What could the title of this be?

Dude! Really? These are the words that raved in my head when I wrote bashemane, a pedi rap song in which I sampled Tracy Chapman’s fast car. The melody in that guitar is tempting and irresistible. Of course I had to pick up the tempo and kill everything so my signature could find some room. After the song was released on Logik Gate Music (a digital music distributor for independent artists) one of the downloaders said it was jazzy because of the jazz guitar I had added as a counter-melody. As an engineer by profession, you don’t easily accept that art is a process until you reflect on the whole creative journey.

Wait…did I just say art is a process? Okay never mind. If you follow the work of Leornado Da Vinci it becomes easy to concede to the fact that indeed art is a process. I’m so tempted to be technical and philosophical about this lol. Very, very unnecessary. Moving right along. My mind works faster than everything so by the time I start typing I’m already on the next thought which is not even related to this body of work. I really think Bantu Holomisa should’ve been a rapper — nah… I think he’s too humble, maybe Gatsha Buthelezi of IFP. You’re probably thinking that’s so random and irrelevant. Yeah, I told you!

The first verse of the song was really emotional. Here I am in Jozi and everyone probably thinks I am from one of the suburbs whereas I was born and bred in the rural heavens of Limpopo. So I had to spill it all out and throw in a couple of Sepedi idioms and proverbs. My umbilical chord was not cut off in a hospital. It’s quite funny because the verse starts by mocking the not-so traditional boys by playing around with common animal names such as cows and goats. The story starts here:

Bashemane is a song that connects you with your childhood self whether you’re Venda, Zulu or Ndebele. For every listener, the same air is smelled from the song. The shared common experience is evident in the second verse where the piano from the chorus introduces you to a vibrant voice that chants “I’m conservative, ke ja magapu diperekisi.” Almost all South African rural areas harvest watermelon during rainy seasons and it’s been keeping us quenched especially in the festive seasons for a good century.

I had never been so proud of my culture. I had to pause on verse 2 towards the end because in my mind I was thinking, damn, we’re a perishing nation. I mean, we don’t even know who we are anymore. The other day I told this chick that we should go out and feast on menatlana, malana and dikilana. Guess what she said? I was told that I’m uncivilized and not classy, and that she doesn’t eat waste. I took it personal because I grew up eating this kind of food, as luxury. So my fancy is waste? In other words I am the man I am because of waste. Basically I’m waste. Imagine! The balls…no…uhmmm (not balls, I take it back, all of them). The guts!

3rd verse someone had to, for the first time, be proud of the food we grew up eating. The chicken intestines, gizzards and all the ‘waste.’ It didn’t matter whether I was a politician, engineer, technologist or economist. The fact remained that one was proud of the food as one still eats it to date. Enough about food, for sure women are so excited that someone is finally understanding why food matters. Women eat! My mom always says she’s getting fat and she doesn’t know why. Sometimes I just stare at her and go like “Joh mama, at your age seasonal changes bring weight and then she nods in agreement.” That time it is the middle of winter. I’m just practicing to be happily married.

You can’t talk about Limpopo and not mention witchcraft. It’s our trademark. Although I think it’s overhyped at times but no place has ever been written about on newspapers as they’ve done with us. We’re like a factory of witchcraft, according to Daily Sun. I figured the art in the science and magic truly represents the nature of the song and that’s why I had to liken myself to witchcraft. Showeeee!

We’re working on the video that seeks to subliminally depict the message in this song. The video will be released in September. It is also my first music video and it’s rich in heritage and symbolism. I’ve personally never seen anything like it on TV. It is basically everything I’ve been lamenting to see come out of the country. Plus everyone has been telling me I shouldn’t be cliché and follow the trend in my videos.

In my opinion, change is about to come and I don’t know what to call it. This is definitely the blueprint of something great and I can’t put a name to it.

Somebody creative please help!

What could the title of this be?