Nomisupasta and Rapsody: The collab that took 13 years

Nomsa Mazwai first came into contact with Rapsody when the producer 9th Wonder sampled Mazwai’s music for three songs on the North Carolina, US rapper’s 2012 debut album The Idea of Beautiful. The songs sampled music from Mazwai’s own debut album, the self-titled Nomisupasta, released in 2010.

On the song Kind of Love, Mazwai sings, “What kind of love is your love that you only feel when you happen to be with me?” as Rapsody opens her first verse on the track with the line, “Soweto, we feeling the love y’all.” Poignantly, Rapsody even travelled to South Africa and shot the video in Soweto, walking through the streets, hand-in-hand with groups of children, delivering her bars in front of spaza shops and in passages.

Mazwai is credited as a featured artist on this song as well as In This Town and When I Have You, but 13 years later she has not received a cent in royalties from any of the three songs. The systems meant to ensure that she collected money off the use of her intellectual property failed her.

“It’s not 9th Wonder or Rapsody’s fault,” Mazwai explains. “It’s our government. I can’t sit here and blame people for not forcing my government to do what they’re supposed to do. But, you know, I prayed about it and, luckily for me, I did not take my frustrations out on the wrong people.

And Rapsody and I maintained a really wonderful relationship over the years. We performed together at Zone Six, but we never really spent time together and we were just in touch on social media. And so this time when she came, she came with the intention to record with me and have me on her next album.”

The friendship Mazwai and Rapsody developed over the years recently led to the two of them collaborating properly for the first time, over a decade after the release of The Idea of Beautiful. Rapsody visited South Africa for a week, accompanied by a crew of collaborators to make music for her next album. 

The rapper has grown to become a celebrated musician, releasing several critically acclaimed albums, and working with artists like Kendrick Lamar, J Cole and Stevie Wonder. She was named Lyricist of the Year at the 2020 BET Hip Hop Awards and earlier this year she won her first Grammy Award for the song 3:AM featuring Erykah Badu, taking home the trophy for Best Melodic Rap Performance.

Mazwai already had a lot of songs she had composed with just vocals and piano but hadn’t started the process of producing and recording any of the music. Through Rapsody’s visit she took the opportunity to work with some renowned producers and record the music for her sophomore album, which is now scheduled for release in October and is titled Surrender.

One of these producers is Mr Porter, most famous for having been a member of the Detroit rap group D12 and having produced music for fellow group member and legendary rapper Eminem as well as many others including 50 Cent, Royce da 5’9”, The Game, Method Man, Snoop Dogg and Jadakiss.

She also got to work with Madlib, most well-known for being a frequent collaborator of the late greats MF DOOM and J Dilla as well as Freddie Gibbs and Talib Kweli. Earlier this year, Madlib and Rapsody teamed up to release the EP MadRaps which is only available on vinyl and cassette tape. This week Mazwai started teasing the Mr Porter-produced single Next Week Tuesday with a 20-second snippet on her social media accounts.

This will be the first single off her album and she plans to drop it on National Women’s Day – 9 August. On Instagram she’s credited big sister Thandiswa as creative director for the visuals but plays coy when I ask if we’ll hear the sisters collaborating on Surrender: “You will see in the album.” She does tell me that the song she recorded with Madlib will be the second single and hints that these aren’t the only well-known producers she had the opportunity to work with. And of course Mazwai and Rapsody also recorded music together for both their albums.

“God brought Rapsody into my life at the perfect time. We spent the whole week together and it really felt like it was God’s special art project for 10 days. It was this incredible moment of two creatives from two parts of the world coming together. And it was just amazing for us to connect and to meet and to really get to know each other. So while we’ve known each other for years, I would say we got to really know each other over the last 10 days. It was such a pleasure working with her.”

Mazwai even brought in the Karabo Ya Morena youth choir into the recording process and says that the Soweto teens are going to be featured on a song Rapsody’s doing with another famous rapper. She resists my attempts to pry some more info about who this prominent artist could be: “I don’t want to give all the gems away, but I can tell you that they’re featured on a banger alongside someone I would say is one of the forefathers of hip-hop.”

I’m dying to hear what Rapsody and Nomisupasta have created, though I know all good things require time and patience. Or as Rapsody raps on When I Have You: “Fake ones I had in my life can’t find ’em / They say God got a silly way with timing.”