t feel like you got to block them because they’ve got a song and you also got a song coming out. That’s a conflict of interest in my view and for me, I was very clear I never wanted to do music,” he said.
Gigi Lamayne recently slammed the industry and said there are a lot of gatekeepers. Big Xhosa was her recent guest on Point Of View (POV) Podcast and she told him,
“The reason why I have never been affiliated to click is that the day hip hop realises that we don’t have to be grouped up, you don’t have to choose your favourite female rapper like let’s just get together and make things will be the day that we can compete on a level that Amapiano is competing on. Until we can understand that it's okay to have different flavours of different artists, there is enough to share, I think that will be the point that we actually grow,” Gigi said.
Gigi claims that more Amapiano artists are booking her and not rappers.
“The reason why I started mixing up genres it was because there is no support in hip hop. King Monada’s song was my biggest song that doesn’t make sense, Fufa was bigger than Ice Cream that doesn’t even make sense.”
Big Xhosa is new in the game so Gigi devised him on how to navigate in the industry and succeed.
“You’re okay as a soldier on your own, you’re okay figuring out this machinery on your own, its never going to be a he said, she said, and I clearly say that you’re a straight talker, and where there is trouble, gossip and stuff move away. Hip hop is very toxic in this country, I’m telling you, very toxic, so the reason why I have mixed up my genres is not really out of choice even though I know I'm versatile.” she concluded.
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