Rashid Kay: “The industry doesn’t favour hip-hop”

Rashid Kay: “The industry doesn’t favour hip-hop.” The discussion about whether South African hip-hop is dead has been ongoing for as long as anyone can remember. Considering the amount of quality SA hip-hop music released in recent years, one might wonder how the genre could be considered “dead” when rappers are achieving significant milestones with their new releases.

During an interview with TimesLive, South African hip-hop veteran and media personality Rashid Kay delved deeper into the main reasons why SA hip-hop is on a decline. Rashid made it clear that the demise of SA Hip Hop has nothing to do with the rise of Amapiano. The veteran rapper said that there is massive sabotage in the music industry when it comes to giving hip-hop a platform mostly at radio stations.

“It’s not amapiano, I’ve heard that excuse. There was hip-hop vs kwaito, there was hip-hop vs house, and there was hip-hop vs gqom, why should it die now because it’s hip-hop vs amapiano? I think the problem is personal agendas and personal vendettas because 90% of the radio compilers are DJs, house Djs and amapiano Djs,” Rashid told TimesLive.

Rashid further highlighted that the structure of the music industry is not conducive to hip-hop, pointing out that most DJs are focused on amapiano and house music, which leaves little room for hip-hop to thrive. “So you gonna submit a song, you gonna be told by an amapiano guy that this hip-hop song is not good enough. The way the industry is designed doesn’t favour hip-hop, that’s why there is no radio station now with a hip-hop show, except Ukhozi FM where I’m at,” said Rashid Kay.

“YFM just canned it, Metro FM canned two years ago with Speedsta, and 5FM canned Ms Cosmo’s show. All these big radio stations, even Igagasi provincially in KZN, TruFM provincially in Eastern Cape. So you release a hip-hop song where are you gonna take it? Who’s gonna talk about it? Who’s gonna review it? So there’s some sort of sabotage, I know a lot of people can call it a conspiracy theory but if you dont have platforms to showcase all these artists it’s gonna be rough,” he added.

The veteran rapper continued, suggesting that many prominent South African rappers face challenges getting high rotation on radio stations despite releasing excellent music, attributing this to what he perceives as deliberate sabotage.

“Last year on YFM they told me that YFM is playing 10% hip-hop and that 10% includes the Drake, the Kendricks and low dogs. What are the chances of you getting into that space? Even our biggest artists right now, the Nasty Cs and the Blxckies are not on high rotation.

“You check the radio monitor, the top 50 doesn’t have hip-hop it has AKA’s Company which is not a hip-hop song and then it has SETE – K.O which is not a hip-hop song so the whole top 50 of radio monitor doesn’t have hip-hop songs because they dont allow hip-hop on high rotation.