Meet Pimville’s up & coming rapper Mastafari
She cements her position as a bona fide voice of the next generation in her hit singles Pop Again and Female Joyner
Women in the rap genre do not necessarily have to classify themselves as female rappers, but just as rappers. That was the message from Klipspruit’s upcoming rapper, Mastafari.
The outspoken 18-year-old was speaking to Soweto Urban on the emergence of women in the South African rap scene.
“I think there will be a larger number of women who get into it in the future,” she said.
“But for now there’s a lot more we have to fix, the mentality around being a woman in rap. You know? Why am I a ‘female rapper’? Why can’t I just be a rapper? Those are the things we have to free ourselves from and just make good music.”
Mastafari, real name Bonolo Maboea is steadily making a name for herself in Gauteng’s music scene. Her hard-hitting opinions are backed up by her hard-hitting hitting bars. Now a skilled wordsmith, Maboea’s introduction to rap was inspired by her later father.
“He (father) listened to a lot R&B and a lot Hip-Hop. That’s kind of how I got into it. When he passed on, I think I just sort of dove deeper into it – I started writing for myself and developed a real passion for rap.”
Her first-ever performance in front of a crowd would come at a school cypher battle in 2015.
“I didn’t have any songs of that time so I dropped a freestyle,” she recalled.
“I was nervous, but the positive response I got from the crowd was what got me going and I will always be grateful for that. I’m proud of that moment because I never thought I would do that. For me, that was the moment I decided that I liked doing this and I’m going to go for it.”
Since then, Mastafari has graced plenty of stages and released a string of singles that earned her a Best lyricist award at the 2019 IVP awards. She cements her position as a bona fide voice of the next generation in her hit singles Pop Again where she featured Coolthekidio and Female Joyner which are both available on streaming platforms.
In hopes for the future, she plans to move more into the production side of the scene.
“I want to expand more as an artist, be multi-talented. What a lot of people don’t know is I actually love production more than rapping, and so I’ll probably move into that space a lot more in the future, but we’ll see how things go,” she said.
To ensure that this dream becomes a reality, Mastafari is currently studying towards a Diploma in Media Practices.
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