The music video for their single Social Ills was at number four on Castle Loud’s charts for four weeks and they can be seen on Channel O and heard on various radio stations.
Like all good hip-hoppers, Godessa have adopted grandiose titles that somewhat elevate them from their humble beginnings. Vocalist and co-producer Eloise Jones is now known as EJ von Lyrik. She hails from Mitchells Plain and has performed with top outfits such as the Neophytes, Darker Shadez of Funk, Brasse vannie Kaap and Prophets of da City.
Co-vocalist Bernadette Amansure calls herself Burni. She has roots in the Lavender Hill, Steenberg, area. Burni has worked with artist Marco Polo and a producer called Silver Fox. Their recordings remain unreleased.
Shameema Williams goes by the handle Shame. She started writing rhymes in the mid-Nineties and later got involved with hip-hop at rehabilitation centres and prisons.
Von Lyrik, Burni and Shame teamed up in 2000 with producer Grenville Williams, who had played bass with crossover outfit Nine and raggamuffin group Firing Squad. Williams co-produced and mixed the band Moodphase5ive’s new album as well as tracks on the African Dope label.
So much for their pedigrees. What Godessa rap about, according to Von Lyrik, is “current”.
“But sometimes there are things that happened in the past that people were too scared to speak about, which we also bring up so that people will think about them now. It reaches the youth instantly. If you’re talking about Aids, for example, it’s not like standing behind a pulpit or having a seminar at school with the kids falling asleep half the time.”
Hip-hop is a two-faced beast. It has a social conscience, but is often pretty gung-ho. Vocalists often brag about their sexual and artistic exploits, leading to the aggression found in gangsta rap. And sexism is an issue that has manifested itself in hip-hop more explicitly than in any other Western musical form.
“It’s almost like it’s not kosher for women to [vocally improvise on the mike],” says Shame. “There’s a general perception that women should be organisers and that they can’t be MCs.
“I stopped battling [the term used for rapping] because it’s just become public abuse. In America MC battling is not much different, but it is less sexist and racist. But we have an outlet now, making history as being the first female rappers in the country to release a single.”
Godessa performed in Amsterdam in November 2002, in a play produced by a company called Made in the Shade. Their gig was organised by the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa and Bush Radio. They also performed at last year’s Black August festival with Dead Prez and BLK Sonshine.
The Black August event organiser, a member of the New Jersey Performing Arts Council, arranged for the crew to perform in New Jersey at the Planet Hip-Hop festival.
After seeing them at Oppikoppi last year, a representative of the Department of Arts and Culture invited them to play the Cuban Wemilere Festival.
In Cuba Godessa represented contemporary South African music. They also modelled tribal clothing. But they found their Cuban gig a little too “low-fi”, played at ear-piercing volume on old, worn-out equipment.
“There were really old cars and buildings. But there’s no discrimination between race groups over there. Everyone lives in the same area, dresses the same,” says Shame.
They also discovered Cuban locals are discouraged from speaking to foreigners, and “people are afraid to speak about local politics. People are discouraged from travelling abroad. Our guide was turned away from the hotel where we stayed because, earlier on that day, we had discussed Cuba’s economic and employment situation with him!”
At the Planet Hip-Hop festival in the US Godessa met “socially conscious people like Chuck D and Afrika Bambaata”. According to Shame, “It was a conference with discussions that took place over the current state of hip-hop.”
These included a political debate headed by Bush Radio presenter and ex-Prophets of da City member Shaheen Ariefdien.
They witnessed anti-war sentiment at the hip-hop conference, while on the streets people’s patriotism was expressed with flags attached to cars and hanging out of windows.
“Many African-Americans are angry with other African-Americans supporting President George W Bush — the World Trade Centre having been built on the site of black slaves’ graves. The group Dead Prez took the American flag, burned it on stage and passed it to some people standing in front. People grabbed their lighters and burned it,” says Shame.
The day before Godessa arrived in the US, Jam Master J of Run DMC fame was killed. “We watched the negative perspective that people have of hip-hop on CNN,” Shame recalls. “Because he was killed with a gun people said it was gang-related. But he was [reputedly] never involved with that kind of thing. They blew that out of proportion. A few days later, a major promoter was murdered in Brooklyn. It was implied that there was a link.”
After Godessa’s American gig, people came up to them and said things like: “We haven’t heard three girls rhyme like that” and “Nice beats!”.
Godessa are showing us how hip-hop can speak across continents, finding a common voice. This time it’s a global girl thing.
Catch Godessa at Carfax in Johannesburg on January 25 along with many other great acts, including Moodphase5ive, Constructus Corporation and Krushed & Sorted