It was yet another heartbreaking weekend for South African music fans as 28-year-old musician Costa Titch tragically died after collapsing on stage while performing at the Joburg leg of the Ultra Music Festival.
The rapper and amapiano star, who was born Constantinos Tsobanoglou, has been one of the leading new voices in African music over the past few years.
Here are five of the biggest moments of his brief yet impactful career:
“Nkalakatha Remix”
After evolving from a dancer into a musician, Costa Titch quickly established himself as one of the top up-and-coming rappers in the country when his hit single, “Nkalakhatha” helped him gain a strong head of steam going into 2020.
Costa followed that up with “Nkalakhatha Remix”, featuring local rap stars AKA and Riky Riky, both of whom have tragically also died over the past year.
The remix quickly became a viral hit and saw Titch explode into a national star.
“Nkalakatha Remix” won Best Collaboration at the South African Hip Hop Awards.
Given its success throughout 2020, it was hardly a surprise that Titch took home the award for Best Collaboration at the South African Hip Hop Awards (SAHHAs) for “Nkalakatha Remix”.
This marked his first ever major award and proved that he was on the right path.
That same year, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Titch released his sprawling debut album, “Made In Africa”.
“Big Flexa” Goes Global
There are few songs that have had a bigger impact in taking amapiano to the world than Titch’s huge, multi platinum-selling single “Big Flexa”.
Since its release in December of 2021, “Big Flexa” has amassed over 15 million streams across Spotify and Apple Music alone.
It has also overtaken “Amanikiniki” as the most viewed amapiano music video of all-time on YouTube and is currently sitting on 45 million views on the platform, which is over 10 million more than “Amanikiniki” in second place.
Diamond Platnumz Collaboration
With “Big Flexa” generating strong airplay around the globe, it was hardly surprising when some of the continent’s biggest acts started to reach out to Titch for collaborations.
The most notable and impactful recent continental collaboration came when he teamed up with Tanzania superstar Diamond Platnumz, who is arguably the biggest act in East Africa, for the anthemic hit single, “Superstar”, last year.
Akon Co-Signs Costa Titch
It’s only been a few months since Titch announced that he’d signed a global recording deal with American-Senegalese musician and entrepreneur Akon’s record label, Konvict Kulture.
Just last month, he put out the first release under this new record deal when he teamed up with Akon, Alfa Kat and Ma Gang Official for the remix to “Big Flexa”.
The video has already passed the one million mark on YouTube and is currently charting is several African countries.