Young soldiers of the SA HIP-HOP movement!

R – Who is the most underrated local Kwaito star

SIYA – Geez dude, how does a Kwaito star – if he is already a star, get underrated? hmmm I can tell you of Kwaito guys that are overrated though.

R – Name 3 Afrikaans musicians you know, off the top of your head

SIYA – Moer, Steve Hofmeyer, Leon Schuster (although he’ll sing shosholoza he still Afrikaans) and Bles Bridges (I think his a dead Afrikaans singer)

R – We found out (if we told you our sources, we might just have to kill you) that you do many other things on the ‘side’ other than rap, care to disclose?

SIYA – Yeah, I do a few things. I’m a dude that doesn’t have much of an educational background so it only makes sense for me to use myself and the little income I have as collateral to make more money. My passion is really in the marketing of our arts and what’s exciting me at the moment is the new website we just started called www.ventialtion.co.za .
It’s a magazine/record store site. I’m trying to create a clientele on the site where people can buy our music and merchandise through the site. At the moment, we have all the projects we worked on and you can also pre-order the new Skwatta Kamp album. Ultimately, I want to open up a local hip-hop shop where people can get anything in the market on site. My motivation for this, is that we are always getting bullied around by major store owners and they don’t want to make our products available the way we want it. If we have our own outlet on the site, hopefully everyone that went to the store to buy will start buying on our site, plus with the magazine online, it’s more value for our consumers on the whole lifestyle element. If we grow the way we want to within two years, we will probably start publishing Ventilation magazine on shelves. It’s just a long-term dream; we need to work hard to make it happen.

R – Skwatta is a big group, when you perform at gigs, how do you split your makings? Equally amongst all of you or how do you work it out?

SIYA – We split them equally

R – what are the difficulties of being in a huge group in terms of creative conflict?

SIYA – It’s actually an advantage more than a disadvantage. When we are in studio, we all understand that we are working for one cause, so if there’s a conflict it’s never an ego thing. It is to better the product, so we’d rather have that than nothing at all.

R – Does your popularity in this country reflect in how much money you make?

SIYA – I’d be on Yacht, Zola’s finances would embarrass Patrice Motsepe’s, Nelson Mandela would call Bill Gates ‘ibari’ (stupid), to sum it up nicely – No!

R – What are the biggest challenges of being a rapper in SA and what heights can one reach in terms of success?

SIYA – Being a rapper is a label, getting people to invest in you is difficult in South Africa cause most of the guys with money are either white and aren’t about to invest in black culture and the rich blacks are new money who aren’t prepared to invest in anything they don’t understand. What’s worse is that as a country, our esteem is generally low so we don’t appreciate change and growth favorably. Forget being a rapper, being young and trying to be something is difficult already, especially in the arts.

R – What are the biggest misconceptions people have about your group?

SIYA – I’m not sure but some people make us feel like we are conceited. I really think the opposite, to me, the group is the most humble dudes compared to other dudes I’ve met. I’m not very big on people’s misconceptions or perceptions; actually one needs to focus on who ones self is in this industry. That is the most important thing otherwise you will lose your mind

R – There have been rumors circulating that SKWATTA KAMP is splitting up, can you clear this up now – what is the truth?

SIYA – No, the new Skwatta Kamp album is dropping end of September. It’s the hottest thing this year.

R – Do you think that Hip Hop as a form of expression in this country is effective?

SIYA – Compared to the revolutionary changes hip hop has brought globally or even in America nah. The majority of young South Africans are not really big on listening, they just follow trends mostly but who knows what will happen in time.

R – How do you feel about BEE? What are its flaws?

SIYA – I’m not that politically inclined but I guess it’s a good idea. Like a lot of the ideas our government has but implementation can sometimes ruin the best of ideas and I think the government comes with a lot of good ideas but maybe the people that implement them either get too greedy or mess up a lot of things. I think the one thing that South Africa fails to understand is that what take for granted today as a free nation will only determine where our freedom is tomorrow so as long as nepotism, corruption and all those things are done by our own people in government, a gap of animosity is being created between parliament elite and the black majority and who will rescue the black majority when things really get bad? The white man.
This will definitely come with a lot of conditions that will tamper with all the opportunities we have now which we are wasting. Something to think about, I could be terribly wrong and if I am I’m sorry for even saying this.

R – Young kids, love and listen to SKWATTA KAMP a lot. In what way do you feel local hip-hop positively influences the youth?

SIYA – I think it’s definitely inspiring. It speaks to them in many ways and most of them might just want to be rappers.

R- When you put together a verse to lace over a track, what is the first priority in terms of what goes in the song, the fact that it must rhyme or what?

SIYA – It must represent who I am and where my thoughts can take me more than it needing to rhyme, and then we try finding a beat. Sometimes it works vice versa

R – Do you feel that artists have a responsibility to kids in terms of the lyrical content of their music or that it’s the responsibility of adults to monitor what their kids listen to?

SIYA – I don’t think anyone has a responsibility to anyone except themselves. If you feel something for the kids then it’s on you to be responsible. Those same kids have the discretion of listening or not listening and could hate your guts for trying to be responsible cause they not trying to hear that so people need to just do things for their own reasons. You don’t owe it to anybody to be good or bad. Just be you and make God feel like he never wasted his time.

R – Do you feel positively about the political future of this country?

SIYA – The country needs people like you and me so do you feel that you can make a difference in this country. I believe I can, where we are going with Ventilation, will be a place where employment and aspirations will be created. We want to give people the will to live and our little contribution will add to everything else happening in the country. I need to answer the question of self before I speak for the country.

R – What do you feel contributes to artists using drugs and alcohol so excessively?

SIYA – It’s pressure to deliver, peer pressure, pressure to make this industry be what you dreamed it would be cause it’s not, pressure to convince yourself you living the high life of stardom, pressure to make yourself feel exclusive cause your esteem could be so low. You feel me? This is my opinion though.

R – Do you feel that the government has an aggressive enough approach to dealing with the AIDS pandemic?

SIYA – I think they should just give us the cure than we wouldn’t even be talking about this. They know how to clone people but they can’t cure AIDS please. This is a debate we always having with my comrades

R – Is there anything you want to say to the readers on the site, about anything at all. It could be about you or whatever you want.

SIYA – Reading has always been the future embrace change and go to www.ventilation.co.za and help us grow our music store. You can order any other local cd that’s not on display and we can get it for you and shine on.

R – Please write a piece for US called “LIVING IN SA IN 2006” off the top of your head. Make is as long as you want, the minimum being 5 lines.

SIYA – Living in SA in 2006

Welcome to 2006 where there is space
For losers and space for winners
Poverty and Wealth
You can work hard but by
God it’s so pointless
If you working for the wrong team!

It’s not really that bad though the people here are very dynamic and can contribute so much to the country.