SPECIAL FRIDAY: JAB

Who is Jab?

Jab is an upcoming rapper/producer from an east rand located township in Gauteng called Ratanda in Heidelberg.

Jab as a brand represents a South African township culture which is new age kwaito that originated from the 90’s kwaito artist like Mdu, Trompies, TKZ etc. The new age kwaito came to the mainstream scene in 2013 whereby producers sampled old kwaito tracks and rapper’s would rap on those beats then that would be considered as a new age kwaito record.

What separates Jab from the other new age kwaito artist in the mainstream, is the way he composes his beats and the way he delivers his raps. Jab doesn’t sample old kwaito beats, he actually starts the beat from scratch, which will be a standard hip hop arrangement form, but uses kwaito element from your drums to instruments.

He blends that sound with the use of townships slang raps (kasi rap) and poetry which attracts both the mainstream and the underground audience, because his music is rich lyrically but the beats are unique and ear friendly for the dance floor and the mainstream audience.

What separates Jab from his competitors?

Right now in the hip hop mainstream scene, the genre that is selling the most and trending in the streets and mainstream is trap music. Most of the upcoming artist are doing trap music and most superstar in the hip hop scene are doing trap music.

Most of the trap artist we hear on radios don’t last for too long, there usually are ‘’one hit wonders” and fail to reach their primes and maximum their profits by staying relevant and producing multiple hit albums. The main reason why this happens is because they are just too many artist that are doing what the competitors are doing which makes them easier to be replaced. The other factor is that some South Africans that grew up with hip hop don’t appreciate trap music, they find the culture too foreign, and not enough work goes in producing a trap record.

The value that Jab brings in the hip hop scene is that his records are unique. Even thou his taking a risk by the introduction of his new age kwaito, he is unique and does something that no one in the mainstream scene is doing with in his records. 

Jab recently released an EP named "Journey Of A Hustler" be the first one to hear it on the following links below:

Source #1:

 Source #2:

Source #3: