A smooth operator with a raw township charm
“IS this the same Flabba from Skwatta Kamp?” asks the man with whom I’d exchanged glances at a cafe a few moments before we both boarded a taxi bound for the Bree taxi rank.
He’s asking in response to a news report on the radio that Nkuli Habedi, aka Flabba, was found dead following an altercation with his girlfriend. It appears he was stabbed in the chest. When the report ends, a passenger quips: “I don’t want to be famous. When you’re famous, there are people out to get you.”
Who was Flabba really? At the memorial service at the Bassline in Newtown, Johannesburg, the rapper’s namesake and close friend, Nkuli, told the audience of an incident after they left fellow muso Shugasmakx’s birthday celebrations at a club last Sunday.
The pair had been complaining about the high price of alcohol throughout the night. They spotted two bottles on either side of the doorway, snatched them, one each, and left the club running.
Slikour Metane spoke of how he’d been in regular contact with Flabba, especially in the past three weeks. He said Flabba was excited about songs he was going to be working on: a Mahoota track here, a Khuli Chana jam there. “He was coming back, but maybe he was just saying goodbye . . . to all of us,” he said.
Flabba had all but disappeared from the rap radar since Skwatta’s Bak on Kampus, resurfacing momentarily in 2011 with the song I R Petrus.
I remember watching SABC1 in 2003, barely able to sit still in anticipation. On the table: a CD jewel case containing Khut en Joyn, the debut album of a rap group called Skwatta Kamp. They were nominated for a South African Music Award in the best rap category.
SABC1 was doing a live broadcast of the ceremony. On the CD cover, Shugasmakx, Bozza, Slikour, Nemza and Flabba stand in a semicircle while Nish and Infa squat in front of them, completing the formidable septet to whom South African hip-hop is eternally indebted.
I’d been a fan from the beginning. I loved their dungeonfriendly word associations. Their name was a clear reference to the daily realities of black people in South Africa.
The name of their production crew, Shack Ark-E-Tekts, was an extension of the squatter camp metaphor, which could be read as “blue-collar workers using bare resources to produce dope music”.
As much as they embraced American rap culture, one felt that Skwatta weren’t always charmed by most of its antics. As a result, some South African rap fans saw their affinity for everything township as un-hiphop.
The voices of disapproval grew in tandem with their fan base, which was to expand rapidly after the excited group of seven got up to collect their Sama that night in 2003.
At Flabba’s memorial service, Shugasmakx and J.R. had worked together to put up a laminated image of Flabba at the entrance. Later, we discovered that it was taken at a recent Skwatta Kamp TV recording.
Flabba . . . where to begin? He’s what’s normally referred to in rap circles as an emcee’s emcee. He was the main event in a Skwatta song, the uncle who’ll end up in a scuffle after a few drinks at a party. You could rely on him to make consistently impressive, jaw-dropping appearances on any song he was on.
Skwatta Kamp were a big deal. Through their management company, Buttabing Entertainment, they were able to break down boundaries and ascend to levels that had been the preserve of other music genres. They did it all with a hard-faced indie aesthetic that was, above all, very hip-hop and very proud.
Flabba, the singular force in the collective, was the living image of that aesthetic.
His rhymes were raw and rugged; he was uncompromising in his delivery, oftentimes a string of witty punchlines that would leave one collapsing with laughter.
Flabba was exciting. Flabba excited! Flabba may have exited, but the dope raps, the killer punchlines, the “proudly Gomora” (Alexandra) slogan he so elegantly wore on his sleeve live on. Heita hola!