UnderGround Style: Spaza Rap, More than just a Cipher outside the Corner Store.

If you’ve ever heard a Driemanskap joint and found yourself wondering, is that a South African language? Well the answer is no. That is Spaza Rap, and it’s straight from the streets of the Mother City!

Spaza is a slang word meaning informal, and is more commonly known for its reference to a township store without the legal formalities. Spaza rap is a sub – genre of hip hop, with its roots in isiXhosa, which originated in the Western and Eastern Cape.

Back in the day when cats first started rapping in their mother tongue, (vernac) the unwritten rules were very rigid. If you were spittin in Zulu, then it would be pure Zulu and nothing else. The same rules applied for all of the other languages. As early as 93’ Western Cape hip hop crew, Maniac Squad were mixing up their mother tongue, isiXhosa, with English as well as the
slang used at the time.

This new kind of rhyming went on to be known as Spaza rap and wasn’t received well at first. Maniac Squad crew member and now renowned Spaza rap artist, Rattex, remembers when they used to call it a Spaza – rhyme. When they would rap in isiXhosa and English in one verse, and weren’t taken seriously by heads who claimed that it wasn’t pure hip hop.

“Spaza was small back in the day – it was all about English raps. English rappers used to call us Kwaito MCs.”

The criticisms of the first Spaza MCs were their weak rhymes and predictable flows, but after the new generation of MCs, which included Rattex, Driemanskap, Ben Sharpa and Kristi Ye’spaza, came through and changed the whole perception about Spaza rap with dope flows, rhymes, metaphors, similes and multi syllables the industry started to take notice.

In 2004, after a chance meeting with Eastern Cape rapper Trusenz, Damian Stephens aka DPlanet decided to launch his own production and publishing company, Pioneer Unit, to release Trusenz’s debut album Nomadsland. This label would go on to be the driving force behind Spaza rap.

Over the next few years the Unit would go on to release a number of mixtapes and albums, including Planetary Assault and Rattex’s Bread and Butter, which has cemented Spaza rap’s place in South African hip hop history.
Most recently Pioneer Unit played host Lyricist Lounge all-star Wordsworth and managed to get him in studio with Cape Town hip hop veteran Ben Sharpa to lace another D Planet classic.

In 2005, Driemanskap, a Spaza rap group from Gugulethu in Cape Town, went on tour to the Baobab Festival in New York, performing with the legendary Dead Prez. This in turn brought a lot of attention on the Spaza rap culture and recently landed the trio a deal with Pioneer Unit.
Now with the likes of Ben Sharpa, Rattex, KONFAB, Kristi Ye’spaza and Driemanskap in studio, DPlanet and his team seem set to take the market by storm.

With the recent hype surrounding Spaza rap, another compilation, titled Spazashop, is set to drop in 2009 with the only information being available on myspace.com/spazashop. Spazashop boasts Soundbourne on production, featuring Korianda, Kritsi Ye’spaza, Driemanskap, Khanyi, Chronicseed, Soulja, Mfanekiso Ngqondweni, Unic, Lady Slice, De ja Vu and Lungelo on vocals.