Hip-hop woman What? What? talks about her name and coming home this weekend to roost
Ben Joseph
A telephone rings in Manhattan. The answer service. Hang up. Try again. A tired, uncharacteristically small voice answers on the second ring. “Hello, this is What? What?”
What? What?, who is now calling herself Jean Grae, but was born Tsidi Ibrahim (as in Abdullah), is a loud and mean New York MC, who, at 10am, sounds tired – but then MCs don’t keep office hours.
The 24-year-old rapper, born in Cape Town, is coming “home” for two gigs, the first of which is on Friday night, at hip-hop club Metropolis, in downtown Johannesburg.
One of her first big gigs was rapping on a Herbaliser album for Ninja Tunes. “Who is this What? What?” everyone asked, impressed by her cool, unhurried, I’m-not-trying-too- hard way with words. That album seemed to revolve around her lengthy rap dream of her perfect man, and what she would do when she found him.
But it all started to make sense when it became clear she is the daughter of Sathima Bea Benjamin, and Abdullah Ibrahim … and who, wisely, went to seek her fortune in New York City.
The sound of a police siren drifts down the line. On how she writes, What? What? says there is “nothing concrete” about her style, and it does not happen in any particular place, or at any particular time. Writing, it has been said, is making endless cups of tea. Phrases occur, while crossing the street, or on the bus: “You never know when something is going to hit you, sometimes you won’t be able to write for three months and then … pages, pages, and pages come out.
“I don’t think you’re in control of it. I write to music, and I listen to what the music is saying.”
On a hunch I ask, “Do you have any tatoos?” “Yes, I have nine.” One, a black dragon-like creature snaking down her neck, and with which her parents are “very pleased”.
“I never really thought of myself … as fitting in. It’s kinda like what I did. I try not to think about my image. I focus all my attention on the music. People can’t really put me in a category, I just don’t fit in … hey, that’s maybe why I don’t have any money right now.”
But rapping is “always satisfying”.
“Hey, I should shut up, it’s the best job. I never thought I would work from nine to five, and I didn’t think I would study anything particular academic. It was natural, my parents understood. It’s like, my daddy’s a rapper.”
Every MC needs a name and perhaps the Africaness of Tsidi did not sit well on the American tongue?
“Oh, that What? What? thing. I’ve had it for a while – people who know me personally, call me what … everyone was like … what what what what what WHAT?
But now another name change, another reinvention, more questions.
“I want to start over, to reintroduce myself, but I’ve taken months to think of a name, and I never think I’m going to come up with one, and then a friend of mine suggested Jean Grae.”
The name, as any comic fan will know, comes from an X-men character, whose special power is telekinesis.
What? What? seems to be looking forward to her visit. “It’ll be a dose of sunshine.
“Hip-hop can cross so many boundaries and this is the thing that is bringing me home to do something. There are so many naturally talented people making music out there.”
What? What? will appear with Mr Len, hip- hop DJ Bobbito Garcia and local outfits Amu and Mizchif tonight at Metropolis, 154 Market Street, Johannesburg. See the show on April 29 at the Long Kloof Studios in Cape Town. For information call Tel: 082 237-7800