As kwaito artists continue to reconfigure the genre’s DNA, those with any hope for lasting relevance, it seems, will be the ones whose obligatory swagger is complemented by an effortless drollness. Measured comic relief is becoming the new rhetoric to offset the hopelessness that the music often encapsulates.
For better or for worse, kwaito is still booty music, hence the emergence of a dancehall strand on its double helix. At times, however, especially when it’s in the hands of its finest lyricists, it can transform into nothing less than blues poetry, for lack of a better phrase. Easily embodying these two extremes is the slim, dreadlocked Brickz, yet another rudeboy from the kwaito mecca that is Zola.
No need to be embarrassed if you didn’t know where he’s from. In his 15-track debut album entitled Face-Brick, Brickz hardly trumps that fact up. “I don’t put that in my music,” he says. “I make sure to avoid giving the impression that I’m trying to get fame through where I’m from. At the end of the day, I’m from there and I can’t change that. But if you know Zola, you would see it in my music.”
The “secret ingredient” to his popularity, as he sees it, is his attentiveness to his surroundings, which are a rich wellspring for his lyrics. “I think of a lot of things that I’ve seen happen,” he explains. “If you have the message in you, it’s easy to write a song. As a good writer, you can just catch up with the words.”
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he cut his teeth with homeboy Mapaputsi and rides DJ Cleo’s operatic soundscapes. As Brickz recalls, the two would meet at shows when Brickz was still writing songs with Mapaputsi and Cleo was promoting his first signee, Pitch Black Afro. The DJ, impressed with his unique style, eventually signed the 24-year-old to his fledgling label, Will of Steel Productions, and produced his entire debut album, which dropped last year.
Brickz, like many artists who work with Cleo, cites their association at every turn on the album. In the song Tofolux, a re-take of the Pitch Black Afro original, he warns that the “porridge” they collectively concoct is so hot that it requires you to “wait for it to cool down”, and take your hat off while you’re at it. The two have a maniacal work ethic, which is cool for Brickz as he repeatedly reiterated that music is all he does — 24/7.
“If I called Cleo, he would be like, ‘Come, let’s record you with that voice’,” he says in a flu-addled voice to illustrate their spontaneity. “He likes experimenting. We understand each other and that’s the most important thing.”
Their playful vibe characterises much of the album. Songs such as the infectious Tofolux, his first single Sweety Ma Baby and uncontainable Tjovitjo all sound like creative outbursts. Add the playful but serious Mshele Kahle and Andapende (about men who can’t keep it zipped up) to that mixture and you start to see how important the ghetto aesthetic is to Brickz. While he won’t badger you with the requisite roughneck posturing or tales of hijacking for drug money, he’ll just caution you to act right if you don’t want to be embarrassed.
“[Mshele Kahle] talks about not being rough to girls in the township because you’re going to snap isphandla [a traditional goatskin bracelet worn around the wrist],” says Brickz. “It relates to township people who speak tsotsitaal as well as people outside of that. The way I see it, you have to be smooth to approach the ladies.”
Sweety Ma Baby was also inspired by “ghetto love”. “In the olden days, a guy would stand outside the gate [of his girlfriend’s house] and whistle. Today it’s not like that. You have cellphones. And if you don’t have airtime, you send a Please Call Me from near the gate,” he says. “You’d be so excited to take a girl to the bioscope. Not the movies, the bioscope. The bioscope is ours, where a rat would pass by your feet while you were seated.”
At this point, I ask Brickz if he’s not just glorifying poverty. He protests: “You have to be proud of being poor. It makes you work hard. I would never be here if I never went through that stage and felt that fire. I’ve been through that fire and I’ve passed it.”
With the astounding popularity that comes with a platinum album, Brickz has finally netted the tofolux [comfortable] car, the tofolux house in the burbs and, I figure, the tofolux girl. The irony, of course, is that he has to keep the ghetto close to his heart to repeat the feat. He is so self-effacing that he would rather be dropped off than give the impression of flossing in his Mini Cooper. For a while still, it seems, sisazohlangan’ emarenkeni (we’ll hook up at the taxi rank).
Brickz has been nominated for four South African Music Awards — best newcomer, best kwaito album, best popular song of the year and most popular artist of the year). The 12th MTN Samas will be held at the Sun City Superbowl on May 6. Brickz will end the evening with a live performance