Trompie

I never did this in a while, but Imma do this cuz it well deserves to be heard...

Please be on the lookout for Soopa Starz Valentines Special Edition singles

about

Born MMM Mahlangu to an anti-apartheid activist slash bank robber slash playwright father and an entrepreneurial mother, MaliQ had the training of keeping the illusive balance between business and the arts at an early age. And not without a touch of healthy street cred(ibility). After matriculating in 2000 he unwittingly got involved with street hustle types dabbling in fast money but soon pulled out, visited the Sudan for some time and in his own words "came back home/ splitting domes with these ghetto poems". MaliQ describes his style of rap as simply smArt rap. A loving family man, dedicated activist to the cause of "freedom again" and entrepreneur, he insists that his music is just an extension of these roles. Having burst onto the scene as one quarter of the group Ba4za, now recognised as "the original godfathers of of Cap City rap", there is also much to say about MaliQ the serial trendsetter, not least of which is his blog streetsheet.co.za, voted the no.1 hip hop blog by Hype magazine in 2009. To date MaliQ has released two street albums, Official Bootlegs Volume One, which he first tried to modestly dismiss as "a bunch of tracks i put together for the Red Bull Music Academy which I was invited to in Seattle, USA in the summer of 2005". But it was clear to all after receiving raving reviews from critics at home and abroad that this was no ordinary bunch of songs; with the bulk of production done by fellow Cap City beat extrodinaire Nyambz. Then came the unusually titled follow up in 2009, Sleepless in Seattle/ Cap City On My Mind (nominated for Best Mixtape in the Hype Awards 2009), a tribute he says to his love for arts, film and fashion. 2010 saw the final coming together of MaliQ's greatest passions, music and fashion, with the opening of the HHH-ShoP concept store and the recording process of what he promises will be his greatest musical work to date, the magnum opus A Mic & A Dream which you are now holding in your hands. But before that, there's the taster prequel mixtape released online in the form I Have A Dream. Finally the trilogy will be completed in 2011/2012 season in the form of (It Was All) A Dream Differed which will also be backed up by a doccie film tracing the come up of Maliq, the man and the musician. Simply a story that must be told.
And to think it all began in the the dusty township streets of Mamelodi, the New Orleans of South Africa, miming Nas rhymes just trying to pick up girls in junior high school in his teens. Growing up between exile, Mamelodi and in the former apartheid homeland of his native tribe the colourful Ndebeles, his diverse musical and general artistic influence remains a balance between these places- global in influence yet local in relevance. Or is it vis a vis. He's not sure yet, and that doesn't seem to bother him much. In the end, only time will tell if this self-confessed dreamer's dream was just that or a much needed boost to the gospel of street preacher members of an emerging band of young rapper entrepreneurs of all colours and hues determined to put South Africa in its rightful place as a contender in world music and style trends.

Track:

2, 3 & 6 produced by Trompie

Trompie produced, boom bap and Big L sample influenced joint with Il-literate Skillz on the verses:

Back II the streets

Intro: Malcolm X

Hook: Back To The Streets/ What up township/ we need to start a military/

Verse 1: Jimmy Flexx

Back in the parish of dirt bellies, murder rates, alcohol & drug abuse, shoot-to-kill cops, entrepreneurs, fast

living & corner chillin villains looking to rob/ social deviants believe only what's real where they are/ my reality 360 degrees, universal/ systematic oppression by the federal stakeholders, slave owners of the new world, The Take-Over, shape shifters shifty, back at the ranch shit is gritty/ dirty money moving in circles even within the churches, liberation struggle heroes found greed is the new purpose/ party politics & bickering, sickening to the stomach like how these rappers is garbage, somebody take 'em to college. Yeah! or better yet give 'em a job and please bring me black bag i'm tippin trash cans you in a danger zone dead man.

And I'm Flexx man!

Hook: Back To The Streets/ What up township/ we need to start a military/

Tommy Jinxx

Waddup Bitches, niggas, hustlers, killers,… Haven’t heard a hit since thriller/ Live in my hood where they wanna coup d'éta Zille/ Ciphers, zols puff-n-passin bumpin Fela/ Italiano label head-to-toe call me "Speedans!"/ Aim is to celebrate, finger on a trigger/ This is the anthem, bang your damn handguns/ Daughters fakin kidnaps hustling poppa for ransoms/ Take it back to the essence, Radios Wack FM (f-em)/ Lance Stehr bonkers on a track we ghetto ruff’em/ We watchin artists starving like orphans/ Tommy’s marchin forth with Flight Jordans/ Game’s frontliners, cypher freestylers/ Vega-graduated Ogilvy MD she likes Us/ Who dumb enough to doubt Ill Skillz killin boom-bap/ Who knew that whites called

blacks Snoobabs (backwards read as… Baboons).

Artist: Il-literate Skillz

Producer: Trompie

Project: Skillz that pays the billz (bonus track)

Siamese Entertainment 2011 (c)