Reflections On AKA’s ‘Levels’ At 10
As Levels turns 10, AKA’s collaborators and producers reflect on what is considered one of the best South African hip-hop albums of all time. Featuring interviews with Tweezy, DJ Fanatic, Sim Dope and Moozlie.
On the night of the listening session for his sophomore album Levels, AKA told TheLinkTVShow: “I’m on the brink of a real breakthrough, and I just wanna make South Africans proud and make Africans proud.” It wasn’t just a rapper-in-his-prime hubris but the words of a visionary.
Over the last decade, Levels has become an undeniable South African hip-hop classic. A masterclass in artistic reinvention, Levels represents a pivotal moment in AKA’s career; his take off into pop superstardom.
Many things we associate with AKA “the pop star” find their roots in Levels — from the recognisable dance music samples to his signature lustrous soundscapes and his knack for collaboration, all underscored by his Pan-African perspective.
He unlocked the gate
The cheat code to maintaining one’s position at the top of the food chain for popular music artists has always been association with new producers and artists. Ask Michael Jackson, Jay-Z, Drake and Kanye West. Throughout AKA’s decade-long run, he kept his ears open for new voices.
Levels marked his first collaboration with Yanga Chief, who later proved instrumental in shaping AKA’s trajectory. Several AKA pop hits, most notably ‘Jika’, bear Yanga Chief’s writing credits. AKA attributed the lines “Akabambeki kana hhayi lo, ubambelela on the styrofoam” from ’10 Fingers’ to Yanga Chief’s pen. AKA described Yanga Chief as “one of the people who’ve helped me take my career to another level” during his 2019 Orchestra On The Square concert.
Yanga Chief, who also directed the music video for ‘Run Jozi (Godly)’, recently shared that the few lines that made the hook (interpolated from TKZee’s ‘Sikelela’ embellished with the phrase “Godly, run Jozi”) were extracted from a 32-bar verse he recorded over the beat: such sharp editing is a testament to AKA’s meticulous craftsmanship. Some lines from the rest of the verse, Yanga Chief says, were incorporated into other AKA verses.
In the late 2010s, Yanga Chief became the leader of a Xhosa rap wave that is still active today. He is also one of the most gifted contemporary songwriters having penned his own rap and Afro-pop bops and co-written songs by other artists such as Kwesta and Thabsie’s mega hit ‘Ngiyaz’fela Ngawe’.
Levels also served as a launch pad for one of South Africa’s most prolific hip-hop producers, Tweezy, who has crafted hits by the likes of Kwesta, Emtee, Nasty C, Riky Rick and A-Reece. Alongside producers like Lunatik, Ruff and Makwa, Tweezy defined the versatile sound of South African hip-hop in the 2010s.
Tweezy’s work on Levels tracks grabbed the game’s attention. From the horns that shouted like hadedas on ‘Run Jozi (Godly)’ to the symphonic trap he assembled for the ‘Sim Dope’ beat and the ratchet DJ Mustard sound he infused in AKA’s chop of ‘Got A Love For You’ by Jomanda which Brenda Fassie also sampled for her 1991 hit ‘Ngiyakusaba’.
“He pushed you to become a greater version of yourself,” Tweezy says after sharing that it took a year of sending ideas back and forth before they could make the songs mentioned above. “By the time we landed up the hits that we made, I had unlocked this new level now where I’m this dope composer but I understand the market from a sound standpoint where I can make a high-quality South African record.”
As a young bedroom beatmaker, Tweezy was used to banging out beats on his own. But working on Levels introduced him to a production process that included other personnel such as music director Master A Flat, songwriter and producer JR and recording engineer Sticky Monwana.
Levels illustrated the “regular dude… with extraordinary talent” who released Altar Ego three years prior — they called him the Prince of SA Hip-Hop — ascending into an iconic Pan-African pop star, the Supa Mega. Levels was that rare case of ambition matching execution. “We started out with a vision and at times it felt like we would never get there,” AKA wrote in the album’s sleeve, thanking producer and engineer Sticky Menwana, “but you forced me to grow as a producer and artist.”
The album was essentially about levelling up in all spheres, hence the title. “We grew from taxi routes to sho’t left in a jumbo jet/ That’s first class to a higher self… Levels,” Stogie T recited in the album’s intro. “Chase waterfalls and stream songs/ Connect Brenda, Steve Jobs and King Forbes.”
One more thing…
Whereas his debut album Altar Ego (2011) proved his proficiency as a rapper, Levels, released three years later, saw AKA colour outside the box, overlapping into uncharted territory; a rapper intentionally attempting to be a pop star which by the time of his passing in 2023 he was a classic case of; AKA spent most of the 2010s at the top of South Africa’s radio charts with songs that were loved by audiences of different age groups and backgrounds.
Altar Ego had cemented AKA as one of Mzansi’s best rappers with a healthy commercial appeal. His arrangement with I.V League (a producer trio he was part of alongside Buks and Kamza) could have sustained his career for at least two or more albums before reinvention became necessary. But that’s what the average rapper does. Not Supa Mega. He wanted a bit more for himself. He wanted it all.
The makings of the world’s greatest minds always include a psychotic level of ambition and the desire to push oneself to unthinkable limits. Steve Jobs’ obsessive demand for perfection gave the world some of the most fascinating gadgets in human history. That same trait in AKA led to the unshakable classic album that is Levels, a “one more thing…” moment of sorts.
A student in the class of Kanye West who sampled Daft Punk’s ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ for his 2007 hit ‘Stronger’, AKA looked outside of hip-hop’s wonted jazz and soul samples during the creation of Levels. He, instead, shared a piece of his upbringing by sampling popular dance music he grew up on, from Brenda Fassie to nostalgic house classics that appeared on Soul Candi compilations and the like. “In order to bring together the whole country at that time, we were going to use dance music,” says DJ Fanatic, who was AKA’s DJ for more than a decade, “whether we like it or not, it’s like how everyone is using amapiano because it is what people relate to right now.”
By the time he passed, AKA was known for his polished sonics that blended an array of flavours informed by his taste of both old and new. “We (CashTime Life) were The Dust, he was The Sheen and Da L.E.S was The North,” former CashTime Life member and TV presenter Moozlie says, placing AKA in the mid-2010s climate which was “the one era South African hip-hop had a definitive sound” referring to the new age kwaito sound and all its strains that, alongside trap, led to some of the biggest South African hip-hop hits of all time — K.O and KiD X’s ‘Caracara’, Kwesta’s ‘Ngud’’, Cassper Nyovest’s ‘Doc Shebeleza’… the list is long.
“And then there was whatever the hell AKA was making; whether it was like boom bap beats or it was this fusion of house music or 80s South African disco vibe with classic South African hip-hop. He was doing his own thing in his way. It was still quintessentially South African which we all loved. AKA was a radio killer. He dominated the scene,” Moozlie says.
Around the time he released Levels, AKA felt he was close to hitting the ceiling in South Africa. His next step was to spread his tentacles further into the rest of the continent.
‘All Eyes On Me’, a mean African hip-hop hit, was part of a long string of Mzansi-Naija collaborations that aligned with AKA’s Pan-Africanist vision. The song, co-written by JR, blended hip-hop with bubblegum and dancehall seamlessly. ‘All Eyes On Me’ remains one of AKA’s most streamed songs alongside its younger siblings ‘Fela In Versace’ and ‘Company’.
Burna Boy, who was already big in Nigeria, was spending a lot of time in South Africa making some moves. ‘All Eyes On Me’ is the song that introduced him to a majority of South African fans. He joined friends and frequent collaborators AKA and Da L.E.S for the supergroup The A-Team that released a few songs but unfortunately never got to release a project or cement themselves as a collective entity. A big African music “What if?”.
Da L.E.S additionally appeared on one of the album’s singles, ‘Kontrol’, a song rooted in a life of overindulgence in liquor and weed. The song and its music video depicted a night in the life of the pair and their peeps. In the music video, AKA steals his father’s Benz and hits the freeway with L.E.S to a house party that gets shut down when the owner (played by JR) returns.
In the song’s first verse, he namedropped Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane, his then-manager with whom he was gunned down in Durban in February 2023.
‘Kontrol’ was a display of AKA’s production skills. He used his sample (‘Mma We’ by Jerah) sparingly in the hook while Master A Flat’s keys, strings and synths dominated the verses. A direct opposite of the minimalist approach he took on ‘Sunshine’ featuring J’Something and Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie.
A rap album
With all the sonic experimentation, rap was still a huge part of Levels. AKA’s momentous sparring with K.O on ‘Run Jozi (Godly)’ is a cultural moment. According to K.O, it was “trying to out-goof each other” on set that led to him climbing on top of a Siyaya and thrusting a few push-ups that would go on to punctuate “Ngizok’bamba ngo left ngik’bambe ngo-right, mina kleva, I will hurt you”. Reason (you call him Sizwe Alakine now), another lyricist who was having his moment in the mid-2010s, joined AKA to document the pressures of success to a circuit of synths and vocodered hums and vocals sampled from ‘Drop The Pressure’ (2004) by Mylo.
Levels depicted a prospering life and career. It was a celebratory occasion with a few reflective moments that felt sentimental without turning the celebration into a pity party. One of the album’s standouts, ‘Sim Dope’, is a song about AKA setting a standard for himself; if it’s nowhere near his wealthy childhood friend, the titular Sim Dope’s (real name Simphiwe Gumede) level of success he doesn’t want it, he expressed in the song. “So if I die, I’m leaving behind some real dough/ Or bring me back as Sim Dope, there’s still hope,” AKA rapped.
In the spirit of rap, AKA also threw some shots at his arch nemesis Cassper Nyovest who he would obliterate on ‘Composure’ a year later. On ‘Sim Dope’, he only gave him a couplet: “They pull my name out the envelope, you should fuck with the winners/ You got some buzz from your singles, but that’s just luck for beginners.”
‘Sim Dope’ flew over many heads when Levels came out as it took Sim Dope speaking at AKA’s memorial service nine years later for people to connect the dots. Do you, fools…?
When interviewed for Channel O a few weeks ago on-set for #AKALevelsX, a documentary commemorating the album’s 10th anniversary at the South African Hip-Hop Museum in May, wearing his permanent smile, Sim Dope admits he is still flattered by his friend immortalising him. But he admits he also blew his cover. “Now I’m on Channel O… holding the mic, this was never the plan,” he says. “Maybe the only plan was I must buy Channel O to be on the mic. Now I’m here thanks to him… a gift and a curse.”
If you tilt your head and squint your eyes…
On most of Levels, AKA was self-reflecting when not self-glorifying or doing both. But ‘Daddy Issues’, produced by Cape Town producer Ameen who crafted hits for pop star Jimmy Nevis, was an observational piece where AKA revealed what he made of the world around him. As one of the most popular hip-hop stars in the country at the time, AKA was a regular in the clubs (in his office clothes, remember) and ‘Daddy Issues’ told the cautionary tale of a woman who frequented the space. “Girl, you really need to slow down, every day is only like 24 hours/ See you around town/ Running around with the wrong crowd/ Bet you make daddy so proud,” he sang lethargically in the hook as a sample of Frank Ocean’s ‘Super Rich Kids’ trudged next to his chopped and screwed vocals.
The subject was depicted as a materialistic debauchee whose ways can be traced back to daddy… and mommy issues (“I bet your mom made the same mistakes/ Now you stuck with a maiden name”).
“‘Daddy Issues’ to me ke conscious rap, that’s the kind of song I would make,” Stogie T recently said while commenting on AKA’s subtle social consciousness. “‘Sim Dope’ is about a kid who don’t got it,” he adds. It may have been subtle on Levels except on ‘Run Jozi’ where he deployed Migos’ ‘Versace’ flow and rapped:
“You turn on the tube but all that you see is Versace, Versace
You go to my school, they can’t tell you shit ‘bout Chris Hani, Chris Hani
This is ain’t the land of the free, no propaganda machine
Handle my flag on the screen, then light a candle for ‘Dibs”
But towards the late 2010s, especially on his 2018 album, Touch My Blood, AKA was regularly making reference to Mmusi Maimane, uMkhonto Wesizwe and FW De Klerk, making his political stances clear.
On the delightful deep cut ‘Let Me Show You’, another Ameen production, AKA spoke to a love interest who completed him and helped better the pain of life and celebrity. “They build you up then break you down like Berlin Wall/ When times is tough you’re like the sun that make my world revolve,” he rapped in the first verse. He used the song’s third verse to give his collaborators, management team and affiliates their flowers. He crooned over his signature synth squelches and wandering chipmunk soul sample vocals. ‘Let Me Show You’ was autobiographical with AKA rapping:
“Think back on my old life
Got a little buzz through the grapevine
And a couple outfits on lay-bye
Mommy had to work on the late nights
Daddy had to swim with the great whites”
‘Daddy Issues’ and ‘Let Me Show You’ performed the function of deep cuts quite well, revealing the rapper’s takes on life and serving as introspective moments to mark Levels as a balanced body of work fit for classic status.
Levels is a body of work that does all it needs to do in just 11 tracks and a 40-minute running time. It had mega hits and potent B-sides that contained some of the finest rapping and production of the fiercely competitive 2010s. It ushered in new blood, created cultural moments and its appreciation has grown over time. Levels leaves no single box unticked. Once you get it, you never get enough.
Tweezy, DJ Fanatic, Sim Dope and Moozlie were interviewed at the South African Hip-Hop Museum during the filming of a #AKALevelsX, a documentary on ‘Levels’.
