Episode 5: Born for this gift with amaXhosa rapper MC Kideo

Music!Dance!Culture! Episode 3. Born for this gift with amaXhosa rapper MC Kideo

In this episode co-produced with guests researcher Sudiipta Dowsett and interviewee amaXhosa rapper MC Kideo (aka Makhi Mketho), we hear about Kideo’s journey becoming a rapper growing up in Khayelitsha a township on the outskirts of Cape Town in South Africa’s western cape. Kideo talks about the influence of traditional forms such as Imbongi poetry and Kwaito music on his own development as a rapper, the way he began by performing the verses of others and gradually introduced his own, the role of other hiphop artists and spaces to exhibit his work and his heartfelt reflections on the tensions between amaXhosa traditional culture and the influence of western culture and Christianity. Features recorded music tracks and a sample of live performance. Contains some strong language and brief reference to violence.

Featured photo of MC Kideo taken by Laduduma

Music featured by MC Kideo and other artists

Kutyiwa by MC Kideo (Backyard Crew) releaesed 2016  - https://soundcloud.com/kideolakakintlebackyard/kideo-kutyiwa (excerpt: 1:55-2:40)

Emthandazwen by Spijojo Heavyweight produced by Joejo. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5dEKVzbzKM> (6:08-7:13)

Poetry performance by HRH Zolani Mkiva for 2010 Fifa Men’s World Cup -  FNB Praise Singer <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnzwvH-mPNA> (8:07-8:52)

I'm Not In a Hurry by Kideo featuring Soska & Agmaad released 2013. (12:24-13:22)

Ndizobhubha by MC Kideo released 2017 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgsDlN0tRxI> (16:36-20:11)

Kutyiwa by MC Kideo (see details above) (full track 27:48-30:51)

Live performance of verse from track One-Two (31:14-31:49)

Unyana Wolahleko by MC Kideo ft Sudiipta Dowsett and Shadow (aka Left Eye) due for release by Monotoca Music in 2023 (33:55-39:31)

Sound effect samples used

Radio tuning noise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GIrIs4Q_y4&t=2s

Fire sound effect in high quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz9ftphTWTM&t=11s

Research by Dr. Sudiipta Shamalii Dowsett

Dowsett S, 2020, 'The Routes of Hip-Hop in Cape Town: Collective Performance Practices and the Embodied Sociality of the Ghetto', in Peddie I (ed.), Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music and Social Class, Bloomsbury, New York, pp. 485 - 506

Dowsett S, 2019, 'Transformative effects of hip-hop events in Khayelitsha, South Africa', in Walters T; Jepson AS (ed.), Marginalisation and Events, Routledge

Dowsett, Sudiipta. Revolutionary but gangsta: hip-hop in Khayelitsha, South Africa. Diss. UNSW Sydney, 2017.

Glossary

amaXhosa - Xhosa people
isiXhosa - Xhosa language
spaza - a genre of rap music from the townships near Cape Town
kwaito - a form of South African popular dance music 
Imbongi - South African praise poet

Music Dance Culture is produced by Georgia Curran and Mahesh White-Radhakrishnan. This episode is guest co-produced with Sudiipta Dowsett and MC Kideo, also known as Makhi Mketho, a big thanks to both of them. Theme music by Mahesh, remixed and produced by Arian Pearson. Sound design by Mahesh featuring transitions by Alexis Weaver. Thank you to all the artists featured in this episode: MC Kideo, Backyard Crew, Soska, Agmaad, Shadow also known as Left Eye, Heavyweight Spijojo and The Honorable Zolani Mkiva - links in our shownotes. Thanks also for support from Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of New South Wales, Abongile Biggz Aprils and PARADISEC and to our beta listeners James Humberstone and Jennifer White-Radhakrishnan.