The artist that I chose this week is YoungstaCPT. YoungstaCPT is a South African rapper and songwriter. The song that caught my attention was “The Cape of Good Hope”. This song touches upon several different issues, both socially and politically. At the beginning of the song, he mentions a little glimpse of his upbringing. It says “I’m coming straight outta Cape Town….Vonnis South Side is nog Wynberg op my kante, I had toys but I always played outside”. Then he fast forwards time to the present where there are problems in the streets way more than there used to be. The specific line says “Nowadays ouens sell drugs on the main road, Looking out for the white man in the blue van”. A couple of lines later he describes himself as living the thug life. These are social concepts that he is rapping about. As for the political view in this song he goes back in time again. Rapping “Colonialism shook us, we got off to a rocky start”. Colonialism changed the whole trajectory of Africa and how everything is run. He then goes to say “ I’ve never seen democracy, Skaap Kraal to Ottery”. The people have yet to witness or be a part of a true democracy. Towards the end of the song, he adds himself to identify with where he came from. The section reads “You can check my area code, it’s my home, oh no, sixteen shots to ya dome, oh yes, we bad to the bone, no it’s not the city of gold, it’s my home. Everything that he has said in the rap is what he has experienced and seen with his own eyes. Whether or not there are political and social problems, doesn’t change the fact that Cape Town is where he came from and grew up.

More YoungstaCPT: @youngstacpt on Instagram