These days, kwaito seems little more than an unsubtle sexual hook intended to grab immature kids. But, fortunately, there is a new voice articulating reality with artistic precision. This nascent sensation is Kicky “Slovaz” Ndlela.
There have been several instances where I’ve happened on his song Impilo Kalova while fiddling with the FM dial in Johannesburg traffic. The track, consisting of a sparse bassline flavoured with an ominous piano loop, which is then chopped up with stuttering drum kicks, is reminiscent of a desolate ghetto dystopia on an overcast day. With Slovaz going autobiographical over it, the track evokes images of pugnacious ghetto bastards doing 360s in stolen Beemers. The title track to his debut album, it is a shameless thieves’ theme, reliving the KwaMashu-born musician’s decline into crime with gleeful nihilism.
Here in translation: “The life of crime is tempting me / It looks like I’ll quit school / In the township they say I’m a thug because I’m hanging with gangstas / I learnt to drive with a vintage Bavaria 535 / We used to call it ‘isandla semfene’ when we were tipsy / I was a sharp-minded kid / I am a thug’s thug / The gab flows out my nose.”
The song, co-produced by Slovaz and D-Rex, chronicles the rush Slovaz felt when getting illegal cash, how it began to go sour and, ultimately, how he is determined to triumph over his past. At some point, it sounds like a Tookie Williams turnaround, until the last few lines when Slovaz insists that he still rolls with thugs who “don’t hesitate and never fear”.
Does he make music for criminals? “I make music for the township,” he says. “And in the township, there are criminals.” Sure. Bad boys need a soundtrack too, but sometimes Slovaz comes across as glorifying the madness — the abundance of women, the stolen credit cards, the crisp attire.
“What I’m glorifying is the urge, the desire to get to where you want to be,” he clarifies. “Thugs in the township attract women not [just] because of the cash, but because they are smart and they don’t give up. Some of the methods aren’t right, but it is about conquering.”
Luckily for Slovaz, the music was more alluring than the thug life. “I’ve been musical all my life,” he reveals. “My mother sang in choirs and my father played guitar. He loved music. He played soulful songs by Donny Hathaway and Barry White and I would sing along. I used to be the DJ at home.”
In 1995, at Umlazi’s Mangosuthu Technikon, he formed his first group, The Cave Posse, which later gave way to AD, which featured his homeboy Akuzed.
They started putting together songs around 1997, when Slovaz was hired as an instrument technician at Eskom in Witbank.
The DJ Styles-remixed version of the track Isnqawunqawu Singenile (KwaMashu Has Arrived) was plugged by Ukhozi FM jock Linda Sibiya, an endorsement that led to a deal with Coolspot Productions in 2000.
“I was readily available,” recalls Slovaz of his ill-fated tenure with the predominantly gospel and traditional music label. “I would travel from Witbank to Jozi [to the studio] by taxi, I would bunk work. But the company was focusing on its bigger acts that were making money.”
It was conversations with thespian and fellow Durbanite Chester that led to his scene-stealing performances on Yizo Yizo 3. “Chester introduced me to Yizo Yizo director Angus Gibson,” recalls Slovaz. “I told Angus about my music and that I produced songs at home and he asked for a CD. I also told him I was interested in a part in Yizo Yizo 3.”
A raw CD, that Slovaz later passed on to Gibson, contained a rough version of Sho Sgebengu, which was later reproduced by D-Rex and included in the Yizo Yizo 3 soundtrack. By 2003, Slovaz was playing himself on TV — “a guy from Durban who had come to Jo’burg to hustle”.
“It was a platform for my music,” he says of his acting phase. “It made people anticipate the album. Sho Sgebengu was a big single. When I later spoke to D-Rex [about making an album], it was easy.”
Slovaz started recording the album early last year, but was derailed for three weeks in April by the shooting incident that has now become tabloid fodder. “The shooting was not a mistake,” says Slovaz, clearing up a version of the near-fatal incident where he was shot in the chest. “It was an egoistic thing and I failed to calm down.”
From his hospital bed, he composed Unkulunkulu Uyangithanda (God Loves Me) where he raps, here in translation: “When a gun is in the hands of a fool / Hustlers get unnecessarily hurt.” This sums up the incident from his perspective. The song’s video will feature Slovaz’s shooter, Njabulo Ndlela, whom he has forgiven. “I deserved to die because I wasn’t humble,” he reflects. “The least I could do was show him the mercy that God showed me.”
D-Rex on Impilo Kalova and kwaito
According to its orator, Slovaz, Impilo Kalova is a kwaito album. But as the genre’s vocalists continue to embrace the art of constructing lyrics (with varying degrees of success) and its producers persist in striving for (at times, ill-advised) eclecticism, what was once an easily definable genre continues to blend in with postmillennial club music.
Sho Sgebengu, which first appeared on the Yizo Yizo 3 soundtrack, for example, resurfaces here as an obvious nod to the currently en vogue dancehall. But Sewuyajola, which exhibits a feather-light sing-songy flow, has funk and R&B elements.
So, is kwaito a musical style or a lifestyle best exemplified by the music? “I see kwaito as anything that represents urban black youth,” says D-Rex (right), who produced most of Slovaz’s solo debut. “To say kwaito has to have that beat or that bassline is limiting. It has influences of hip-hop but, if you played it to Americans, they would say it’s not hip-hop as they know it. It’s nukwaito. Kwaito 2006.”
D-Rex was weaned on the likes of BB King and Stevie Wonder, thanks to his father. By his own admission, he “does not understand white music”, if such a thing exists. He has been instrumental in the evolution of kwaito, having produced some of the art form’s more verbose exponents, namely Mapaputsi, Kabelo, his and Kabelo’s new group Black Jacks and lyrically improved Mandoza.
Producing Slovaz’s project was, therefore, a nobrainer. “I think it’s a progressive album,” he says. “You need to listen to it a few times. I see Slovaz as an artist before a product.” What impressed him most about the kwaito rapper? “A lot of those lyrics, he laid them down in one take. He is organised, prepared and professional. A lot of the great guys I’ve worked with don’t lay tracks down in one take.” — Kwanele Sosibo
Impilo Kalova was released last December on Slovaz’s independent imprint Sesimoja Productions