You grew up in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Tell us about your hometown.
Port Elizabeth is known as “the windy city” and “the friendly city”. It’s the cleanest city in South Africa. It’s great for bringing up families or retiring because it’s so chilled. When I was growing up, I was always surrounded by people who were older than me. I was always the youngest in my grade at school because I started really early. Even so, I was always leading when we played games and so on. My grandma told me that I was a bully, but my mother was very supportive and told me to keep leading. She’d scold me for walking behind my friends. “You never follow,” she said. No wonder I became a rapper with a cause.
I never really dated while I was at school. I was the virgin who watched porn. I thought people were dumb for not knowing what a cock or a pussy was. I thought boys were dumb too. I loved stalking them though. I was weird.
Your mother was a singer and your cousins were Kwaito dancers. Did your family have a strong musical influence on you?
Some households switch off the TV or change channel when more explicit artists come on. In my home, we were allowed to watch them. We would sing along to Mousse T’s ‘Horny ‘98’ lyrics not knowing what they meant. I thought being horny was to do with the horns of a bull and going on a bull ride!
The church I went to with my grandmother was also very open. They played Kwaito and R&B. At my mother’s house it was all about jazz. The first cassette she gave me was by Mary J. Blige. I was more into Destiny’s Child and the Spice Girls though. I even created my own group called Beps Girls. It’s crazy, because “to beps” is to have sex, but everything was very innocent at that point.
All of these genres ended up inspiring you to create “future ghetto funk”, your own unique style. With it, you send strong messages about female empowerment. How did this become become a key topic for you?
I make sex positive music so that people* know what good sexual experiences should be like. I was violated when I was younger. If I had heard the music that I make now, I would have known that what happened to me was wrong.
You need to own your sexuality. Part of that is being fine with your body. When you own your own body, you’re able to be responsible in your sexual activity. You can have sex with the lights on because you want to see what’s happening instead of hiding the parts of yourself you don’t like. When you love your body, you can notice when someone else doesn’t. You know that it’s not a favor for someone to love you. You know that you are the shit.
