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Born and bred in Cape Town, Youngsta CPT has performed the biggest festivals, shared the stage with international stars and even has his own record label, called Y?GEN. But it was only by chance that I heard one of his tracks playing on Tuks FM.
That song, called Salutas, also happened to have some of the most original lyrics I’d heard in local hip-hop in years. His most recent track, Top Ten List, is an incendiary takedown of the nepotism in the music industry and poses a question we all should be asking: Why hasn’t Youngsta blown up like he should? I caught up with the rapper over Skype.
You’re on tour in Zurich, Switzerland. What’s it been like?
It’s a chance to prove myself again, to introduce a new sound that people this side might not be familiar with. It’s refreshing for me to come here and perform for an audience that doesn’t really know much about my people, our slang and our dress codes. Even the term “coloured” is not used in other parts of the world, so even just explaining to them the culture, history and heritage is an experience in itself.
[Swiss producer Maloon TheBoom cuts in: “Every show he plays in Zurich, the crowd is blown away. They actually went crazy; they want to take selfies with him and stuff.”]
I want to talk about your track Top Ten List. The video is quite violent. You’ve got a row of body bags hanging off a beam. What’s the intention behind that?
I’ll body-bag the top 10 rappers that you give me – anyone. People always say, ‘Youngsta, you killed this verse’ or, ‘I heard that track and you killed it.’ It’s a term used in hip-hop very commonly, so I just took it one step further.
You start off the song by saying: ‘I have a few discrepancies I’d like to address. I’m probably never gonna make the number one spot, but I can tell you right now some names must be chopped. You’ve got to rearrange the order, maybe do a quick swap. Macklemore, Thrift Shop, is not hip-hop.’ Why is Macklemore not hip-hop?
I just feel like the essence of hip-hop is not rap. There’s a difference between rappers and MCs. MCs are the guys who tell stories and paint pictures very vividly.
The way hip-hop started, the fundamentals of the culture, like your B-boying [breakdancing] and graffitiing and DJing and MCing, those things are hip-hop. I remember the year Macklemore won the Grammy for best album and beat out Kendrick Lamar. Lamar had put out his album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, which was about his experience as a child growing up in Compton, Los Angeles, and how violent it was; that was real hip-hop and he didn’t win a Grammy for that. I was trying to highlight that it’s not about who’s making real hip-hop any more; you can just penetrate pop culture and do it on a catchy beat and dress like a rapper – wear a few chains and do songs with popular rappers – and you can be considered the best rapper. You don’t have to be telling a story any more or tell people your personal experiences.
Can white people be rappers?
One of the best people in the game is white – Eminem. He brought some of the best people in the game in. He’s a true lyricist, he’s an artist; he’s not just rhyming ‘cat, rat and hat’.
You go on to say: ‘Industry folk play the game with the cheat codes. This shit is rigged like machines in casinos.’ Do you think that the local hip-hop scene is rigged?
Like a lot of other professions, it’s based on who you know and what connections you have. But it’s something people are very much aware of. But I’m explaining to the listener that this is why your favourite artists or the guy you think is good is not playing on TV – because he doesn’t have the keys to that door, or he doesn’t know the locksmith. If you know people, you bypass a few steps. So you’re coming up like us out of nowhere like we did, with no connections, no friends of friends who are working at a radio station...
Is Cape Town overlooked when it comes to hip-hop?
Yes. Our music is very overlooked. When people talk about Cape Town, they talk about tourism, they don’t talk about music like they do when they’re talking about Joburg.
I feel like a big part of achieving success seems to almost be luck of the draw. I look at an act like Dookoom, and all the cards seemed to be lined up for them to be break-out stars. They have the street cred by having Isaac Mutant, and are tackling the most relevant topics we have right now, including racism and land reform. And then it just didn’t happen. I can never put my finger on why some things blow up and others don’t.
You must remember that South Africa is a crazy place. When a coloured guy is saying some shit – I mean I look at Cream’s album and there’s a lot of ‘poeses’ and ‘naaiers’ in that album, but if, say, Ninja [from Die Antwoord] says that, it doesn’t come off the same way. It’s not as confrontational. When a coloured guy says it, you know he’s saying that when the recording’s off as well.
So when we rap in Afrikaans, it can be taken negatively because of the environment it comes from. There’s a stigma of fear around coloured culture. There are movies also that exploit that, like Four Corners. So I can understand why, with a guy like Isaac, people might be afraid to book him, or think it’s too aggressive.
Speaking of which, what do you think of Die Antwoord?
They’re doing what’s working for them. I don’t knock the next man’s hustle. At the same time, Isaac Mutant, Garlic Brown and Scallywag were the ones who gave them their stripes. At least they came out of the right hands – if [Ninja] had just made up that whole Cape coloured guy thing out of his own imagination, that would have been a problem. But he was schooled by three OGs [original gangsters]. That kind of gives him that street cred. He got schooled by Mister Miyagi and now we’re getting upset because he beat everyone Mister Miyagi told him to beat.
Youngsta’s latest album will be dropping soon. Follow him on Twitter @YoungstaCpt for updates
