Musician Nkosi X- born Nkosikhona Maseti- recently re-released his debut LP Free Tape on his personal SoundCloud account.
In 2 sentences, who is Nkosi X?
I am an independent artist from George who is now based In Cape Tow. Last year I released my second album titled Free Tape.
I'm a music producer, rapper/singer, creative and also a cultural worker that is interested and committed to the struggle/politics of black people and to also think and create in ways that move society forward, "to invent the future" as I like to put it.
When did you start making music and how did it happen?
I've always loved music since I was very young. I grew up in a family that really had passion for music; my granny was a choir conductor at a christian church, but before that she was a lead singer and dancer in a band around the 70's.
She couldn't pursue her music career further because of her political activism at that time, her parents forced her to stop making music because they felt that it was putting her at risk of being in trouble with the law, and that when she had to go out and perform at concerts they would always worry that she was attending political meetings that might get her in trouble or even put her life in danger. So she stopped making music and right after that she got married to a priest, so i had to be part of the Sunday school choir whether I liked it or not. haha It helped me in some way musically I think.
I actually liked singing in church, it was fun, but when I grew older I started becoming rebellious; I think I was 10 years of age and the year was 2006.
I started skipping church to go watch Hip Hop performances of artists who lived around my area. They used to host Sunday music sessions at a venue very close to my house.
I think that's when my love for rapping started growing. There were certain artists among them that really fascinated and inspired me to want to write my own raps and make music.
When I got older and a bit matured I think I was turning 15 and the year was 2011, I started writing music for a producer around my area who would in return let me record my music at his home studio. I was not really comfortable with this arrangement because i felt like it was limiting me and i was not getting studio time to work on my own stuff. I decided to approach a friend of mine (Prince Rocc) who had a laptop at that time, to start our own home studio, he agreed and we then started our own small bedroom studio. We recorded more music together and performed as a duo called "Master Tears" until 2012. After that we went our separate ways. We reunited again in 2014 through a mutual friend (Travis Blakk) who's also an artist, who approached me at that time and said they were trynna start a movement called Artgang Collective, and ALOG which will be a company under Artgang, and he shared some ideas they had about the movement and said he wants me to join it and contribute creatively towards the idea. I was super keen and I decided to join the movement because I've always wanted to work with people who share similar ideas and really want to create. But I only started working with them in 2015. We released a project titled "Unplanned tape" together as a movement, it was 6 of us at that time. we couldn't do all of the ideas we had because the following year people took different paths. I continued to make music with two members of the Collective, (Silho Mode and Cross Waynx), until the following year.
I decided to move up to this side in 2017 to pursue my music career because I felt that there is a better platform here as compared to where I'm from in terms of exposure and opportunities, even though its more likely the same because of segregation and racism. Cape Town has the advantage of being a City and having a much broader audience.
Tell us about growing up in George and what inspired your first songs?
I actually grew up in Thembalethu Zone 7, the kasi side of George.
George is the suburbs, the white side, to do this question justice enough, where you'll most probably find proper right-winger Afrikaner racists who hate black people with passion, but Mandela's democracy leaves them with no choice but to have tolerance for us haha!
The kasi i'm from, one thing i can say for sure about growing up there is that there is great love and appreciation for Hip Hop culture and music. There is so much talent, be it in football, netball, art and music, we have it all, its just that there isn't much opportunities for black folks to just grab there.
But whats beautiful and more inspiring is that, people haven't stopped creating amazing shit, even though the systems continues to brutally exclude them, they are still creating, they don't stop at all. That's amazing shit right there!
But just like any other hood or kasi in South Africa, there, blacks live in the most inhumane conditions, which then result in a high rate of violence and crime, because even the conditions that we are forced to live under were created violently! Through means of violence and crime! You can tell by just the way Thembalethu is set up, it speaks dispossession and marginalisation in high volumes. You don't even have to grab a book and read about it, its there you can see it.
I don't have words to describe nor explain better how powerful our mothers are
We just manage to make ourselves human there, by striving for a better living, constantly on survival mode so that we can live our ideal lives that were taken away from us by the people who created these very same conditions that we are forced to live under, and as a result they are now living our ideal lives at our cost!
But through all of that I've had good childhood memories there and its all due to my granny, that women is a real fighter, a true hustler. We are raised by the most strongest mothers on earth ekasi and I don't have words to describe nor explain better how powerful our mothers are.
They are forced to put up with the most horrible shit on this earth just for our happiness and our survival. I always say real feminists are the women in the hood, they just don't speak fancy English with heavy twangy accents, they deal with the violence of patriachy at first hand, on its strongest form. I know because one of those women raised me.
I was raised by my grandmother. She is probably 69 this year. She was supposed to retire a long time ago but she never did. I still remember how she would work long hours as a domestic worker, working for an arrogant racist white women who is probably 20 years younger than her, just so me and my brother can look good and taken care of like other kids and not sleep with empty stomachs. I'm saying this to emphasise the fact that we are nothing without our mothers in the struggle, most people tend to sleep on this, and I think that's counter progress and will take our community nowhere. This is not in way to promote that dangerous thinking that "women are strong", like women should remain "being strong" even in abusive and violent situations. I want to be clear on that, I want people to know where I stand.
The older I grew the more I felt more oppressed in George, I just never had the language to explain it nor even comprehend its depth before. I got more frustrated and depressed after finishing my matric, i felt like I was trapped and I wanted to relocate to somewhere else, where I could find peace of mind and start a new life and push my music career and I've always had Cape Town in my mind. Initially I felt like I could fit in better here because of the Art Scene this side, but later realised I was lying to myself; Cape Town is worse than George. Coming to that realisation is honestly excruciatingly agonising.
To answer your second question, my first songs were mostly inspired by story telling. I've always been fascinated with words, bringing words together, to come up with substantial stories that reflect on real life issues and situations. And I think growing up the way I grew up, had a lot of influence on how I write and relate to music. I always felt like there is so much stories to tell to a point where it felt like they were just coming out naturally, I mean in a sense that, it didn't feel important to write these stories down so I can spread awareness about what was going on around me or what I had to go through, but it felt like the experience and our living conditions were already doing the storytelling for me.
I also used to write a lot of love songs too haha. I was too young to understand the idea of love in-depth and being in a relationship, our parents never had time to teach us about these things, so the stuff I would write about love was mostly based on the shit i saw on TV not what I really felt inside haha.
The most genuine love song I ever wrote when I was young, is a song called "Hell love" its on my SoundCloud, you should go check it out haha.
What are some of the challenges that you've had to overcome as a young artist?
There's a lot bro, we'd talk about it until the next day, and I feel like its not safe for me or honest to say these are the challenges that I've had to "overcome". I'm still trying to find a way to overcome most of these challenges. Being a young black artist in Cape Town has made me realise how hard it is to make a living or a sustainable career out of music for people like me. Firstly, I have to deal with the fact of not having financial resources at all, logistics, the necessary infrastructure, a springboard, very important things that any artist who wants to build a career out of music must have. Then I have to deal with racism but on a structural level, so I find myself in a very uncomfortable position, like having to work at the most degrading jobs to feed myself and my family back home and at the same time pay rent so that I can not be homeless. I've been homeless countless times here in this city because of losing a 9-5 job, so I end up not being able to invest in my music. I can't make enough music because i have to spend 9 hours of everyday doing shit I don't have passion for, and on top of that when I at least try and make time for my music i don't get enough access to the studio. So I constantly have to rush things, if someone offers me an hour or so at their studio I have to make sure that I record more than one song, that way its not nice at all for me. I want to have enough time to bond with my music. So I only manage to make music that way, and release it but i don't get enough anticipation from the listening public, there's a few people buying or listening to my music because i have no one backing me financially and market my music through the right channels, so i get none of these bookings, the struggle is real!
I know where all these challenges stem from man. Cape Town is known for being very cliquey, most black artists I've had these conversations with all agree on this. Its really hard for an artist from outside Cape Town to penetrate the industry here or access certain spaces and circles here you know and it gets worse when the people who got the keys don't agree with you on an ideologically but that's a topic for another day, and that shit makes you doubt yourself as an artist, self-doubt cripples you to a point where you feel like your sound is not good enough and you end up wanting to give up. But trust me I've seen artists doing the most mediocre shit here getting booked, getting gigs and shit so sound can't be the main reason why most black artists like me aren't getting clout here or gigs, I think Cape Town hates Black Art and it hates Black thinking!
I think this is way deeper than cliquishness. This city is dirtier than that.
The primary problem here is racism and anti-blackness, the way this colonial city is set up is self-explanatory itself. This is one of the most unequal societies in the world where blacks are segregated all the way to places like Khayelitsha, where blacks are forced to live in tins, shacks, under the most inhumane and violent conditions. Where blacks are forced to get on trains as early as 5am in the morning, packed on top of each other like sardines, to go work for their oppressors, hustling for a better life, but stuck in impasse, while their oppressors enjoy the best of their privileges living our ideal lives. These are the same petite bourgeoisie liberal fools, the 'holier than thou' who say "we are a rainbow nation" but they don't feel any type of responsibility towards blacks, given the indisputable, irrefutable historical fact that carries on up until this day, that continues to keep us marginalised and poor, instead they continue to be on the forefront of our oppression, by defending and prolonging their unethical privilege. This is modern day slaver!
The primary problem here is racism and anti-blackness, the way this colonial city is set up is self-explanatory itself
So tell me, what is life for a black artist here?
Where structural racism permeates the music industry. A lot of music labels here, be it independent or commercial, they have a monopoly over the music industry, that over determines which black artists to incorporate into their white structure. And these gate keepers are very clear on their programme. Firstly, they decide for us which black artist we must listen to and which type of black artist we must not listen to. Secondly they decide what black music should be, sound like and not sound like, all in all they decide what black culture should be.
I think this is white arrogance in its strongest form, I will start there. These people are in no ethical position to tell us anything about our own culture or what to do with our own cultural aesthetics. They control the industry, which means they control us, they control our daily lives, so black art is not in safe hands at all. We must reclaim it!
These are the deep challenges that any young black artist in this country has to deal with.
This shit must come to an end. And it will only end when all black artists come together, create, think collectively in ways that will end this racist power structure.
Tell us more about the Free Tape and the inspiration behind it.
This body of work is an exploration on the idea of freedom, what it is to be free or being free. What does freedom mean for me as an artist who so happens to be from the black community? Because you see, a lot of artists like being dreamy and abstract about it and say "art is freedom", romanticizing the .idea that art is somehow this beautiful escape to the world of "freedom", as if an artist doesn't come to the real world and face real life situations, cruel and evil shit that takes away your "freedom". I had intentions of exploring around that idea and to experiment with new sounds that bring a new sonic texture, freely under no pressure from no label or any outside factor telling us what to do or what not do with my own sound. And the environment I was in during that time period really aided to that idea of "being Free" both spiritually and creatively.
I was in Suurbraak when I was working on Free Tape, a small peaceful village surrounded by nature. I would wake up to sounds of birds singing every morning, sounds of warm winds blowing the trees. I still see the colors of that beautiful feeling, and I'll never forget how inspiring it was.
That environment really gave me peace of mind, it felt like a utopia. I was completely outside of the materialistic world, and I didn't really want to come back, I think if I was middle class, or was not in any rush to make a living, I wouldn't come back. That environment inspired me to write more beautiful and genuinely emotive music. It was just positive vibes, so came out Free Tape.
I'm interested to think and create in ways that move society forward
Do you address any social issues in your music and why/why not?
Yes I do, sometimes I don't feel like I'm addressing issues. I just let my life tell a story for me, if you know what mean. This shit comes out naturally because I live it, I've seen it and I've experienced it. And like I said before I'm interested to think and create in ways that move society forward and ways that transform society.
I've been sent here on this planet to be one of those brains that 2PAC sparked with his ideas of bringing about change. I'm here to clean up the mess he was talking about because I also see it, and i'll do that through my music or through anything cultural/creative I do. Because its not us that are supposed to tone it down, its society, society must change, so that we can end the world as we know it. We know the world for being anti-black, bully and greedy.
We are being bullied to exist here in this one dimensional world so we must end it because its ending us!
What do you think is your role as an artist to your community?
I think I have a huge role: there's so much that I still have to do in order to get to that position where I can be able to fully play that role. I have a lot of ideas that can contribute positively to my community and other black communities as well. I just need more resources and logistics. Me and the Artgang Collective have created this space for black creatives, black artists or any black person that has any idea or work that can contribute positively to our communities, we call it "LUNARFEST". We usually host it on a monthly basis. All the details are on our Facebook page, LunarFest.
So every black person is more than welcome to come and share the space with us.
But my personal vision is to take this initiative outside of that privilege of being under a roof.
There is so many people that we can't reach or that can't reach us because they stay very far, some don't even have taxi fare or money to come to where we are based. I want us to take this movement to the people in our communities. We have more ideas to share that will help all of us and we want people to get together and have a meaningful platform. to share their ideas too.
You see a lot of artists tend to distance themselves from politics like shit doesn't affect them at all, so our intention was to have a dialogue around these issues of how does the two interlink, how does politics affect artists or art itself and to discuss a way foward. This brings me to a story that happened in Germany during the workers protest in Dresden in 1920, where a bullet fired by the police pierced through a painting in the nearby Art gallery. It is said that an artist working for the gallery at that time wrote a letter to urge the protesting workers to move the protest away from the gallery to protect cultural heritage. haha so this man was basically telling protesting workers to go get shot at somewhere else but not close to the "artists's gallery".
So I'm interested in the role of art in society and in relation to revolutionary politics. I always say "i do this shit for the kids", i don't think people know how important that is for me.
The kids are trapped in the streets, under gruesome conditions that any human being doesn't deserve to go through, there is a drug war towards young black kids in the hood, and the government deliberately ignores this, these people hate black people, they don't want us to live! They wanna maintain that life by blocking people like us who wanna change that, and end that evil system of destruction towards young blacks.
These kids are screaming for help and the world is just watching. there will be a time when these kids start helping themselves and it won't be nice at all. Matter of fact its already happening but its just misdirected for now. But I believe that the work I'm committed to doing in the hood will provide just the right direction, its only a matter of time till we come up with something concrete, something tangible. There will be an unled revolution! The next time there is shit like what happened at the Global Citezens event, when the petit bourgeoisie had to walk to their fancy cars and get home, and the "nyaope kids" as they like to call them just came out like a movement and started robbing them! The next one will be far worse than that. Its gonna be bloodshed! The only way this can stop is when we start feeling some type of responsibility towards one another and start helping each other.
Who are some of your favourite artists (either established or still on the come up)?
My favourite established artist now is Blood Orange. That brother is doing some exceptional work! On the come up, watch out for Travis Blakk.
How would you describe you genre of music?
You see that's quite a difficult question for me because I don't feel like I'd do this question justice enough. I don't think I can explain or describe my sound better in words. I think its easier when people listen to it. But the other thing is I feel like people tend to make this mistake of wanting to pigeon hole me in this rap box. I'm beyond that, I really love sound, I love music and I want to experiment more with different elements and sounds, and I feel like there's still more sound to discover. I was gonna drop an album this month XVNTURA, but i decided not to because i feel like i haven't produced enough sound until a point where I'm satisfied and say this is the kind of shit I wanna put out to the world. I want people to feel the emotion I put into my music when they're listening to it. I visualise sound, I want to invite people to my world through the sound I make.
But in a nutshell, the type of music I make is a fusion of different elements, from Indie psychedelic rock, up-tempo, hip-hop and neo-soul, but I still break beyond this limitation itself, this is why I decided not to drop the album I was working on.
Do you collaborate with other artists? What is that process?
Yes I do. I've collaborated with Prince Rocc and Albany Lore on my next single "New life". And there is more stuff that we've worked on together in the past and the present moment, and I also want to work with more artists outside of my circle. I wanna get more people involved, i wanna collaborate more, you know, they say "many hands make light work" and its exactly what we wanna do, we wanna make this movement work, we want to create a culture of working collectively in Cape town, struggle together and help each other where we can! That's the only way to survive here!
We want to create a culture of working collectively
I always collaborate with anyone whom I feel like I really dig their work, and are relevant with the type of energy I'm trynna push. I remember working on Free Tape, and there was this song 'Suicidal Thoughts' that i had just wrote,and i remember trying to find the perfect vocals for the hook, but it just didn't sound right for the type of feel that i wanted for the song, it felt like there was something missing, that this song needed a different energy from what I was putting out, then it occurred to me that there was someone who could be just be perfect for the song. Prince once made me listen to a voice of a young lady singing, i went back and listened to it, and thought to myself "fuck! this is exactly what i'm looking for", so I hit her up, i invited her to the studio, then we made magic! By the way s/o to Rachel Mallet for doing the most on that song!
How do you interact and respond to fans?
I like having positive conversations, and I like spreading love especially when someone approaches me in a positive light. I wanna be a positive motivation to everyone who listens to my sound, and I think its why I have a close relationship with most of the people that love my music: they're my friends you know?
What are your favourite performance venues?
I enjoyed performing at Mercury Live with Albany Lore, it's a dope venue! And I think the Raptor Room is also a cool venue.
If you can have your fans remember one thing about you, what would it be?
Always kept it real and loved my people!