South African hip hop dislikes Lucasraps
South African hip hop hates Lucasraps, and why shouldn’t they? What has Lucasraps contributed to the culture?
Well let’s set the scene again, the year is 2016, and a young Luke Duncan Malong, also known as Lucasraps, is brought on stage by a nationally recognized artist by the name of Nasty C, on one of the biggest stages in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, on East Coast Radio Durban Day.
Think about this moment, as a 15-year-old kid in high school, having to rap in front of your idol, from your hometown, how prepared are you? What will you say? What will you do? Well check out what Lucasraps did;
Watch Lucasraps’ performance below;
Lucasraps delivered a speedy freestyle off of the dome while incorporating Nasty C, the crowd, and Durban Day, so in simple terms, he smashed it.
A few months later, Lucasraps is sitting in class and is telling all his classmates about the time that he was in Johannesburg and how he met people that his peers would only ever see on television and on stage.
But while he was still talking, Lucasraps felt hungry, so he took out a sandwich from his backpack and took a bite. Here is the problem though, this was his computer class and there was a big sign in front of the class that clearly stated; “Not eating or drinking” for obvious reasons.
So Lucasraps’ teacher catches him, and like his sandwich, he starts chewing him out.
But this wasn’t Lucasraps’ first time being called out for eating in class, he gets kicked out of class and is sent to the principal’s office.
So Lucasraps gets to the principal’s office and he explains that he wants to be a rapper and he’s dropping out of school.
He then walks back into class and gives all his classmates a marker to perform the traditional farewell t-shirt signage on his school shirt usually reserved for matriculants on their last day of high school.
Now I don’t want to rehash Lucasraps’ story too much, because I previously published an article that gives a break of his come up but I want to pick up, but I want to pick up Lucasraps’ story just after he discovered Blxckie.
Now, I’m not going to act like my article about whether Lucasraps was betrayed by Blxckie didn’t cause a rift between these two Durban natives, my view was just speculation and I think it made the situation real. So how do I know this?
Well, Blxckie released his long-awaited debut album, ‘B4now’, and Lucasraps was nowhere to be found on it, except on an earlier released song, ‘Big Time Sh’lappa’, which put Blxckie on, which seemed like a bad move if you consider that Blxckie was actually put on by Lucasraps.
A few weeks later though, it would be reported that Lucasraps had bought a R14,000,000 house in the Northern suburbs of Johannesburg, this is where I believe the unfortunate troubles started for Lucasraps.
As much as we hate it, the public, and especially rap artists are the biggest pocket watched, I mean it is just human nature.
Lucasraps’ mistake here was posting the Property24 advert of the house which clearly showed the R14,000,000 figure.
After Mzansi A-Listers would contact the realtors handling the property (house), the bombshell would be that the house was actually still for sale and had not been purchased.
Lucasraps’ manager, King Tre Li, would later confirm that Lucas was actually renting the house for R60,000 per month.
The ‘Slide’ rapper would later post a video on social media claiming that he moved out of the house because his dog was killed in an accident on the property.
A few months later, Lucasraps would announce that he had signed with Def Jam Recordings Africa and that he was gearing up to release his debut studio album after having released ‘Derr Boy’ a few months earlier.
Watch the official music video of ‘Derr Boy’ below;
‘Derr Boy’ was still Lucasraps’ biggest solo song and it was marred in its own controversy, this is because it sounded a lot like Baby Keem’s song, ‘Vent’.
Well, there was a leaked version of “Vent” by Baby Keem featuring Kendrick Lamar on YouTube, but as of now, the leaked version of the song is not available on YouTube.
You can however still listen to the official audio of “Vent” that was later on uploaded to YouTube by Baby Keem himself.
Listen to Baby Keem’s song “Vent” below;
I have always had an issue with South African artists copying blatantly from overseas artists, but it was more expected in 2004 and 2005 because a lot of the time it would go unnoticed, and with the internet age, it is even worse.
I really hate it when South African rappers blatantly steal from American rappers.
Now let us quickly define homage versus stealing.
Homage is when a line, a reference, or a piece of music is used from another song to bring up a sense of nostalgia.
Stealing on the other hand is when you use that reference to define your song without changing enough to call it a homage, and yes it is based mostly on opinion.
In the widest sense of things though, I don’t think the general public gave a damn because it still wasn’t enough to build excitement for his upcoming debut album, ‘031 To The World’.
This is because the single, ‘Derr Boy’, was not used as a backdrop for the album, and by the time the album was released with the official single as ‘Slide’, it wasn’t as well received as intended. What is even worse was that Lucasraps’ protege Blxckie was nowhere to be found on the album.
So none of his other music had an impact after that, which leads me to what gave me the idea to write this article today.
Lucasraps released the deluxe version of his album ‘031 To The World’ on Friday 5 August 2022, and even though he is one of the big figures in South African hip hop, it failed to reach the top 100 hundred streamed albums of that week.
So today we are going to find out how you are going to avoid this situation.
How do you avoid being a big star online and on television but then it doesn’t translate to your music numbers?
Timing
The best time to drop a music project or a succession of singles is while your hottest single is still crazy online and on the charts, done.
Arrogance
Now I’m going to ask you guys a question that is going to seem dumb at first, but I promise you that you’ll be surprised at how many people answer this differently.
What is a musician’s job?
Now you would think that the answer to the above question would be easy but look at the different answers that I got.
- To write, record and perform music
- To entertain
- To heal bro
- Make timeless art/craft with a story behind
- To pass a message, share experiences, be the voice for the people, and make people feel a certain way
Now do you want to know what the answer to the above question is?
The answer is pretty simple, ‘to make music’, finish, and klaar.
All the other answers help you to become a popular musician, however, the basic answer is just ‘to make music’.
You would not believe how many artists send me emails to be their manager or put them on this website, but when I ask for their music, they send me two or three songs that they are getting ready to release in the next few months. Or they use the famous line, “I’m cooking up some dope stuff that is in the vault”.
Now Lucasraps was stuck in the same truck for a while, after missing a period after the big Dr. Peppa feature ‘What It Is’, Lucasraps took a long break from releasing any notable music online.
Watch the official music video for ‘What It Is’ by Dr. Peppa featuring Chang Cello, Lucasraps, and Riky Rick below;
In fact, up until Blxckie’s ‘Big Time Sh’lappa’ was widely released in November of 2020, Lucasraps hadn’t had a single since ‘What It Is’, which was released in October of the previous year.
A lot can happen in thirteen months, Lucasraps’ time to release a music project was right after the success of ‘What It Is’. If he was not willing to release a project, then he needed to at least keep the chatter running by dropping more singles.
So to all musicians out there, you need to keep releasing music, keep the chatter running, and keep posting more music.
Blxckie had over 200 songs and features in a span of two years before the release of ‘Big Time Sh’lappa’, just because he made it didn’t mean he stopped releasing music, you can just go through his SoundCloud.
Watch the official music video of ‘Big Time Sh’lappa’ by Blxckie featuring Lucasraps below;
‘B4now’ wasn’t the end of the deal during that time and it is not like he was making just hit songs either, songs like ‘Gas’ and ‘Steppin’’ didn’t really do much in the mainstream.
Even now, ‘Together’ and ‘Investigate’ are not that big, but if Blxckie didn’t drop them and had them do little numbers, do you think he would have actually put out ‘Kwenzekile’? My point exactly.
Controversy
Now the last point that I want to get to is pretty simple but very important, controversy is not worth it if it does not point to your music.
Cassper Nyovest the guy that we love to hate, apparently stole his lyrics and music for ‘Doc Shebeleza’ while beefing with the late AKA.
A month later, Cassper Nyovest would release a big song, ‘Phumakim’, naming AKA directly, boom! people now want to listen to that song.
In another instance, Cassper Nyovest announced that he was releasing his album ‘Thuto’, and then he made the music video for ‘Tito Mboweni’ with R10 notes that looked too green, fast fake. What do you go to do? Go and stream the video on YouTube.
A month later, Cassper Nyovest announced his concert ‘Fill Up FNB Stadium’, it was all calculated.
Basically, you have got to use your controversy that forces people to listen to your music in order to get the controversy.
Lucasraps had a 14 million rands house controversy, but that was just controversy for the sake of controversy, it had nothing to do with his music.
He did have the controversial ‘Derr Boy’ which was a controversial single and at least the controversy gave it a thrust, the problem is he didn’t use it to promote the upcoming project, ‘031 To The World’.
I really think this is an important topic to cover, controversy and gimmicks are really good at promoting your music.
In fact, many artists have thrived off of controversy and have had long-standing careers because of it, you just have to learn how to do so.
