“The Beats Were Not Necessarily Screaming South Africa,” K.O On Motswako Beats Sounding American

“The Beats Were Not Necessarily Screaming South Africa,” K.O On Motswako Beats Sounding American! K.O has never been the one to bite his tongue when it comes to pioneering and advocating for an authentic SA Hip Hop sound.

Skhanda King has been vocal about how the likes of Nasty C who are breaking into the international market can be even bigger if their sound was authentically South African. As it turns out, K.O himself recently revealed in an interview with Zkhiphani that when he started he was exactly what he’s trying to turn the younger SA rappers from.

“When I was starting out I was like a full on American wannabe, I knew nothing else. The more I matured I understood the country better and the reason why Kwaito was successful. I started becoming more business savy and tapping more into all those things that were in my face,” K.O said.

K.O went on to add that when he started the Skhanda sound, it wasn’t just about himself about SA Hip Hop as whole to have an identity. Mr CashTime went on record to say that even Motswako had not been successful in making a proudly SA Hip Hop sound.

“My idea for it wasn’t for it to be a K.O sound. I wanted to almost give us as SA Hip Hop an identity. People talking about Motswako and all that stuff. Incredible icons came from that…R.I.P HHP but I think from just a beats selection perspective, the beats were not necessarily screaming South Africa. They were still no different from what was happening back in the day whether it was like a Dr Dre beat or Scott Storch beat,” he said.

“When we did what we did with the Skhanda sound, we tapped into those elements of Kwaito. Taking what was going on within that space and putting it over Hip Hop beats. I thought that was supposed to be like an identity that we were gonna run with,” he added.