“So, can you shuffle?” apparently, in a well known southern suburbs hip-hop hangout, this constitutes for an appropriate ice breaker. Looking at the skinny jeans paired with a blue cardigan and “queen of hearts” T-shirt, I immediately felt out-swaggered by this cool teenager. I wondered two things. Less importantly, why are you out clubbing on a Tuesday evening?

With College and possibly a job, where and why do you fit music/ clubbing into your life? And mainly, if I submitted and actually did master this modified running man, would I immediately be elevated into the obvious hierarchy that exists in the street life/dance scene that is dominating the youth of the Cape flats?

I lingered around the flats for a few days and silently observed the interactions of the locals. There seemed to be two main crowds. The Hip Hop crews, from corner shop notoriety wore their pants low and limped around to songs about “niggers blowing doe and slapping a hoe”, while the “Club” fans could be spotted in Neon colours, with headphones sprouting from their hoodies. But this is just the view of an outsider. I could waste pages on a stereotypical rant, highlighting the clichés of each group. But my journalistic prowess prevailed and I found myself investigating these polar opposites about how music affects their everyday interactions. Was there anything purely local in it?

“Music is my life (he laughs, sarcastically) that’s cliché, but its true … And I won’t do any tracks I don’t believe in, I just want to create music that I can be proud to say ‘yeah I made that’ “says Tarick Joseph, a Sound Design student from kuilsriver. He is a Hip-Hop enthusiast. Tarick says that local artists are not supported enough, and when South Africans do listen to it, it’s not “the right type of hip hop. Its’ not even hip hop, its local cats imitating Americans, I mean come on, shouldn’t we be past that by now?”

So, how does local music impact the streets? About nine of the fifteen kids break dancing on the street corner had Pseudo-American accents, yet all hailed from Plumstead and Fairways.

This was the first time I’d ever been called “Shorty”. I moved between the b-boys while they practiced their Windmills and Banana splits, limbs threatening my face, and I asked each of them one simple question, who is your favorite local artist?

Then the bomb drops, I stand corrected in front of this exclusive crew. “League Of Shadows (from Cape town) and Hymphatic Thabbs” they twang in a dialect that could be pinned to Detroit. But they know they are South Africans!

Apparently the American twang makes the rhymes flow easier, it’s not about imitation, and it’s about perfecting the art, getting the smoothest flow. Ok, I’ll bite. So, we seem to be out on the streets, but are our local artists being recognized in the club scene? I ventured with doubt.

The club is packed. Across the dance floor, just above eye level the deejay, Lorenzo Kapp does his thing. I beckon him for a moment of his time. He is quick, but his point sit with me. People love local music, but to get to clubs, they have to be advertised and already be favorites in other social settings, and that just doesn’t seem to be happening.

South African audiences are so fixated on what’s happening in the states that entering a club feels like a Gangster rap video. I suddenly feel the urge to party like it’s my birthday. I bet nobody would care that it wasn’t. And judging from the Skinny yet (dangerously) low-riding pants, to the (I kid you not) black and yellow bandanas, I’ve obviously stepped into a universe parallel to the low profile b-boy streets. Then the sole South African Song plays, the dance floor clears substantially. And you can’t help but think that putting some faith into our own music could do wonders for so many aspects of our economy, our legacy as a generation, our culture. Because like Lorenzo says, how do we expect the world to support us, when we don’t even support ourselves?

WORDS: Shana Genever