How Stogie T raised the bar for South African Rappers

It is not the first time we have a South African rapper on Sway in The Morning but Stogie T is probably one of the best to do it. On Friday morning, we woke up to the video of the OG delivering a dope verse on the show.

The rapper formerly known as Tumi Molekane is an OG in South African hip-hop and has an outstanding reputation for underground battle competitions, and he didn’t disappoint. He stayed on brand as a conscious rapper with a freestyle about the real issues we face as a country and a continent on the whole.

‘We stuck in sh*t cause we still don’t got a pot to piss in’ is one of the memorable lines on the verse. We have become used to the idea that contemporary rap is a battle of egos and is driven by materialism and classism. Tumi flipped the script when he chose to represent a country not his personal gains in the game.

For a freestyle to have layers and depth, you need a rapper with the skill to think on the spot to offer compelling bars on a hook they haven’t heard before – and make it all sound easy. Stogie T has proven that he is both talented and skilled. He touched on the issues of poverty, religious leaders and the state of our country and we all felt that. ‘I’m bugging still we can’t tell a pastor from a pimp. Its Roman Catholic, Its Anglican, Its African, Tribesman, Migrant. Sh*t it’s Masked men kidnapping kids.’ For anyone who is not from South Africa, they might not know what he meant but one can link these bars with the Omotoso trial.

People can argue that he was going to kill the freestyle anyway because of his rap battle skills but on the show, he represented a different side to South African rap different from that of Cassper, AKA, Nasty C, and Kwesta. It was his moment to prove himself as a godfather and he did that effortlessly.