Cassper Nyovest releases ‘Big $pendah’ video

The hip hop star’s latest offering is guaranteed to heat up dance floors, but the song was written with a higher purpose in mind. Timed to coincide with National Savings Month, the track is Nyovest’s attempt to urge South Africans to get wise with their money, to think twice before getting into debt, and prioritise clever saving and investing for the future over flashy spending.

The video is part of the #ConspicuousSaving initiative, a partnership between Nyovest, model and actress Pearl Thusi and financial services company Sanlam to demonstrate the value of being thrifty, taking money seriously, avoiding debt and actively building wealth.

The initiative, which culminates in the release of this video, played out over the course of July through a series of communications that showed that while Thusi and Nyovest may enjoy the finer things in life, they know the value of the rand, hard work and being clever with their money, and they value this above being “conspicuous spenders”.

“We all know a Mr Madumane, the flamboyant guy you never see without a flashy accessory. He spends thousands trying to impress everyone, yet no one is impressed. This attitude is what inspired this song. We need to rethink what’s important to us. We keep spending ourselves poor trying to look rich. We need to realise that you can’t spend yourself rich. Which is why the message of ‘Mr Madumane’ (Big $pendah) is so relevant. South Africans need to realise how they allow society to pressurise them into debt. If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it,” explains Nyovest.

“Sadly, National Savings Month is only one month of the year. But for 12 months of the year, South Africans are bombarded with messages about instant gratification and are lured into spending. They are encouraged to get into debt in order to get what they want immediately – the car, the clothes, shoes, the jewellery, or the watches. We need to change the narrative around money, to start dinner conversations about how our investments are doing or how solid our savings slush funds are, rather than what we have just bought or are planning to buy,” says Fernandez.

“We want to fire up a nation of #ConspicuousSaving to set ourselves on a path of true, lasting wealth creation,” says chief executive of Sanlam Investments in Institutional Business, Cora Fernandez.

Through the #ConspicuousSaving collaboration with Sanlam, Nyovest has already got South Africans talking about changing their conspicuous-spending behaviour. Through his social media profiles during the month of July, Nyovest showed another side of himself, a side focused on saving.

The fans loved him for it.