Priddy Ugly Weighs In On SA Hip Hop’s Lack Of Identity

Priddy Ugly Weighs In On SA Hip Hop’s Lack Of Identity. Hip-hop is celebrating 50 years this year and the genre is now a globally understood concept. In Mzansi, the rap culture has been dominant for more than a decade and it has managed to stay on top of most genres in the country until the cameo of amapiano.

The coming of amapiano has witnessed more rappers dabbling in both rap and piano sounds and Priddy Ugly feels that is because there is a lack of identity in SA Hip hop. This came after the rapper was asked whether SA artists are taking too much inspiration from international artists instead of creating their own culture.

In response, Priddy Ugly stated that it is relative because the amapiano artists do not take their style from anyone and instead move with their own style. “I think it’s relative because I don’t feel like the piano guys, for instance, are taking too much notes from international guys, I feel they just doing like what they want to do,” he said.

Priddy Ugly further stated that he feels like SA hip-hop artists lack identity as compared to Amapiano. “I do feel like the hip-hop guys, I feel like we lack identity,” said Priddy Ugly. “Because even if you have to ask me what is the South African hip hop sound, I can’t tell you.“

The 30-year-old rapper explained that not being able to pinpoint the South African hip-hop sound isn’t entirely a bad thing because hip-hop is a mash-up of different sounds. “I don’t think its an entirely a bad thing because it still gives us the opportunities to identify or maybe it doesn’t need an identity, because hip hop is motswako, you know the meaning of motswako is like a mixture of different things which is what hip hop is.

“So here in SA we don’t know like whether the guy is rapping on a piano song, is it hip hop, if a piano guy is singing on a hip hop song is it hip hop. So we don’t really have the identity,” he explained.