African street agitation | Babelia
He was born 26 years ago in Limpopo, South Africa, has his own ideas about poetry ("I need poetry to survive emotionally and psychologically, but financially you can not live on it"), photography and styling, and of course music. He has studied in Tanzania, Senegal and the United States. Somehow his artistic concept is close to that of Rosalía (probably the similarities between the refrain of his song 'Going Down' and that of 'Pienso en tu mirá' are pure chance). She lives in Johannesburg and is called Maya Wegerif, although Sho Madjozi is the name with which she is ascending to the altars of gqom, that rogue rhythm, a cousin of other modern South African impulses like kwaito and the digital maskandi .
The word comes from imitating, with the consonants of the Zulu and Xhosa languages, the sound of a drop of water hitting the skin of the drum, but musically it defines a pungent mixture of electronic rave, trap, hip-hop and indigenous music such as isicathamiya (popularized by Ladysmith Black Mambazo), present in the piece 'Changaya', for example, and the mbaqanga (the rhythm of Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens), one of the spices of 'I Mean That'. To understand us: the vibrations that inspired Paul Simon in his South African adventure.
Sho sings and raps in Xitsonga and Swahili, and the album's title gives clues to her aspirations: on the one hand, she reaffirms her status as the first young woman of her ethnic group to succeed; on the other, it strengthens the mixture of musical codes: a mixture that transcends both its region of origin and the African continent. That is why he says that he represents many people and not only within the xitsonga culture. So high does she point out that in 'Wakanda Forever', played with Nigerian rapper Ycee in the alimón, she throws a nod to the film Black Panther . Sho Madjozi connects with neopanafricanism talent, avant-garde and street agitation.
Sho Madjozi Limpopo Champion League. Flourish and Multiply.
