Patty Monroe’s music career is in the pink

IT’S BEEN a little over two weeks since Capetonian artist Patty Monroe’s debut album, Malatjie, was released and she’s juggling feelings of happiness and anxiety. “I’m sharing a piece of me with the world and, you know, people are nasty,” she says. “But then again, I chose to be an artist. It kinda comes with the job.”

On the back of a gruelling schedule that involved delivering the video for her latest single,

For You, to music channels across the city, Patty is visibly jaded. Her eyes are heavy and, by her own admission, she isn’t her usual self. But her personality seems to be boundlessly bouncy nonetheless and I can only imagine how she is at full flight.

For the most part, Patty’s managed to ignore any hate she’s received on social media in what are still the early embers of her career. She’s confident and selfassured: “I think it’s how I was brought up. My father instilled this idea in my head that I can do anything I wanna do. I was his princess. So in my head I had this idea that I’m actually royalty in some way, somehow.”

Her album title, Malatjie, is derived from the word ‘Malletjie’, Cape coloured slang for crazy person or someone not right in the head, “and you kinda have to be not right in the head if you’re gonna listen to my music”.

Patty being Patty, she changed the original spelling and even the pronunciation, Ma-la-chi.

She says: “For me a Malatjie is someone who’s not afraid to shake things up and be who they are supposed to be and not someone who’s affected by the outside world. Not the outside world but you know how it is, especially here in Joburg. There’s this one saying this, and this one saying that. But what are you really saying? What are you really standing for? What do you love? What don’t you like? What are you gonna stand by and what are you gonna let slide?”

This is essentially the premise of her career and her existence. She wants to do things her own way. Although she’s been labelled a rapper, she considers herself more than that: “I’m not just a rapper. I’m a musician, I’m an artist. I create music. It isn’t a 100% hip hop album, it’s just good music.”

Patty is a fascinating character. She frequently mimics herself, pulling faces and laughing loudly when you least expect it. She’s almost on her own frequency and she enjoys sharing that energy.

With the year starting on a high note, she’s excited to see what the rest of it has in store for her.

“This year is gonna be filled with nothing but amazing moments the whole time. It’s only February and I already have an album out, and I already have a video that’s going to be released tomorrow. This is gonna be an amazing year,” she says.

She came out the gate swinging in 2015 by rapping on top of Culoe de

Song beat for her first single, High

Fashion. This was an attempt to showcase her versatility and musical range and she’s come a long way since.

She recalls one of her heartwarming moments. “I remember going to Jazzworx and I was like to the receptionist, ‘Hi, my name is Patty, Patty Monroe’ and she told me that she had my song Castles as her ringtone. I said, ‘Woman, give me your number, let me just phone you here quickly,’” she laughs. “Sometimes I can get emotional and I almost cried.”

She’s had a few moments like this over the past 18 months. She’s entering a new level of stardom.

Patty comes from a family of characters. Most notably, her dad was an actor and her great grandma was an opera singer. She thrives on live performance and considers it one of her strengths.

Her style and aura all seem to be tailored differently to other artists. I ask her how she came to be such so left of centre.

“I was always different, I was always the weird one,” she explains.

“I didn’t have a lot of friends and still don’t have a lot of friends, but I know a lot of people though.”

In the beginning she was a lone ranger that just wanted to be like everyone else.

“Those moments that I was alone, those are the moments I used to write. And think. Write and think. Every time.”

She would confidently rap what she wrote to her classmates. And now, even those who didn’t believe are starting to jump on the bandwagon.