Who's should be crowned SA rapper of the Month?

It seems hip hop in SA has officially taken over. I don't know what you guys think but I think hip hop is the hottest thing in SA right now. With new artists coming up every season and SABC playing 90% local music, there's no going back.

This month we want to salute all our hip hop artists in SA, especially those that are doing the most.
We've put up a list of the rappers we think are the hottest right now, but we can only choose one, to be our SA rapper of the month. Actually it is up to you, the fans, to let us know who the best is. simply vote on the poll below.

Reality TV In Mzansi

Reality TV can be a tricky business especially when your show is based on lifestyle. There are some that get it right and then those that miss it totally.

When we talk of those who missed it we are speaking about the likes of the Diski Divas. Though they had an amazing show in season 1 season 2 was not so seasoned up at all. But when we speak of those that get it right we are speaking of people like Dineo Ranaka, the Forever Young gang and Somizi Mhlongo.

We don’t work in the television industry but we do watch and analyse what we watch and we’d guess that the fundamentals of a good reality show would be a main event or a point at least. Something that will keep us watching to see how it is achieved and what went down in the journey. Season 2 of Diski Divas had none of that whatsoever.

Forever Young

We haven’t seen much of the fresh season of Forever Young which follows the lives of three friends and business partners. These friends/partners are Lungile Radu who played the role of Sbu on Rhythm City but switched lanes to hosting both seasons of Big Brother Mzansi and is now holding it down hosting the first season of The Voice South Africa. Siyabonga Ngwekazi who used to host a basketball show SABC 1 and was also part of the team that brought us the daily dose of V-Entertainment (he still does show up on some days) but now hosts and produces Channel O’s Turn Up. The last member of the trio is the not so tall Thomas Gumede who has hosted shows like So You Think You’re Funny on SABC 1, V-entertainment on Vuzu and Love Back on Mzansi Magic and is now part of the team that will bring Africa its very first season of Ridiculousness Africa. He’s also an actor and has had roles on SABC 1’s A Place Called Home and Single Guys and a few movie roles. In their reality show they take us through the journey of realising their dreams and travelling around the world to make things happen, in season 1 we saw Lungile successfully organizing an event at a Brazilian club after he was challenged, in season 2 we saw Siyabonga taking the whole crew to South Korea when he was trying to establish his own clothing brand and right through all the seasons we’ve seen Thomas trying to chasing his rapping dreams.

Dineo's Diary

Another person that has got this reality TV business on lock down is Dineo Ranaka who is on her 5^th season this year. Dineo Ranaka has been in the entertainment industry for years; she started off in radio and worked her way up to television. She hosted and produced shows on stations like YFM and Highveld Stereo FM and went on to TV doing shows like Real Goboza alongside Trevor Noah, Club 808 with Mo Flava and was part of the trio that brought us All Access Mzansi.

We think her show works because she draws us in into who she is and how she does things her way and proves that she does not suck up to what people want her to be. She chases her dreams, finds and loses love on the show and all this while she’s raising her kids and keeping her career afloat. On Dineo’s Diary we saw the birth of LUVDR and how she got it out to the big women’s fashion retailer Legit.

Living The Dream With Somizi

This year Somizi Mhlongo who is probably the most recognized choreographer in South Africa got bit by the reality TV bug. Somizi who had a role in one of the country’s most beloved movies – Sarafina is also the fourth judge on Idols SA. Somizi is the most recognized openly gay celebrity in South Africa and we think that’s the basic drive for his show. On his show called Living The Dream With Somizi he shows off his extravagant lifestyle and how funds it and one of the most interesting things on the show is how he handles being a father and how his daughter takes to her father being an openly gay man and if you ask us they’re doing pretty good.

We hope the next time they decide to throw a reality show on us they take notes from these 3 shows which are killing it right now

Ridiculousness Africa

Since the landing of Lip Sync one could only imagine what else from the international TV spheres can we bring to our shore, and Ridiculousness is your answer.

TV presenter, actor and reality star Thomas Gumede, also presenter and actress Boity Thulo will be joined by the notorious Nigerian comedian Basketmouth to host the African version of Ridiculousness.

The show basically a feed of crazy internet separated into categories and comments ridiculing the people in the videos by the hosts and usually a guest. The American version of the show is hosted by the main host Rob Dyrdek, co-hosts Sterling “Steelo” Brim and the blonde Chanel West Coast.

From what we see in the picture it looks like Thomas has received Rob’s duties of main host while Basketmouth will be controlling the videos on that little thing like Steelo does, and Boity well she looks like she’ll just be there looking pretty and attempting to be funny like Chanel(except Chanel is genuinely funny). You know us TV freaks will always complain and critique about the cast. Well yeah I’m about to do that now.

We don’t have a problem about the casting of Thomas and Basketmouth I think they are cool for their roles; my worry is the beautiful Boity. Chanel enlightens the show with her personality which comes across as blonde and we don’t think Boity can pull that off, she has been too serious for too long in her role as Mpho on Rockville and while presenting Club 808 on E.TV. We think they should have gone for someone who appears to be a little likes Chanel, someone who is not afraid to speak their mind and someone who the public will easily forgive should they say something really stupid. We don’t think the public is forgiving towards Boity; they got in frenzy all because she bought herself a beautiful home. Our suggestions of who should have gotten her place had we been asked we would have easily suggested Khanya Mkhangisa or Lerato Moloi.

Khanya Mkhangis because she’s pretty, small and very girly-girly (much like Chanel) and Lerato Moloi simply because of her commentary on 10Over10 she can be funny that one.

Matli Mohapeloa Loses Bad Boy Demeanour

The bad boy demeanour has followed Matli Mohapeloa through the characters he has portrayed in his on-screen career and his trademark/scar on the one side of his face doesn’t make it any easier in relating him to the characters. Remember how we got introduced to Matli?

We can’t remember the exact year coz it was in our youngin years. It was through a Love Life ad where we saw him rolling in a fancy car picking up girls and one of them was a school girl with whom he engaged in a very steamy intimacy right in the car before he dropped her off at school. That’s when it settled that we gotta’ watch out for this guy.

There was some change when he played the role of Fistos in the 2005 SABC 1 mini-series When We Were Black which we think to this day it’s one of the greatest productions to ever see the light of day in South Africa. Fistos was a shy and intelligent student who went through his teenage troubles in the apartheid era, 1976 to be exact.

But since he played Fistos Matli has been a super bad boy from his role of DJ Ngwazi on Rhythm City to that of Moss on Zabalaza. He has been followed by drugs, money and multiple women on his later characters and by now he is probably the country’s epitome of a bad boy.

Now that Mzansi Magic has brought in some new flavour on our screens, Matli is also in it and he has lost the bad boy demeanour. On Greed and Desire he plays the role of Morakile a very grounded and calm guy whose life becomes endangered after he witnesses a murder that later he becomes blackmailed for since the blood of the victim is on his shirt.

The role of Morakile is a fresh outlook on Matli, it changes everything that we had already perceived about him. It makes us want more of him, see what else he can channel after years of reckless characters. However this is not the first time that we see Matli channel his inner good behaviour, he has shown us such in his role of Clyde in the second season of InterseXions.

Zikhona Sodlaka Plays The Evil

Zikhona Sodlaka has played a number of roles on our screens but none compare to what she is currently playing on Igazi. We have discussed Igazi before where a born heir has come for his throne while it’s being eyed by an evil stepmother (Vathiswa Ndara) who is pushing for her own son to take the throne but she’s not the evil one here, S’chotho is.

S’chotho is an evil mastermind who works hand in hand with the evil stepmother in preceding her evil deeds. S’chotho is very different from the witch-doctors we’ve seen on our screens before, she’s more practical and seems a little psycho and has an unusual psychic. We know Nkabinde had Mehlo’emamba and before Mulimsi was a hot shot himself he was the psychic of Vho-Mushasha and S’chotho has a snake at her service(Mamlambo much).

We love Zikhona playing this role because it’s something fresh from her works, we don’t think we’ve seen her play such a role before. We have definitely seen her play evil before but that was modern day kind of evil when she played the role of Ava Modise on Entabeni. Entabeni was the South African adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Ava of course was Lady Macbeth herself.

Zikhona’s breakthrough role though was that of  Zukiswa on the much beloved Tsha Tsha and time moved on and we came to see Zikhona play the modern day woman on many other shows like when she played Prisca on Generations(without the Legacy). Zikhona can now also be seen firing shots on BET Africa’s Top Actor Africa where she is host/judge (doing it Tyra Banks style)