A broad streak of nostalgia always runs through the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, which makes sense since the genre encompasses making the old new.
BACK in the the late ’80s when DJ Ready D was toying with the idea of becoming a hip hop dj, he was thinking of making money and getting the girls.
Now his older self rolls his eyes at his younger self, because it all changed when he met rapper Shaheen (Ariefdien – this is hip hop, everyone goes by their first name) who introduced him to the idea of expressing politics through your creativity.
Today what both Prophets of da City co-founders hold up as a hip hop career highlight is the relationships the music has afforded them with the greater Cape Town community, with both fans and the countless musicians they have helped along the way.
Two original core members, singer Ramone (Dewet) and beatboxer Jazzmo, also join them on the Bassline Stage on Friday night. Along with Shorty Blitz, Woukes, Tebz (Mogale), EJ von Lyrik, Junior Dread and Roger Williams on visuals, they finally bring PoC to the Cape Town International Jazz Festival for the first time.
This will be the first time that Shaheen plays with PoC since 2000. He has just flown in from Toronto, Canada where he is based. The ever-changing line-up of PoC have evolved their approach and sound over the years, as have touring the world and each musician’s individual careers.
“The sound definitely changed, but the good thing about hip hop, it always goes around in circles. At some point what people perceive to be fresh now, always taps into what’s been there since the beginning,” says Ready D.
He believes that PoC has always been linked to jazz, especially considering how they got started: “If I wasn’t exposed to Abdullah Ebrahim, if Shaheen hadn’t pulled that record out one night, I think my music, my outlook, my attitude towards hip hop culture would have been very different.”
As South Africa was going through the throes of political and social change in the early ’90s, PoC reflected that: “There was some sort of energy, I still can’t articulate what it was, that just changed my mindset. Abdullah Ibrahim’s music influenced us greatly and we recorded two songs paying tribute to that,” explained Ready D.
Shaheen explains that what they were doing back then was not only about reflecting what they saw, but also working through what they felt as part of the first generation of local hip hop heads: “So even just coming to terms with what does it mean to create your own aesthetic or identity in relation to what is happening elsewhere in the world, at that time particularly... it was something we could identify with that was deeply rooted in the local. But because it was jazz as well… it also incorporated this history of pre-slavery to apartheid, that we could relate to.”
Being a producer and dj, Ready D is always watching, learning and experi-menting, so come Friday night, while they will reference some of their older work, it will be through a sound that is constantly evolving.