A late in depth introduction - part 2

(continued from part 1...)
When I was about 3 years old; my parents, my siblings and I (I’m the last of 5 children) moved up to Johannesburg (also known as Jo’burg, Jozi, J-sec or Egoli) because Mthatha is a small Ruralish town with not a lot of money. Johannesburg is known as the city of gold in South Africa because its where most of the worlds gold comes from* (*random stat im not sure of, lol). It’s also one of the biggest and developed cities in Southern Africa. I grew up in Jo’burg… I know Jo’burg better than I know any other place in the world. I schooled, studied and worked in Jo’burg, but most importantly, I got introduced to Hip hop in Jo’burg. Some racist South Africans say that coloreds are a useless, cultureless race, But I found my Culture in Jo’burg and Hip Hop is my culture. I moved around to every kind of neighborhood in joburg, from ghettos to suburbs to the city. One of the neighborhoods in Jo’bug that I stayed in the longest is a place called Lombardy East (me and other friends from Lombardy called it L.E for short; we called ourselves the L.E boyz hahaha) that’s the place I consider my home base in jo’burg. Lombardy is where “A.I” was formed. I’ve got a lot of friends from Lombardy. My dad stayed in a township near Lombardy East called Alex, so I use to be there a lot as well. My mom and dad divorced soon after moving to Jo’burg. There were money issues, and my dad grew abusive. Its important to note that I love my parents very much. Growing up I also visited Kwa Zulu Natal a lot; specifically Durban and ZuluLand because I have Family there and that’s where my family comes from.

The city of Jo'burg

Me and some of my friends in Lombardy (a few of the "L.E Boyz")

My Culture

Good times in Durban

I went to the University of Johannesburg to study Marketing communication so I could learn how to market myself as a Hip hop Artist. Me and a group of other guys created a group called “Artistic Intelligence” or “A.I” --- it consisted of Dancers and Rappers but we wanted to add all the other elements of Hip hop into the group (Grafiti, DJs, beatboxers etc). The Dancers of A.I have earned themselves a big reputation her in S.A but the Rappers (Me and some other FriendBrothers of mine) haven’t had as much success… we were unwilling to sign contracts that we felt exploited us and that kind of slowed us down because we didn’t have money to record ourselves and we weren’t exactly disciplined. The slowing down kind of demotivated me and the other guys I rap with in the group; now they’ve basically stopped rapping but I’m going to put them back on and motivate them once I’m up coz I aint giving up!!
UJ