south african hip-hop
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Sabelo Mkhabela
Dec. 06, 2017 12:11PM EST
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SA Rapper Lex LaFoy Created a Wild New Style Called 'Honey Bass'

Listen to Lex LaFoy's debut album now.

South African rapper Lex LaFoy has finally released her debut album, Honey Bass.

LaFoy has been part of the Durban hip-hop scene since the mid-2000s. She took her time to evolve, starting out as a poet, before doing some battling. Throughout that time, she changed her name a few times before settling for Lex Lafoy—and she is now ready to share her full story with the world.

'Honey Bass' is a self-created genre LaFoy prefers to refer to her music as. If the music on the album is anything to go by, then honey bass can simply be described as an energetic combination of drum and bass with rap.

The bass lines and kicks pound hard, and the rapper laces them with empowering rhymes about womanhood, motherhood, hustling and other subjects, all with a bubbly personality. Both her English and IsiZulu rapping are on point.

LaFoy described Honey Bass in an interview with The BubbleGum Club two months ago:

"It's about wholeness, it's about confidence, it's about a young woman claiming her own in a space that is so-called predominantly masculine. It's about expression and the freedom of expression. It's also about the balance of the so-called two extremes that some people don't understand. Because I have to overcome my own conflict and my own so-called contradictions to see that no, just as I am is perfect."

Honey Bass has limited features, which means you'll get a full picture of who the rapper really is. iFani appears on the single "Flex," and RubyGold appears on "S.M.Y.N," Fiesta Black appears alongside the latter on "Traces.

The album is entertaining in that the rapper is telling her life story and giving her outlook on her surroundings, but sonically it doesn't take itself too seriously. You are guaranteed to relate, sympathize, and do the booty hop.

Listen to Honey Bass below, and download it here.

south africa south african hip-hop music lex lafoy
Audio
(Youtube)

7 Gengetone Acts You Need to Check Out

The streets speak gengetone: Kenya's gengetone sound is reverberating across East Africa and the world, get to know its main purveyors.

Sailors' "Wamlambez!"Wamlambez!" which roughly translates to "those who lick," is the cry the reverberated round the world, pushing the gengetone sound to the global stage. The response "wamnyonyez" roughly translates to "those who suck" and that should tell you all you need to know about the genre.

Known for its lewd lyrics and repetitive (often call and response) hooks, gengetone makes no apologies for belonging to the streets. First of all, most artists that create gengetone are grouped into bands with a few outliers like Zzero Sufuri riding solo. The songs themselves often feature a multiplicity of voices with screams and crowds coming through as ad libs, adding to this idea that this is definitely "outside" music.

Listening to Odi wa Muranga play with his vocal on the track "Thao" it's easy to think that this is the first, but gengetone fits snuggly in a history of sheng rap based on the kapuka style beat. Kapuka is onomatopoeically named, the beats have that repetitive drum-hat-drum skip that sounds like pu-ka-pu-ka-pu. Artists like Nonini were asking women to come over using this riff long before Ochungulo family told them to stay home if they aren't willing to give it up.

Here's seven gengetone groups worth listening to.

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