Zubz isn’t your run-of-the-mill hip-hop artist: two hours before we’re scheduled to meet he SMSes to confirm our appointment in a leafy restaurant in Norwood, Johannesburg. His back yard.
A refreshing change from many recording artists who figure fame places them not merely in another world, but in another time zone too.
But then, the two-time South African Music Award nominee — whose real name is Ndabaningi Mabuye — has never been a regular rapper.
In the often cliché-ridden maelstrom of South African hip-hop, in which the generic and the mediocre prevail, Zubz’s work has set him apart for its lyrical intelligence and substantive content. And, of course, his flow is crisp — like the skin of a very good duck l’orange, rather than the ubiquitous deep-fried chicken.
Sitting down to discuss his recently released third album, Cochlea — One Last Letta (Outrageous Records), Zubz is warm, erudite and switched on: from current affairs, his own emotional wellbeing to his connectivity to the world around him.
Cochlea —, says Zubz, is an expression of his own contentment; the product of him having navigated, at 32 years old, an existential crisis.
“I was like: ‘Okay, I’ve done two albums [2004’s Listeners’ Digest and 2006’s Headphone Music in a Parallel World], I’m playing shows all over the world; my vision as an artist is out there, but there must be more to this musician thing?’ ” he says of his previously disenchanted outlook and feeling of “detachment”.
The “more” Zubz found was on the bridge between his music and his social conscience. Last year he participated alongside Italian hip-hop duo Asslati Front on the Virus Free Generation Hip-Hop Tour, raising awareness about the Southern African HIV/Aids pandemic among Eastern European youth.
Closer to home he worked in the British Council’s Power in the Voice programme, which seeks to help young children articulate themselves and their experiences through stories, poetry and hip-hop.
He says his mentorship of high school children in Johannesburg “helped get my hands dirty” and re-affirmed “the fact that I was alive, that I belonged to a community and that I was enmeshed in this universe — it taught me that I can play my part”.
This personal journey was, for Zubz, deeply intertwined with what appeared a global “quantum shift in reality”: “There was the situation in Zimbabwe [with the MDC winning the elections, followed by the drawn-out negotiations], the xenophobic attacks in South Africa. Presidents around us changed: Thabo Mbeki was recalled, the death of [Zambian president] Levy Mwanawasa, the US presidential race — these things affected me directly,” says the artist who was born in Zambia, raised in Zimbabwe and has lived in South Africa since attending Rhodes University in the mid-90s.
Zubz says he felt the change — both within and around him: “As an artist I had to be at the forefront of articulating that.”
According to Zubz, Cochlea — is a departure from its predecessor, Headphone Music; “its less self indulgent” and “more accessible” than any album he has done.
He is right. Whereas his previous work was tailor-made for listening and chin scratching, musically Cochlea — is more about the booty-shake. A range of producers, including Mason Black, Ameen and Iko, ensured this.
I wonder if so many producers and collaborations with the likes of RJ Benjamin, Lebo Mashile and Outrageous Records’ stable-mate, Pebbles, affected Zubz’s initial vision.
He doesn’t think so. He is “absolutely happy” with the end product, and “in some instances expectations were surpassed. The vision was to make it accessible,” he says.
“The process was less prescriptive and more collaborative. I was much less uptight about stuff and I appreciated what other people were doing and bringing to the album,” Zubz says of this new infusion into a hip-hop vein previously coursing with the snobbish and purist.
Whether the new formula will work for Zubz’s anorak fans is debatable. Artist’s “happy albums” generally denude their creativity. Busi Mhlongo’s post-marijuana-rehab Freedom being a case in point — it was so bereft of her usual fire and brimstone that one felt half compelled to rush over to her recording studio, bong in hand.
For Zubz, the compulsion to send him a copy of Catcher in the Rye is less so. The album occasionally veers into the cheesy, but there is enough redemption to suggest this is merely the beginning of another eventful journey.
As he says: “What I have come to appreciate is that hip-hop is a guitar. It’s BB King, it’s [Jimi] Hendrix, it’s [Eric] Clapton and it’s also Sting — and it doesn’t come with anything but yourself.”