For the love of CPT
Cape Town emcee YoungstaCPT is bringing stories from the Mother City’s streets to life with his distinctive hip-hop flair
The words can’t capture it/ I wish I could manifest/ my city’s fresh like you stumbled upon a treasure chest. Lyrics from YoungstaCPT’s Mother City are about his love for his hometown. He calls himself the Cape Crusader and YoungstaCPT (real name Riyadh Roberts) and says he’s always been into music. But it was hip-hop that caught his attention when he was just six years old — studying the music of Eminem and D12 and then performing for his mother and her friends.
“I got into hip-hop at home. I didn’t participate in any extramurals at school — my extramural activities started at home. And I found hiphop fascinating; from the attitude to the sound and the beats that artists used,” says the 24-year-old emcee.
He wrote and recorded his first track at the age of 12 and, after finishing high school in 2009, dove into hip-hop full time. He recorded 150 songs in 2010 and released them for free. By 2012 he had been crowned South Africa’s King of Street Rap and opened for international acts such as Lil Wayne and Talib Kweli.
But the rapper’s biggest moments are a little closer to home. “While those were big moments, for me the biggest moments were when I started being recognised in my community. I would be coming from mosque and asked for pictures in the road,” he says, laughing.
It is this strong sense of community that has set Youngsta apart, even though it’s not always easy. “I am trying to get Capetonians to buy into Cape Town. When people move from their neighbourhoods, they can easily choose to forget where they’re from and what life is like there. When they hear my songs, they’re taken right back there,” he says.
It is with this representation that he has built his fanbase. Raised in Cape Town’s suburb of Wynberg, he tells the stories he knows about the life he sees and Cape Town is full to the brim with inspiration. “The environment is unlike anything you’ll find anywhere else. The very fact that both Cape coloured and Cape Malay cultures exist — ‘Cape’ is in their name. You don’t find those elements anywhere else. There are social ills and struggles unique to Cape Town.”
It goes beyond people. “Cape Town’s geography also contributes to the style of hip-hop that comes out of the city,” Youngsta says. “You can start in Athlone, then you get Manenberg, Gugulethu, Langa, Bonteheuwel and Heideveld — so many violent areas all stacked on top of each other. They are stories we have to keep telling.”
Sometimes they are particularly tough stories to tell. “I’m a Cape T o wn p a t r i o t , a r e p r e s e n t a t i v e and I’ll tell their stories for them. I’ll share their struggles and bring attention to how they’re living — especially on the Cape Flats where drugs and gangsterism are a daily struggle.”
It’s a struggle that is all too close to home. “There are guys I grew up with who couldn’t get out. They got swallowed whole by drugs and crime. I speak on behalf of them. Here it’s as easy as going outside and speaking to the right people to fall into that life.”
His relationship with his faith has been questioned before and it’s something he acknowledges. “I know some people think that what I’m doing — rapping and hip-hop — is against Islam and maybe they are right. But I’m using the gift I was blessed with.
“Just the other day, after evening prayer in the local mosque, some guys asked me how they can become Muslim rappers like me. What I’m doing might be ‘wrong’ in some eyes, but how wrong can it be if people are coming to me in the house of God to tell me my work is inspiring them?”
He is in Cape Town to spend the month of Ramadan with his family. “Last year, I spent Ramadan in Jo’burg and it wasn’t the same without my family and the community. Cape Town feels like what I know and it’s like coming to recharge and soak that all up before going back to Jo’burg to keep working.”
He made the inevitable move to Johannesburg last year where he discovered an entirely different style of hip-hop.
“Jo’burg has monetised the hiphop industry. It’s a machine,” Youngsta says. “Cape Town is much more real. For sure, there are also guys down in Cape Town popping bottles in the club, but the life I’m talking about in my music is much more prevalent.”
He says not only is there a place for both styles, there is also a need for it. “There are people who turn a blind eye to some of the shit I say in my songs because it’s too close to home,” Youngsta explains. “People would rather be transported away from this life and listen to music about popping bottles, driving nice cars and living the good life.
“Imagine, a guy from my neighbourhood takes the train from home to get to work or university or wherever. At least once on that trip, he’ll encounter a real gangster. He doesn’t want to relive that experience when he listens to my music.”
This won’t deter him from telling his stories. “It was always fascinating to me how syllables and rhyming could be used to tell a story that made sense. I’m a storyteller and now I use hip-hop to educate people about Jo’burg too.
“I live in Hillbrow and I get to see the side of Jo’burg you don’t usually get shown. There are real stories there too — of people struggling and living hard lives. I don’t know why Jo’burg artists aren’t representing this part of their city, so I’m trying to shine a light on it too.”
Alight he shines in his signature style — a mix of Afrikaans, English and slang from the streets of Cape Town — that he adopted to set himself apart from the other names and tracks people were hearing. “Rapping in Afrikaans was a decision. When I started rapping, I used an American accent and was being compared to other artists. I hated that because I was telling an original story, but what people heard was a picture that had already been painted by another brush.
“I needed a way to stand out, so I decided to rap the way I spoke — in my accent, with the slang from my neighbourhood — and dropped every Americanism.”
But hip-hop from the United States, which was his original inspiration, continues to influence his work. “My beat selection and content is still inspired by what is happening in America, but the sound is YoungstaCPT,” he adds.
There are local people who inspire him. “Jitsvinger is a massive one. He’s got proper musical talent and he’s a guy I really look up to,” he says. “I grew up listening to Godessa and Prophets of da City — both groups were pioneers in their fields. Godessa as the first female hip-hop group in the country; POC fought the system.”
On May 13, Youngsta released a track called Top 10 List where he called out the South African music industry for always featuring the same names on the same lists every year, almost never featuring artists from Cape Town.
“The talent that has gone to waste in Cape Town is frustrating because it isn’t being recognised,” he says. “There are a lot of players in the South African hip-hop scene and the arena is big enough for us all to play. We just need the industry to come to the party too — 90% local content on South African radio stations is not enough.
“Radio stations are playing new releases from Jo’burg and Durban basically the day after they drop, but still playing tracks from 2008 and 2009 out of Cape Town. Back in the day, the radio used to be the ones breaking the new music; now they’re lagging behind.”
But he isn’t knocking on any doors or asking for any favours. Instead he is blazing a trail and flying Cape Town’s flag high. “I would like to leave a legacy of strong social messages,” he says. “And I’m just giving my version of reality — I observe and then I report.”
He wants to stay as true to the raw reality he sees as possible. “In the States, where hip-hop came from, they rapped about the ghettos and life there until someone took notice and changes started happening. I’m doing the same with Cape Town. It’s not always pretty — there is good and bad here — and I want to put it all in the spotlight in the hopes that things can change here.”