Music I Was Listening to in My Youth in Thembisa, South Africa
Let's go back to 2008 and take a look at the music I couldn't escape!
2007 – I run away from home, straight out of high school. I switch provinces, leaving the Eastern Cape for Gauteng. My life has always been about running, although I’m more stable now.
2008 – I’m in Thembisa, Gauteng. As I listen to Lil Wayne’s Mr. Carter, I’m taken back to that time. It’s from the same album as Lollipop—and Lollipop was massive. Funny how one forgets Mr. Carter features Jay-Z. ‘Hey, Mr. Carter! Tell me, where you’ve been?’—sung by what sounds like a kid (with a surprisingly good voice). And the “cool” factor back then? Lil Wayne and Jay-Z sharing a surname. How corny in hindsight.
Other songs from that period rush in. DJ Clock’s Umahamba Yedwa was still fresh. I was never big on house, but that track got me moving. This was before Amapiano, of course. Nowadays the song feels stale, but back then the slow build was gold—the vocals coming in late, the man’s voice first, then the woman’s. If you were impatient, you might skip it before they even sang. But the wait paid off.
‘Umahamba yedwa’—loner. It’s a question-song, much like Mr. Carter, asking “Uphi umahamba yedwa?” (“Where’s the loner?”). The tone is pejorative. People don’t like a loner. They laugh: he walks alone, drinks alone, doesn’t dance at parties, then goes home to sleep alone. A nightmare, if you will. Music felt more poetic back then.
Another hit: Int’engokhoyo. I need to listen to it once more. It has a piercing, broken-piano beat, but the real magic is the female vocals. She sings in Xhosa about a man who makes her head spin. “He warms my body,” she says. He explains without explaining. He listens without listening.
There were other musicians too—Umanji, Ntshebe—but I’ll leave them for another time. Ushe’s Love in the Club was everywhere back then: hot, annoying, never quite good. Funny thing—I only recently noticed that Rick Ross, and I think Kanye as well, make appearances in the video. It felt good to be a young adult. I was 18 or 19 then.
Since we’re here, I’m curious—what are you listening to right now? Or making? Share the links.
Also—let’s talk about sending me money. We can start at a dollar; think of it as buying me a cheap cup of coffee. Anything helps, and I’ll appreciate it just as much as I appreciate your thoughts.
A reader of The Musician (Kwerl Afriken) from Gqeberha recently sent me his new album, The Birthplace of the Sun. Raw rap. Music that unsettles you.
