SA rapper‘s collab with Wyclef a hit

Published Feb 5, 2014

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You could call it luck, you could call it being in the right place at the right time. But however you view the reason for local rapper Capsolys and three-time Grammy Award winner Wyclef Jean’s collaboration on the song Firestars, it’s happened and the song is a hit.

On the local scene, Capsolys is a bit of an oddball and rarely collaborates with other artists. He has his own brand of hip hop and a whole different idea for where he wants to take his concepts.

On a business trip to New York City, Capsolys was in the presence of some of Jean’s team members and they struck up a conversation about music.

“I played them a few things I have done in the past, including the songs Africa and Dreams, and they all went ballistic,” said a nonchalant Capsolys who usually goes by the name of Capso.

“They kept on saying I should let Wyclef have a listen because he would love it, but I had my reservations. It was one of those cases where you don’t want to come across as over-eager,” he explained.

But after the rapper had succumbed to the pressure of Jean’s mates, and when Jean came through later on, Capso bit the bullet and pulled out his audio- visual resume for the former Fugees member to listen to.

“You need to understand that this was the guy who led the Fugees and he’s worked with so many artists since. His knows his stuff and I wasn’t sure what he’d think about me.

“He took everything I gave him and played it out there to a room full of people. To my surprise he started nodding in an acknowledging manner and I was really chuffed,” said Capso.

It was not long before Jean expressed an interest in working with Capso on a new song.

“He was like: ‘This is is the stuff that I can work with’, and he asked if we could do a song together and I was like, that’s a no-brainer,” explained Capso.

For him it really was a case of being in the right place at the right time with the right material in hand because chances were very slim that the two artists would ever work together.

“Wyclef has young musicians giving him their demos every day so with that in mind I didn’t want to join those numbers. I know what it is to hustle and be denied so I really didn’t want to knock on that door unless I was meant to. So when it happened that Wyclef liked my music I really felt humbled,” said Capso.

The song, Firestars, was recorded at the Daddy’s House Studio in Manhattan, New York, the same studio that was home to the likes of Notorious B.I.G and Mary J Blige.

 

•  The song is available for download on iTunes.

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