Nthabi
Nthabi is one of the most recognisable voices in South African hip hop today. She started out in her teens as the only girl free-styling at street corner ciphers with no intention of taking it any further. However, at University, a friend of hers introduced her to Helio, a producer who had worked with legendary South African hip hop record label Outrageous Records and alongside the likes of H2O and Zubz.
Helio put Nthabi in studio in mid-2004. She recorded a host of tracks, which included Reality Check, Who's That Chick and Club People. These tracks were subsequently featured on the Hype Sessions compilations; CDs that accompany the only hip hop magazine in the country. Her track Who's That Chick was on Metro FM's hip hop show Rhyme n' Reason's local top 10 for over two months.
In April 2006 Nthabi won the first session of Y-FM's Rap-activity Jam contest. She was then featured on the Y-Fm Extreme Zone at the Rand Easter Show in 2005 and 2006 and she keeps herself on her toes by performing at events like SlagHuis and Splash Jam Sundays. She is also part of the University of Johannesburg's hip hop society. In early 2006 a visiting student from Canada included her in a documentary about female hip hop artists in South Africa, Counting Heads. The documentary has already been nominated for several awards around the world and was showcased on Women's Day (9 August 2006) by the Imbokodo collective.
In mid-2006 the executive producer at Outrageous records offered Nthabi a recording contract, which made her the first female MC to cut a recording deal with a major record company in South Africa.
She is currently working on an EP to be released in early 2007 and is collaborating with an array of producers, including: BattleKat (Optical Illusion, Zubz, ProVerb); D Mongs (ProVerb, H2O); 37mph (Roy Benjamin, Ishmael, Morafe); and others. This promises to be a true coming-of-age collection and a great sign of what is yet to come from this talented young MC.
