Sit Down With SOLO
So Bongani got to sit down and have a chat with SOLO ahead of his Dreams A Plenty album release, the in depth interview went on for a good 45Mins as SOLO explains the path to this part of his life, from B COMM Accounting to rhyme schemes SOLO answers some questions, below are some of the questions that SOLO answered.
Bongani: So can give us an intro to the people that are yet to know who SOLO is ?
Solo: I did an interview where I was asked what’s the one question I hate? and that was it *chuckles* SOLO is the name we just trying to be break through hip hop artists if not 2014 then 2015 around this time nothing less than a year.
Bongani: When did the project( Dreams A Plenty) start?
Solo: Dreams A Plenty I actually started and pretty much completed Dreams A Plenty end of 2012, with the exception of 2 tracks I did last year because I had time.
Bongani:So tell me who is behind production?
Solo: The bulk of it is a guy by the name of Junior Singo as well as IV League, IV has 4 joints and Junior has 4 so those are my closest that’s essentially my team then there’s V the vow as well as Victory (Vic From Muzart) and Instro.
Bongani: What’s your creative processes behind Dreams A Plenty?
Solo: It’s always a representation of where I am at, at that time and with Dreams A Plenty I had already quit school I was working for a bank even then working was just to fund the music even my employers were aware because i was studying B Comm accounting initially. I also had a learner-ship with Mercantile Bank I was studying and working, I was a very silent dreamer I was studying for my parents, got the learner-ship and started working but all that money was funding the music that was the whole thing , what had happened in my final year final semester I dropped out which was a very conscious decision before I could find myself trapped in it and I always thought I was taking the space of someone that really wants to be here and I’m just here taking up space and not caring.
Bongani: So 4th Of April is there any reason behind that particular date?
Solo: No, I’ve been waiting for this date and had it been sooner i would have put it out sooner, another thing is you can never fight the way things work because had I put it out earlier I would have never put out the Stardust remix. So this date is the right date.
Bongani: So any plans of tours are they national or across borders?
Solo: Yeah national tour is in the works, what I’ve learnt is that you cant follow the same blue print that was used before.
Bongani: Right now music depends on having a whole team it’s no longer just the internet and dropping stuff online, what role do publicists have in this day and age?
Solo: The best way to put this is like this, I am a rapper I’m a writer my whole thing is that they are experts in this field and as a consumer even the idea of a perspective fan see’s wholes in things you do they can be like dope song but that video is OK. So never under estimate a persons craft and that’s what I’ve learnt no one wants to see a brand struggling that applies to publicists managers.
Bongani: So do you feel you have put in your 10 000 hours in your music and in your raps?
Solo: *chuckles* Actually what do you think? but you know what honestly I have like i said my expertise are in writing , but this is the thing I have been doing since high school penning out those stories have always been a thing like through high school cyphers at ghandi I was that dude.
Bongani: What do you feel is the future of South African Hip Hop? A lot of cat’s seem to be in competition and everyone is trying to make it on their own?
Solo: Well we can’t forget that it’s one genre that is built on competition but what we seeing is development of two things initially it being received by consumers, Kabomo was telling me that when Amu was performing all of hip hop would be out there but this was to create the perception of yo this is what the future is and that was the trend but today what you see is today you are allowed to stand on your own and to understand that we at a point where corporates are enticed with the brand of the hip hop artist, then we go to the idea of scarcity , people are like that’s a dope song does that mean i lose money if it does I’m not helping that push, starting off I took such offense to it then I thought it was an ego thing but I realized when you are dealing with cool things and they run effortlessly and the thing about that hip hop is solely cool and everything that’s cool looks effortless and I fell victim to it I thought in 2009 by now I’d be running the game and that’s because i perceived it to be 4-5 moves and I’m a house hold name. I stand by this statement I’m not afraid to compete with any house hold names in the game reason being I’m competing with potentially around 100 000 kids’s trying to break in to the industry so 10 cat’s that are in the industry give me that any day if that’s all I have to deal with. Trying to make it is the realist competition and it comes with the realist reward and you are deserving of the reward if you are able to break down the doors of radio television all these platforms and making money off this.
Bongani: What’s on your playlist on a daily basis?
Solo: My album is most played because I’m constantly studying , like right now I’m working on a new material so just in terms of being creative right now and when I’m working on new stuff i try not listen to a lot of stuff because you will be easily influenced by something you find dope.
Bongani: How many tracks are on the album and is it story line based as in does track one lead to track two?
Solo: Don’t skip through it Listen to it shuffle when you are familiar with it and because it’s a themed album it becomes necessary to listen to the story unfold.
So that’s it from the interview for more on Solo Follow him on twitter @ThisIsSoloSA