Grahamstown Rapper Turns Frustration into Art
For Lwandle Dlamini, hip hop is more than a hobby.
Lwandle Dlamini is not your typical rapper.
He is reserved and thoughtful rather than brash. He’s sceptical of what he sees as mainstream hip hop’s “ego-stroking”. He has paperbacks by Camus and de Tocqueville on his res room shelves.
Just from meeting him, you wouldn’t guess that he’s also the rapper SoulWings. Under that name, he’s performed at Oldies, Prime and will open a show at the Box Theatre this weekend.
His flow calls to mind influences like J.Cole and Kendrick Lamar, but Lwandle produces as well as raps. He draws inspiration from a wide range of sources: EDM, Tokyo hip hop, and indie Internet artists. His beats tend to have trap drums and Death Star levels of bass, ala WondaGurl and Travis Scott. But his sound is uniquely his own too. “In South Africa, and especially in Grahamstown, it’s very difficult to find the right trade-off between sounding mainstream and doing your own thing,” Lwandle says. “It’s really a question of whether the artist is willing to put something out there that people might not like.”
Finding an audience has been a challenge, too. Lwandle mentions one gig he got to perform with a friend at a house party. When he got there, the bouncer wouldn’t let his friend in, the host was drunk, and there was no microphone. Which is possibly the most Grahamstown party of all time.
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When Lwandle’s not performing, he’s crafting tracks in his bedroom. His makeshift studio is minimal. He makes all his beats on his laptop, and records vocals with his cellphone. But he’s clearly on his way to mastering the process. He speaks to me over his shoulder while chopping up samples with one hand and laying down chords with another.
And while he may be studying toward a degree at Rhodes, for Lwandle, hip hop has been it’s own kind of education. “Art can teach you profound things,” he tells me as he works on a beat. “Even about yourself.” For Lwandle, creating hip hop can be a way to examine your emotions and make sense of them. It’s also a way to vent — but Lwandle jokingly points out that he makes sure not to release any of his more emotionally-charged projects. He’s not the kind of artist who’d drop a brokenhearted track like 21 Savage’s ‘X’ or Kanye’s ‘Heartless’.
The writer Stephen King once said that his art was a support system for his life. That seems to be true of Lwandle’s music too. He describes hip hop as an outlet. “You can say more through music than you ever could through words,” Lwandle explains. “There are some things you can’t tell people. But with music, you can make them feel it.”
For Lwandle, making hip hop helps him cope with life’s challenges. And he doesn’t seem to be the only one. He says that producing music helps many of his fellow local artists too. For these young Grahamstown musicians, rap has become a way to turn frustration into something valuable, or even just take their mind off their worries for a while. “It’s all about the energy.”
Rap has its roots in resistance. Chuck D of Public Enemy called it black America’s CNN. And while the genre might not have such a political dimension in South Africa anymore, it still serves as a platform for the youth to speak truth to power, make sense of their situation, and even feel a little less alone in their struggles. “Hip hop is like having a companion,” Lwandle explains.
Toward the end of interview, I ask Lwandle if he would still make hip hop if his career failed to take off. He thinks about it for a moment.
“Yes,” he finally says. “I don’t do it to chase money or fame. It’s all about putting vibrations in the air. If you don’t, who will ever hear the sounds in your head?”
