Angie oeh’s rocky journey to fame

The Pretoria girl with the tomboyish hairstyle, tattoos on the face and dirty mouth has taken the music world by storm with her controversial and in-your-face lyrics. The 23-year-old mumble rapper, Angelique Greeff, aka Angie oeh, was born and bred in Pretoria and climbed out of the closet twice.

The first time she came out of the closet was at the age of 16 when she told her mother she was gay. The second time was in December when she recorded her debut song which drew the attention of South African artists such as Jack Parow, Loufi and Fokofpolisiekar.

“I recorded the song inside the cupboard with my cellphone and posted it on TikTok and it went viral,” she says. Greeff describes herself as edgy, gay and on a mission.

“I want to normalise chicks singing about chicks. It was a common thing in America for female rappers to sing about tits and ass. It’s basically gay music but not just for the gays,” she explains. “It is normal for a man to do so, but when I do it, people are like WTF”.

Greeff’s debut single, Dis Jou Wyfie, or That’s Your Bitch, was the first published in December on her TikTok account and went viral with over 600 000 views shortly after. In her short journey to fame, she has already been under fire by hate comments.

“Haters have asked if my mother knew what nonsense I was singing about. There are men saying they will treat me like a man and assault me and rape my mother,” she says.

“Someone else said I was just like Yolandi Visser from Die Antwoord, only dirtier. I don’t see the reference to them.”

Her mother didn’t have a problem with her music, or the tattoo on Greeff’s face. “My mother asked if I had a plan B. This is the plan, this is plan A,” she says. Greeff got her first tattoo at the age of 18, “The sad truth” on her face, and now has 14 tattoos scattered on her body.

The rapper says her tattoos didn’t have any special symbolism and she got it because she thought it was cool.

“The tattoo on my stomach was the most painful one. It was worse than the tattoo on my face. The tattoo on the face was only uncomfortable,” she says.

She says the tattoo on her face motivates her to make it as an artist. “I won’t get a normal job with a tattoo on my face, so I have no choice but to get famous,” she says.

Greeff dreams of breaking into the international music industry and says working with Post Malone would be a dream come true. In high school, Greeff played rugby and dreamed of making it her career. It was during this period that she realised she was gay.

“I was 16 years old when I realised I was gay and told my mother one night. I started crying and she asked me if I was pregnant. And I replied, ‘no mom, I am gay’,” she recalls.

From the start, Greeff’s road to fame has been rocky after she was diagnosed with Sarcomas cancer growing in connective tissue shortly after being “discovered” in December.

“I’m still recovering. It was as big as a baseball when doctors removed it four months ago,” she said.

Angie says her girlfriend supported her emotionally and paid for the operation because she didn’t have medical aid and was waiting to get treatment from Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria.

Greeff says she is looking at expanding her music into other languages. A month after Greeff was discovered, she landed her first gig as the opening act for the band, Fokofpolisiekar, in January. Her mentor, Fokofpolisiekar bassist Wynand Myburgh, said when she opened for them she didn’t even know how a monitor worked.

“At this stage, I use every free minute to create new raps and beats and push up my music streams,” Greeff explains.

She says her biggest inspiration was a woman’s body.

“My music may sound a bit demeaning but it is not all my intention. My idea was to put the gay woman in the spotlight and under a different light,” she says.

– marizkac@citizen.co.za