He’s Here, I Think

From the jump, I knew who I wanted to get for the first TORO Spotlight. A man whom I had only met once, a man I knew more through social media and his music, a man I had never had a complete conversation with, but his words resonated with me in the last four or so years after I “discovered” him. 

It wasn’t particularly difficult to get him on board for the conversation, but it was quite a mundane adventure to get it started. I first reached out to Ukhona on Instagram, initially for a virtual interview, but Neo suggested we do it in person to allow us to get some shots and footage of the conversation. So, we planned it out; I asked Willard to drive with me to Pretoria to shoot the interview on the 15th of August, and that was that.

Then, the day came and Ukhona was out of the province. This is not an easy man to reach, and that’s a good thing. He has a family to take care of, and he knows how to prioritise. We eventually decided to do the interview over a call (and even that came with its own obstacles). It was only on the morning of Thursday the 20th that we were able to get the conversation started.

He tells me he’s been in the North West making clothes, so he’s gonna be out of the province for a while.

Ukhona: Me and my girl are working on a brand together, it’s like an all inclusive brand. We make clothes for all shapes and sizes, all ages. But, we tryna bring a lot of the clothes that we wear to kids, you know, since we have a kid. Since we have a kid and everything, we tryna tailor outfits around family. So, a lot of evening wear, a lot of the stuff we wear formally, we tryna incorporate that into outfits. It’s still a work in progress now, but we got some samples done. We got a few samples done, and we just hope it goes well, but that’s what I’ve been caught up with nowadays. 

We segue into this very magazine and he asks me for a breakdown of what the idea behind TORO is.

Kgotso: I won’t speak for anyone else working with me on the magazine, but my hope for it is a place where we can platform writers and other artists to learn and build their portfolios. Real art has a way of changing the world, and my dream is to do just that: change the world. I don’t want it to be a place for reactionary, protest art in the way of giving so much attention to injustice the way some artists do, but make it a place where we can hope and dream through the art.

Ukhona: You’re not tryna get people to use this platform as a space for retaliation. Like, we do live in crazy times, but I think everybody’s so reactionary, bro.

Kgotso: Yeah, I won’t lie and say that what drove me to start working on this isn’t reactionary at all. There’s just a wave of creatives making things to fit in with what’s marketable enough on social media that we’re not really doing what we want to do, but we’re making what sells.

Ukhona: Yeah, and I feel like not a lot of people get the chance to create stuff that means a lot to them because a lot of what they want to make is being influenced by what they’re seeing. And it’s not a bad thing to be influenced by external stuff, but I feel like the algorithm’s the tastemaker now. And a lot of people we speak to about art, they can’t have a conversation about this stuff, or they can’t go in depth about this stuff without a camera in front of them, because everybody’s so hellbent about their art being relevant to other people before it becomes relevant to them. And the craziest currency of relevancy is on social media. That’s where we learn to become relevant, that’s where we learn to be ourselves. The kids nowadays won’t know what it means to go out and look for what you want, look for what you like. Now you have a dictator in the algorithm, and whatever you seem to like or scroll for, those are the things that are going to be shoved into you.

Kgotso: The algorithm just shows you things related to what you already like so we don’t get to explore and discover stuff you might like, because you just get versions of the same thing.

Ukhona tells me about an event he went to where his close friend and collaborator, Scarface Panda had a “f*cking good set.”

Ukhona: This dude, who everyone knows DJs right now, didn’t know about Panda before was like “Yo, you had a good set. Keep doing what you’re doing. You’ll be up here with us.” That’s like three sentences we took home, like “What?” You know, because there’s two or three things I took from that conversation. Firstly, it’s how everybody’s so pretentious, and they’re doing what they have to do, not what they want to. Secondly, there becomes this caste system in our culture as creatives that separates the person who wants to know more from the person that knows enough. The guys who know enough have put themselves in a room away from the guys tryna find out what’s going on, and you have to audition. I feel like when you’re in Joburg you have to audition for applause, you have to audition for community. It’s rare, not a lot of times you get communities that allow you to ask, allow you to ask. It’s only now you get a Narow-Bi, you get a Kids Love Jazz where people from all different spheres of everywhere  are able to speak about something that means so much to them, able to speak about music, able to talk about the clothes they have on, able to talk about what they do. You don’t get a lot of love like a community like Narow-Bi, and I think that’s what we have a lack of in this country. That’s why that sentence pissed me off so much; it’s because the only reason people ahead of you show love to you is because they see how much you want to do this thing. For me, on that third point, that felt like a threat, you know what I’m saying? You know when somebody threatens you with a condition? Like, they tell you, “Yo, you’re gonna be in that set spot for a while, but keep working, you’re gonna come up to us.” A lot of the times, our OGs in all facets of creative culture have a tendency of limiting us, or doing enough for them. That’s why everybody has to work on what they work on, and you don’t get a lot of creatives bringing their ideas and creating a bigger idea together, because there’s that ego involved. And your ego is so necessary when you step into a room, but your ego will tie you down. Especially when you’re high up.

Kgotso: I like the mention of ego in community, because we’re at a time where people care more about what you can do to them than who you are as a person. It’s a thing of “I don’t wanna be affiliated of you, if you can’t offer me a way up in the industry.”

Ukhona: Exactly. That’s the rat race we signed up for. In every circle of life, you’ll find out that this is how people act, right? But in a community of people where we actually need each other more than anything, you know? There’s no job title, everybody’s here to express something. And the thing about using each other to get up is that the art takes a backseat. And now the skill you have, your portfolio becomes what you step into a door with. If people know you’re able to open an opportunity, everyone’s going to know. We deserve more transparency in situations like these, like if people are only going to view you according to the work you do, and not who you are. If people aren’t going to come to you and try to have a conversation, because not every artist is a cool person. We shouldn’t expect this kumbaya front from every artist. But the way we’ve conducted ourselves for the longest time, it’s been from a place of selfishness, like in a capitalistic sense, I’m in a rat race, and whatever I make has to be relevant. It’s kinda what has people depressed so much in these spaces, because they can’t keep up with the work that they doing. And they don’t take enough time with the work, because if you’re not doing anything and we don’t see it, you don’t have any currency.

Kgotso: Circling back to ego, I believe that to be a great artist, you need to be egotistic to the point of delusion and suffer from impostor syndrome, because that keeps you learning and growing. Do you feel like you’re more confident or skeptical in your work?

Ukhona: I feel like I have a lot to learn because of how much I expose myself to more, you know? I don’t feel like the stuff I should make should be shaped by the current times. So I’m always looking for inspiration; I’m always digging for a new piece that I can add to this puzzle I’m tryna make. I would say that the journey I’m having with creating what I want to, I’m confident in that; but there’s also that impostor syndrome that tells me that I’m not there yet. It’s a constant pendulum swinging between being confident in your work and not being confident in yourself, because that reflects on your work. So I think the more I learn, the more confidence builds for me to attack and really like go where I want to. We live in an age where people wanna know everything about you; they wanna know how you made that song, they wanna know who your friends are – we live in an age of knowing. But I think I need to know myself more than anything, and if I don’t know myself, that won’t reflect well on the stuff I make. The music won’t be confident. The art won’t be confident.

Kgotso: What drives you to keep getting up everyday and making music?

Ukhona: It’s me not knowing what’s gonna happen next. Like me not knowing what the next song’s gonna be; me not knowing how I feel that day. I feel like I’m on this weird journey right now, and it’s so hard to reinvent yourself when you have a kid and you have like a life and people that you have to show up for. All that reinvention is stuff that happens in the moment, and I think that’s the beautiful thing. Not knowing what the next day’s gonna be like, but knowing that the music’s there, knowing that the family’s there, knowing that my friends are there. Knowing that my love for the music is there, and I’m big on that: showing up for what you care about. I do this for my people, I do this for me, I do this for tomorrow.

Neo: Your writing feels very atmospheric and visual throughout your discography; it feels like listening to a movie. If someone had to watch a movie to understand Ukhona, what movie would you suggest they watch?

Ukhona: I’ll give three. I’ll go City of God at one, and then, at two, Kids. Did you watch Kids? You should watch it. We’ll go Happy Feet. Yeah. I relate to Happy Feet actually, so much.

Neo: You obviously write a lot about love and relationships, would you consider yourself a hopeless romantic and what does love mean to you?

Ukhona: I wouldn’t consider myself a hopeless romantic. I would consider myself situationally aware. Maybe because a lot of the stuff I write are based off experience, whether personally or extrapersonally, you know? It’s experience. I’m able to empathise a lot and I think that’s an instrument I use to write songs. I couldn’t write a song about something I didn’t know, so if I know it through someone else or know it through me, it’s easier to write about. I can’t write for an image. Like everything I write about is something I’m very fond of. I’m not a hopeless romantic, it’s just that when someone is going through something, I can empathise and it’s an instrument I use to really glue the stories I put together. Like, a lot of the stuff on BLEU is stuff that either happened to me (or someone else). ‘Cause a lot of people came to me after they heard the album and asked if the girl I’m speaking about on BLEU is the same girl and it’s not. The girl on One More Night is not the girl on Anything. On One More Night, I’m not talking about myself; I had a homie who was in that situation at the time, after he’d broken up with a girl. I didn’t want to highlight the intricacies of their relationship, but I still wanted to touch on the push-and-pull, the tug-of-war that we have in a romantic sense. How we can’t let go of people that we say we should let go of. And I think BLEU is an album with a lot of these themes. The thing I wanted to do with BLEU was I wanted some guys to be like, “Oh shit, I actually been through that.” Like, it’s a lovely project, bruh, I wrote that for the guys.

Neo: Was a career in music always the big dream and as far as you’ve come how close are you to where your 14/15 year old self imagined you’d be?

Ukhona: I was tryna hoop, bro! I mean, I’ve always been tied to music, but I was tryna leave the country to play basketball. I was supposed to leave in 2020, one way ticket to France. COVID hit like two months before I was supposed to leave; my mom was supposed to pay, like, that month, that 20k, that lump sum. But quarantine forced me to reconnect with myself, ‘cause it felt like I was trying my best to get myself disappointed. I was playing at uni and stuff, and sooner or later, it just felt like I was starting to fall out of love with the game. And 2020’s around the time I started recording music seriously. Like, I had songs before, but it was just on SoundCloud as a hobby, we were all making songs. There’s not a year I remember like writing rap, because I was always tapped into poetry. Poetry actually introduced me to starting to rap. I wouldn’t say I always wanted to be a musician; I’d say I’ve always been within music without knowing. Poetry’s like a great gateway, because the premise to me writing is because I was really really good with words as a kid. Outspoken, learning new words and shit, my mom used to buy me a thesaurus. Like I had this yellow and purple thesaurus, and I’d just course through words just to pass the time. I was a part of those cultural like things in primary, and it kinda just put the value in my mind to not stop writing. And puberty, I started writing poetry for girls, I started writing poetry about how I’m feeling; just doing what I gotta do to just write. Without knowing, vele ukuthi, this could actually be crafted into something. We had a music class in primary, I did piano lessons from Grade 5 to Grade 8. It’s been a part of me, bro, my mom did choir, my mom’s a really good singer too, my stepdad’s actually a choir conductor. I’ve had music for a while, so I couldn’t say there was a first time. I’ve just been a part of it. It was just a household thing, like if your mom loved reading, she’d teach you about reading. I heard something about black women carrying culture in black households. We learn a lot about what our moms do and are interested in, because they’re so open about it.

Kgotso: I wanna talk about Sky’s Not Far. That’s my favourite song by you, and I think it speaks a lot to a lot of artists whose dreams and ambitions don’t completely align with their families. Did you ever feel like you’d have to choose between creative expression and family?

Ukhona: I think I’ve been reminded to prioritise. Like my mom has a hold on me, right? But she knows when I love something, I’m not going to stop doing it. Especially when it’s not economically viable. Being from a one parent household most of my life, it’s not easy getting your parents to believe in a hobby. Let’s call it a hobby. It’s not easy to get your parents to invest in a hobby, ‘cause whatever you do after school is important; whatever you do at school is important. So, I wouldn’t say I was forced to choose music, but I was reminded everyday about how f*cked up I am for what I’m doing. But that’s where the premise of the song comes from. I don’t think I was trying to hate on my mom for that, you know? I wouldn’t say my mom doesn’t support my music too, she’s so supportive. But she’s also a result-oriented parent, and that’s like all our parents. All our parents are result-oriented because they want the best for us.

Kgotso: I like the fact that you show no animosity towards your mom in the song, and it’s just like trying to find a balance between doing what you want to do and what she thinks you should be doing.

Ukhona: Yeah, I’m glad it resonated with you like that. I’ve always been against a lot of what my mom was always about, but she’s always found some form of way to understand, so Sky’s Not Far is my way of telling my mom, “Like, dude, I can actually do stuff that you don’t expect me to do, and the sky’s not far in that sense. I could lift off right now, I need a little bit of belief.” But I kinda get where she’s coming from because it’s just one of those crisscross conversations you have with someone where you tryna reason with them but you tryna debate as well. So, I think that song was just a way of me understanding the pressures that come with having to fulfill the dream my mom has had for me her whole life, and wanting to do something I actually wanna do. And that’s like a crossroads a lotta niggas find themselves on, like Happy Feet! That’s why I said I relate to Happy Feet. 

Kgotso: What artists, if any, do you draw inspiration from when you make your music?

Ukhona: Yoh! Where can I start? I’d say Dilla, number one. Now that I’m producing more, J Dilla. I draw a lot from Panda as well, he’s a big inspiration for me. Like, the way he plays his chords is really cool. He’s been teaching me how to program as well, so I think a lot of my influence, soundscape, a lot of that stuff is from him, just reinterpreted. But like, external influences, I listen to a lot of shit, dude. Top of the list, I’d go Fousheé; I love Fousheé. Portraits of Tracy, that’s my shit. The obvious alt things like Steve. I’m also really into jazz and rock music. A lot of African jazz, like Fela, Zim Nqawana, Herbie. Like, it’s just a culmination of a lot of stuff, but if we’re talking about going into producing, it’s like J Dilla, King Krule. More recently,  more than enough like Hiatus Kaiyote, the drums. I’m very into the drums, percussion and all of that shit now. I like it fast and sometimes I like it slow like Yussef Dayes. It’s just a myriad, like Earth Wind and Fire, James Brown (I’m learning how to play the drums because of James Brown – I’m tryna bring funk back). It’s just like a long list. I’m so in love with people who feel the music and who were the music. I’m a big follower of that, like being able to resonate, I resonate with a lot of artists, so I can’t really give you a list. If I had to answer your question, I’d say Black music. D’Angelo, bro, J Dilla, Questlove. Going just down that path, I’m so about Black music, and music in itself is so Black.

Neo: The alternative scene in South Africa in recent years has gained a decent amount of momentum and support. It wasn’t always like this but what would you say was your earliest impression of a South African making alternative music that resonated with you?

Ukhona: Roho. Roho’s my introduction, but if we’re talking earlier influences of someone really doing it different, I’d throw in Okmalumkoolkat. I never really saw people doing it like that. Before the whole Boyz N Bucks thing, I knew about Okmalum..

Neo: That Dirty Paraffin era.

Ukhona: Ekse! The all black black Kat, that was what I was exposed to. Like, the electronic alternative, right? But when I’d say the scene I’m more in tune with now, I’d say Roho was the earliest. For me, no one was doing R&B like that. No one was pouring their heart out on the songs as much and doing it in a way that everybody was so in tune with listening, not streaming. The guys who were listening to Tyson Sybateli earlier on – it was a very Pretoria thing, ‘cause everyone was so Pretoria back then – Phiwo, Miles, all of that. Those guys really just opened my eyes to what beats we could really hop on. Niggas weren’t hopping on those off-time, swing. Niggas weren’t hopping on the percussion, really dope chords, the bounce. Niggas weren’t hopping on that as much as we are now. And there’s this neosoulification of alternative music right now, but, if we’re talking about the roots of this thing, that time was so prevalent to the influence I get. Even the influences around me, like Panda will tell you: Yolophonik, that’s his mecca. Those guys really just exposed us to a lot. There was a considerable amount of kids listening to Frank Ocean, Steve Lacy and Cleo Sol around the time and we were all getting into the same facets of music. But there was also that small group of guys who wanted more; who wanted to see more from their country, see more around them. So, that era of music led a lot of producers to making a lot of the trap beats we were hearing around that Lil Pump and Smokepurpp era, everybody wanted that. But there were those guys who took the backseat, and really listened to all the gems. Like SoundCloud really raised us. That’s why I’ll say Roho, Yolophonik. When somebody from another country asks me what our SoundCloud scene looks like, I’m gonna play them a Roho song, I’m gonna play them a Yolophonik flip, I’m gonna play them a Panda flip. I’m gonna play them some oldies, like there were these cults and small groups of people who’d drop music as a collective and it would just stay up. That was a prevalent culture – the Tumblr era, the SoundCloud era – that kinda raised me, and that’s why my answer will always boil down to Roho.

Neo: What’s the process behind deciding what goes on mainstream DSPs vs SoundCloud?

Ukhona: I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s something that me and Panda, I tickle his brain a lot about it. You know when a space is just not for you anymore and you want your beats to have a longer shelflife. I have so many beats on my laptop, right? But I don’t want to post them on SoundCloud. Not because it’s a community I don’t have respect for anymore, I don’t expect SoundCloud to respect me. What I’m tryna say is that my stuff doesn’t get a lot of reach anymore on SoundCloud ‘cause not a lot of people are using that as the hub for their discovery anymore. Only the real ball-knowers are on SoundCloud, still dropping. And there’s also the upload feature that threw us all off. So you’re limited to a certain amount of uploads as a free user, so you need SoundCloud pro. They tell you it gives you royalties and all of that stuff. I’m not tryna be the monetisation guy, but I hate the politics already since a beat I made on SoundCloud and two people recorded on it. One of them dropped it, and I fell out with the other person who wanted to drop it too. So I can’t go around the licensing things right on SoundCloud, but I also don’t wanna take anything away from it being a place where I can really express my ideas. So, as much as I’ve been out of the loop, in terms of not posting my stuff on SoundCloud and maybe I should, I think we – I think I deserve this platform where I can showcase my music. I think that’s a platform every artist deserves, but I don’t want to feel limited in it. I also wanna drop something knowing I’m not gonna look at it again. I’m one of those guys who have beats lying around, and I’ll only revisit them three months down the line. Or it’ll be lying around in the drive, and then I record an idea, I workshop it – I workshop all of my ideas with Panda – and then we just toggle around the amount of ideas and demos we come up with. I think since my process with making music has become so intricate, because it doesn’t just go from being a demo mix to being a final mix, like there’s so many mixes in between, I feel so scared to drop on SoundCloud. Like I don’t wanna use it as a space for throwaways, because that’s not a word I like to use. I’d like my music to be my music.

Neo: In defense of that though, I would say that SoundCloud is the perfect place to experiment. I feel like you get more of a reception from that with experiments than you would from a Spotify, or an Apple Music.

Ukhona: I think I’ve just been so out of the loop in terms of experimenting so much, that I only really experiment with a physical listen. I would rather send this song to a friend and be like, “What do you think?” But I get you, and I think I’m gonna go chart that down and see how I feel about that for a minute. There’s a lot of stuff I have lying around, I don’t know why if I’m not focused on it, I don’t push that stuff out yet.

Neo: You work with Earldridge and Scarface Panda a lot. How did you meet these guys and for each of them what was the lightbulb moment that made you realise how musically aligned you were?

Ukhona: Me and Panda weren’t boys, but the first time I met him, I was cooking his school at a basketball tournament in Hammanskraal. I was bustin’ they ass, I think I had thirty points that day. That’s the first time I met him, but the first time we really got to connect with the music stuff was 2021. Around the AMIS era, when the stuff was boiling down, I was looking for an escape plan. As much as we were in a group with the AMIS thing, I felt like I was making those projects for them, you know? A lot of the standalone songs I was on, I feel like could have been takes I could have done alone and executed way better in terms of getting it out there and stuff, but that’s not the case. So, I was looking for an escape plan and I hit up Panda on the email, because he was producing for Boris around the time. But a big part of me was like he can do way more than just like the trap beats. He was making trap beats at the time, but they had this bounce to it; you’d just know when it’s a Panda beat. Funny enough when we connected on email, he sent me a beat and that was the beat for Ponder. I got the beat for Ponder in 2021, but I didn’t record anything on it until 2023 or 2022. Then, I sent a demo back to him via email. He really liked the demo, I sent him the stems, and then, yeah, it was wraps after that. On my birthday, I was like, “Let’s have a studio session.” I booked a guest house for a week, and that’s the week we worked on BLEU. We worked on BLEU for seven days; we had Ponder done on the first night, we did Anything on the first night and we did Bipolar Rain. Those are the three songs we built the project around. Me and him have been tight before; I was tighter with his homies like Boris – I knew Boris ‘cause I grew up with him – but I only started to get to know Panda when we’d chill around. Back when he used to smoke, we smoked and all of that shit. And then he plays beats, I’d be like, “Oh shit, this is really cool.” Then when it got to us connecting through email, that’s when we got tight. Then Earldridge, I met Earldridge through Panda. I’ve always listened to Earldridge’s music, and Panda was working with him the time he had produced stuff for ZRi. What’s that project called again? Forever Green, yeah. So, around that time, Earldridge was reaching out to Panda the same way I was reaching out to him, and Panda got some beats from Earldridge. He’d play me some demos, but it was only a year or two down the line, we met at a Narow-Bi and then took this picture together, and then we just started following each other from then. That’s how we all linked, so it’s all through Panda.

Neo: What inspired the name Dartfrogs?

Ukhona: Earl just came to us with the whole thing, bro, he was like, “Guys, I want us to make a group. Three-man, Dartfrogs, and we’re gonna make some really left music, like off-the-wall. Like crazy stuff. People won’t even expect what it sounds like.” So, I think he called it Dartfrogs because of the duality of a dartfrog, how beautiful it looks but like how poisonous it is when you touch it. The concept he had initially was he wanted to make an album confessing how dangerous he is, in terms of, “I could kill y’all niggas. Y’all niggas sleeping on me, I could kill you.” That was the concept, but it just grew into an album of us just talking our shit. Nothing too experimental. I don’t know, Dartfrogs just stuck as well, ‘cause it’s just like three frogs bouncing around.

Neo: Does that mean it’s something we’re gonna hear more of?

Ukhona: Oh, yeah, dude. Dude.

Neo: It’s amazing.

Ukhona: Dude. We’re working on a (part) two. So, the concept behind Dartfrogs was us tryna get the whole alternative scene on a tape, initially. Like, everybody. Everybody, Babble Hume, everybody in the alt scene, my nigga, Yolophonik. Everybody you can think of, we wanted to get them on a tape. NanguEnvy, we squeeze them in. Like, even the off-the-wall features that you wouldn’t expect to get on an alt tape. It would be a dream for us to get a Brotherkupa on some Panda beats because we just can. We tryna do the sequel release every time we tryna get into that mixtape thing. We tryna do the mixtape thing with Dartfrogs, right? So the second one we’re working on, it’s just a reiteration of what we tried to do initially: get everybody we can on. Not tryna squeeze everyone we can in, but people you won’t expect on a tape. We literally got Kasumi on an alt tape, and Kasumi makes beats for Blxckie. We just want it to be this weird flow of collaboration that you just need to take charge of at times. If you hear someone on it, shoot your shot. If it doesn’t land, try somewhere else. I think we really tried to extend our arms in terms of collaboration. I feel like me and Panda are more closed in, and Earl’s the extrovert in terms of tryna get someone on a song or trying to get an opinion on a song or just dropping music whenever he wants to. I think that was just us meeting Earl halfway in terms of that push; he’s always so adamant to drop music every week. He’s always adamant to get an idea done and move on to the next song. So we tried to keep up with Earl with the first Dartfrogs, and I think the second one is gonna blow you away. It’s gonna take some time, but it’s gonna blow you away.

Kgotso: How do you feel about the current order of things where musicians are sort of expected to be content creators, do you feel like you manage well with juggling artistry and content or would you rather do away with the whole concept?

Ukhona: I think, more than enough, it’s necessary. It’s very necessary, and it’s something I need to shake off to feel comfortable with again. I’m from the age of rollouts, bro. Well curated rollouts. Everything I wanna drop, if it doesn’t look good, I’m not gonna drop it.

Neo: In that case, wouldn’t you say the internet elevates that thing: building worlds for rollouts?

Ukhona: Definitely. The internet is the platform for world building. Because everybody conceptualises you through your digital identity. At most times, people perceive your account before they perceive you, and they build a world around you based on what you’ve put out. So yes, the internet is the perfect place for wanting to build your world, but the internet is so fast too. A rollout could stretch from three weeks, back then, or a few months to build up to an album, whereas today, dropping music is the rollout. The rollout is post, it’s not pre. The anticipation is short-lived. The anticipation for your album has to be built through the single, you know? Or it has to be built through the wave of singles that you drop for that album. You know what I’m saying? So everything is just done so post instead of pre, and what messes me up is that, I’ll finish a project and give my energy to the visuals. I’m not the guy who just wants to slap a cover art and get a music video done, and I need to let go of that ‘cause the internet is so fast. I need to let go of wanting to have the right shooter in the room, or wanting to have the right snap taken of this. I need to let go of that, ‘cause people are running. We’re running now. There’s no time for you to wait, or pay. There’s no money or time for you to pay anybody. There’s no time for you to wait to get a music video done, so get your phone out, nigga! You know what I’m saying? You gotta get your phone out and shoot that clip.

Neo: In defense of waiting, I will say, I still go back to a lot of BLEU visual projects more than I do a lot of projects. So, I would say that does help with making projects timeless, so I wouldn’t say let go of it completely.

Ukhona: Definitely, definitely. I don’t wanna let go of it either, that’s something I’m gonna carry so much in a room, right? The fact that I can prime myself behind an idea and stick with it, and follow through with a video, follow through with a cover art, follow through with an item for your fans, follow through with something encrypted, something that gets people going.

Neo: Something to interact with.

Ukhona: Something people can interact with. And now the item is the reel, or the TikTok. That’s the item you’re giving your fanbase. And the item now isn’t something they’re getting, it’s something they need to be convinced by. So, the hook needs to be cliché, number one. Now, my idea is compromised. I’m putting a text on top of this: “I’m your next South African neosoul…” You know what I’m saying?

Kgotso: I don’t like that at all, I can’t lie. The whole “if you like Steve Lacy and Frank Ocean, you’ll love me” thing.

Neo: It gets gimmicky very easily.

Ukhona: Exactly, so I think the place a lot of artists like me and Panda, and Roho sometimes – but I won’t speak for another artist, mostly for me – we need to find a balance between being corny and being reckless. We need to find a balance there, because the corny side of me wants to take two years to make an album, but I also have to get in front of a camera to make five TikToks for this project. So I can’t have one side without having the other. As crazy as it is to say, if you’re in the arts right now, there aren’t any deadlines, but create them for yourself. The only way those deadlines get met sometimes is when your biggest ideas get compromised. You have to think smaller. You might not have access to the best stuff, the craziest stuff. You need time to learn how to make this video. You’ve never shot a music video in your life; now you just bought a tripod and a camera, and you still need to learn. Back to what we were talking about, accepting that you’re ass at something. But also accept the consistency of being ass at it, until it stops feeling like you’re ass. You can pop out when you’re better, but know that when you pop out, you have to pop out the same way everyone else is. You have to be on your Insta, you have to be on your TikTok. I used to take pride in how my Insta looks, but you can’t take pride in it anymore because you’re hungry. You want people to believe in what you believe in. And the scary thing is that belief is not a one way road. It’s a push and pull. So, I hear what you niggas are saying: the gimmicks, you don’t like seeing that. No one likes seeing that, but everyone is so hungry. Everyone wants people to hear what they have to say and, unfortunately, this is what comes with the package. That situation also invites change, ‘cause you’re caught between being the laid back broer who relies on his following for streams or being the guy who actually cares about his work, who doesn’t have enough interactions. We live in the age of interactions and the only way I can get to the people I need to get to right now isn’t by word of mouth. It’s not tangible anymore. So, my ability to learn the times gives me a better platform to learn my audience. I get more exposure adjusting to the times than I do expecting for a miracle to happen. We can’t accept being a mystery anymore, everyone needs to know what you’re about. You need to have pride showing that, and everybody needs to know you have pride in knowing that, “This is what I do.” And we might laugh at artists that are trying their best, and their music might not be great. We laugh at them when we see them up on it, but they’re doing it the way we wanna do it, and the best thing we can do right now is learn from the dudes doing it.

Neo: Is there anyone in the alternative scene that you haven’t worked with you’d like to shout out?

Ukhona: There’s some people that I am working with that I admire; like DoxThe_Maverick. DoxThe_Maverick is insane, you guys should check him out. BABA KUSHI; I’m a big fan of Hurricane Dan Fischer, he’s sick. Mxchael Blue, insane artist, that’s someone I’d like to work with. I got two tracks with Roho now, but I’d say Roho. Who else? I still wanna work with Earl, I feel like we haven’t touched base on what we could work with, we could scratch the surface more. Mimi, Mimi Xama; I’m supposed to make some beats for her, hopefully that goes well. Producers I’d like to work with: Jiggy Stapes. I wanna work with some jazz bands, bro, like I wanna work with live musicians. I’m so in love with LOC*. I’d love to write a song for Babble Hume. There’s a lot of female vocalists too I think could really step up. I love local music; there’s so much local music that people aren’t tapped into, hey?

Kgotso: What drove you and the people you work with to establish your own label, hlthyrec?

Ukhona: Hlthy? Yeah, me and Panda started our own record label, man, a publishing house; we publish our own music now. We’re tryna get our own magazine going, funny enough. We’ll be a blog. So, we’re just using that as a house for us to just get our ideas off. We became sick of relying on people to publish our music, to record our music videos, to edit our cover arts and all the visual coverage, so, me and Panda, we registered our record label as a publishing house. We get to publish our own stuff, and the time we’ve taken from dropping music has been poured into learning how to edit our own videos, creating visual language, creating a language and a protocol for our algorithms; so the way we interact with our audience. All of those intricate details; that’s what we tryna pour into this thing. We’re also so tapped into the research-based part of finding out more about ourselves. We have a list of projects that we’re tryna gun down: we’re tryna build a hi-fi speaker from scratch for the house, and maybe get some sponsorship or some form of certificate to make these customly for people. It’s like a design house. So, Panda’s in architecture, bro. So I grew up around design for a long time. So, we’re building this concept house for everything that we make, whether it’s with our hands or the stuff we hear. We’re tryna build a place where we feel safe, because for the longest time, we’ve given our trust to people that said they’d put a good word in for us and our music will do well, but I’d rather transfer that responsibility to myself. If it doesn’t do good, I know I’ll have to better for the next one. I think a lot of artists deserve independence, especially now when you can pay for it and you’re reliable and responsible for it. It’s so easy for you to get a publishing deal for your label; the information is accessible for you to get your record label registered. If we all had education around how we could monetise and see all the money around us. And not just the money, but like the money, dawg, you know what I’m saying? Because making stuff is cool, but making stuff to post or publish on someone else’s front, you don’t know the intricacies of the system.

Neo: Are there any hard lessons you’ve learnt from being independent and having to do your own stuff?

Ukhona: Don’t sign! Don’t sign. That’s my shit, don’t sign. Publishing deal, especially. Read the fine print, ‘cause they’ll always try to get you. And I haven’t been approached with a big stack or ward of cash, so it’s easy for me to say don’t sign. But I’m not saying don’t sign because you shouldn’t sign, but don’t sign because it looks good. Don’t sign, because the terms may leave you depressed. The terms may leave you not wanting to make music anymore. The minute you tell someone, “I’m going to give you something for this amount of money and if it doesn’t do well, I’m liable.” Like, you have no idea what’s gonna happen tomorrow. The beauty of independence is having control over what happened yesterday, you know? But not having control over what’s gonna happen today. You can change the whole narrative around what it means to be independent. You can be independent and still be taken seriously, bro. So, instead of me saying don’t sign, I’m saying study independence. No matter how long it takes, know how much it’s gonna take for you to do this alone. Know how much help you’re gonna need, and find the right help. You’re better off doing something alone, than with a group. The group builds itself. But for now, the hlthy thing is just me and Panda running it. That’s the lesson I’m learning with this, that my independence is the hugest thing right now, bro. If I don’t have the freedom to not make the song today, then I don’t have the freedom to make a song.

Kgotso: You’ve dabbled in other mediums like art direction and video editing. What’s your process behind that?

Ukhona: Colours, bro. Colours. I like to make sense of things from a referential point, like the way I understand things. It’s a music video I’m directing for Panda, or for myself, I’d like to go into it as a child not knowing what I’m doing. The same way everybody ideates as a child. Like, storyboards; my storyboards look like crap, but I’m gonna draw a storyboard that I can at least explain to the people I’m working with. I’m big on reference, because not only are you paying homage but you’re becoming a part of something that taught you. If I go into shooting a music video or taking a photograph of something that really sticks with a lot of the memories I’ve had as a kid growing up, or a movie I watched as a kid. I’m gonna go into that, like the whole idea behind Anything, part one and part two, that’s my reinterpretation of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. And just being able to put myself in that world or reference that world in a sense to make it my own. Because, there’s this quote that everybody just likes to throw that “great artists steal,” but I think great artists remember. Great artists remember and a big part of us remembering is us being lost because of this whole physical to digital media thing, so the best way to remember the things that raised you and are with you, is to recreate them, to give respect to them, to reinterpret them. So, I’d say my process is based around reinterpreting. Just reinterpreting.

Neo: Just on that point of remembering, I’m a big believer of the future. So how do you think remembering the past would benefit the future?

Ukhona: That’s a great question. I think everybody deserves to know where they came from. I’ll base it more on the aspect of music, ‘cause with the music thing, neh? We are music, because we never really know where it comes from, but there’s always an explanation. People will tell you how much they like something now, but they don’t have the access, knowledge or energy to go into that deep rabbit hole of finding out where this artist came from, what he was listening to. I think Tyler, the Creator’s a great reference for how a culmination of influences can live with and within you. For me, Tyler production-wise, I can cite Roy Ayers, I can cite Pharrell, I can cite Timbaland, I can cite Clipse. With the raps, definitely Clipse, Eminem, funny enough – if you listen to the old Eminem stuff, and listen to the early Wolfgang stuff, it’s sort of impossible not to draw that parallel. So, I think whatever thing you get yourself into, the culture of it is so fast, and knowing more about that is so important to what you interpret of that culture, because you can’t step into a room and move the furniture, but you don’t know how it’s built, or how do know how it looked, you know what I’m saying? To show the clash of times, Mos Def had a conversation with PlaqeuBoyMax, I don’t know what the f*ck that conversation was about, but what are those two people doing in a room together? And Mos Def is telling PlaqueBoyMax, “You need to study great Black artists to be a great Black artist.” So the things you consume as an artist have a way of showing themselves through the work you choose to make. So, if you want your work to be great, you have to be learning great art. Your taste will define great art for you, but how do we reinterpret your taste into the art you want to make? I had a conversation with my partner about how taste now has fallen under this social structure. Today, we live in a time where we can be informed about anything, and your taste can literally go all the way from the 70s to now. It’s all up to the access you have. And almost all of us have the access to learn about old music, and new music, and old music and new music together. I just feel we base our identities so much around the current times, that we lose so much of what the current times are from. So, the reason we would need to inform the future about our past is because so much of what we have going on right now is informed by our past.

Neo: That’s a beautiful answer, bro.

Ukhona: But it’s a beautiful question too, because I don’t think a lot of people are concerned with informing the future. But, more and more, I think we’re going to see artists (in South Africa)  that are using the past to inform the future.

Neo: The current underground wave is testament to that.

Ukhona: Yes, definitely. Definitely, bro. Like, they’re a testament to that because they have a very big understanding of what they’re a part of. And that understanding is informed not just by their phones but the people around them, you know? If you listen to Kupa, you’re gonna listen to Lowski. Or, if you listen to Brady, you’re gonna want more than Brady. It’s a culture that’s uplifting itself right now because, number one, how well they’re reinterpreting what they know already. The trap shit’s been there before them, but they’re so able to reinterpret this at a vast majority, like quality and quantity, they’re doing it on both sides. But we’re traditional, and we don’t accept when something is reinterpreted. We’re more likely to ask questions before or wait for someone who’s not us to do it. There’s literally a Gqom wave growing up in the UK right now.

Neo: And it’s growing at the same time as Piano, that’s what I like. It’s not necessarily that they’re so behind that they’re taking Gqom, it’s that they’re taking the whole South African thing and they’re living in it.

Ukhona: And if we were an uplifting nation, we wouldn’t have question marks around so many artists and genres. A lot of exports we get this side, the Gqom, Amapiano, Bacardi, everybody’s trying to reinterpret that outside. We only realise our worth as South Africans and artists when somebody who doesn’t look like us, who isn’t from where we’re from acknowledges it. And that says a lot.

Kgotso: It’s like we need external validation to realise what we’re doing is good, instead of innately realising that.

Ukhona: And we use the metrics that the people validating us externally are using to make sense of what this form of success means. The dudes out there who are pushing, and it’s not even 1k monthly listeners, but they’re so tapped. Do you guys know MeccaMind?

Kgotso: I love MeccaMind. I loved Volume 2.

Neo: I’m not aware.

Ukhona: Bro. Volume 2? Dawg, jam Volume 2. When we were talking about how we’re able to inform the future, Volume 2 is the perfect case study for that thing. Do you see how he informs the future currently like, “Okay, I’m not using any new sounds, but you’re gonna hear that Kwaito there, you’re gonna hear that Brown Dash, that bounce, but I’m also bringing the drum’n’bass. I’m bringing those electronic influences to the table.” I can hear a bit of the ‘koolkat influence. The pirate era of music, when we were getting our music on ToxicWap and all of that. How you’re able to take that and inform the future of what was going on. Not just then, but with you. We need more artists like that. And as much as they’re not being validated externally, through those metrics, right? They’re so ahead of the curve. You can’t take anything away from an artist who knows exactly what they mean. An artist who doesn’t have to explain themselves to you, and is so dedicated to putting the music out and making sure their point gets across. And MeccaMind is the perfect case study for this. Like, we’ll be talking about this guy like a myth at some point.

Kgotso: Stories around the campfire.

Ukhona: Exactly. Similar to MfanaTouchLine, we could say the same thing. This is South African music. MfanaTouchLine is informing the future about Gqom, about skhothane culture, about Mams, about where this shit really came from, ‘cause I’m from Pretoria, I knew Bacardi before I had to choose subjects, bro. For someone to take something that’s trending, but reinterpret it. We need to start falling in love with artists and the age of reinterpreting and informing the future. 

For more on Ukhona, you can find him on his Instagram @ukh0na and his music is available on all streaming platforms.