Music
Thato Saul is keeping it old-school
Learn more about Thato Saul, a rapper carving his path through South Africa's hip-hop scene with authenticity, navigating the shifting tides of the digital era while staying true to his roots.
Not a lot of rappers in South Africa can rack up the trophy count at award ceremonies.
Not a lot of rappers can claim to have the best verse on an AKA song. Not a lot of rappers can claim to be the voice of an emerging scene. Yet Thato Saul manages to be all three with ease.
Born and chiselled in the battlegrounds of cyphers,Saul has become one of the most authentic voices to emerge in South Africa’s hip hop scene. His music provides a gripping semi-autobiographical take that gives an insider's look into living in South Africa’s ghettos - a world rife with crime, police brutality, poverty and inequality.
As an artist and student of the game, Saul is dedicated to sustaining the essence of hip hop. Watch his Red Bull 64 Bars episode below:
But the genre is shifting underneath our feet. In the digital,‘catchy-melody-with-a-Tik Tok dance, algorithm-based, playlist placement’ music landscape, a lot of artists have adjusted their strategy to accommodate the climate, often compromising the relationship between the fan and the music.
“Back then, for anyone from our township to become a star, you had to burn a CD with your music on there and hand it out. You had to have every taxi bumping your music and this was pre-digital. Today, there’s been a big change. For me, when I started rapping, I always say that my dad gave me Get Rich Or Die Trying as an introduction to hip hop and you could look at the CD with the bullet hole on the cover. That creates a different feeling and connection [to the music]. The [new] technology has kind of ripped that apart. Sometimes I wish I was from the previous era, I don’t know, maybe I’m an old soul. We need to play our part now, we need to adapt and I’m trying. There’s a different way of promoting and selling now. Things change,” said Saul.
And as much as creative integrity matters to the Pretoria West MC, he is very conscientious that the music business is still a business and therefore, he has to find the sweet spot between remaining true to his artistry while also getting in where he can fit in. And throughout this navigation, it is of utmost importance to him to elevate the SiPitori scene and culture to the point where it becomes more mainstream.
Thato Saul
© Mpumelelo Macu / Red Bull Content Pool
Serendipitously, his music would garner a lot of traction on social media platforms. Never Ride with Mashbeatz went viral on TikTok in 2022 and in the same year, it earned the highest new entry on Spotify’s Top Artists chart after the release of his debut album, Life Is Gangsta.
While he is old school at heart and prefers putting the needle to the vinyl, he does acknowledge that the game needs to be more intentional in using these platforms to further amplify the genre, especially in a country where amapiano reigns as king. However, there needs to be the removal of certain stigmas for that to happen.
Saul explains, “Hip hop culture needs to loosen up a bit. We need to switch it up. If an amapiano artist says that they come from a nice suburb and come from a good background, nothing is happening and it’s completely fine, no one cares. Let a rapper say that. Let a rapper say that they aren’t from the hood or around crime or poverty, it turns around. It’s the same thing with Tik Tok in hip hop. We are limiting ourselves, we can’t use things like Tik Tok as rappers. I have had that challenge. Whenever someone says I should do a TikTok , I say that I’m not doing that. We need to be able to utilise these things to make hip hop big and give it more presence in the game.”
However, despite finding incredible success from the single going viral on Tik Tok, it ended up becoming creatively stifling. So much so that it led to his two-year hiatus from music.
“That song happened unintentionally,” the Big Steppa lyricist explains. “When you do a song like that and it’s on Spotify, on TV and all these things,when it’s time to go back to the studio, there’s a period where you try to recreate that moment because it was so big. No one meant for that song to be big but now your perspective changes and you’re trying to make a song that’s viral and that’s where the conflict happens.I don’t believe in that process.With the two years that I have been quiet, it is one of the things I battled.I had to take some time and get out of that thinking. I wasn’t liking what I was doing and I wasn’t confident in anything. And if I’m not confident and don’t feel good about it then I’d rather not release it and go broke.It was a tough ride but now I feel like I’m there now and I enjoy what I do.”
The introduction of a new technology like AI in music can present new opportunities as well as problems. As a Kendrick Lamar fan, Saul has been closely watching the brewing beef between him and Drake that has cumulated to its current form. The exchange has seen multiple fake AI records made by fans but more notable is Drake employing the technology in his Taylor Made diss track where the record features AI verses in the voice of Tupac and Snoop Dogg. And when one of the biggest acts in the genre has used it, it is only a matter of time before it becomes prominent in hip hop.
“Things have changed now,” says Saul. “‘You can’t even fight change; you have to adapt.
I remember people used to hate Soulja Boy, YouTube rap and that Myspace era. The old G’s from the 90's used to rag on him but they all ended up having to use YouTube. I’m not a fan of it but things are growing and now that AI is in the picture, it will be used even more. And if you don’t adapt with it, you’re gonna be left behind.”
Saul’s sensibilities in music start with the golden age of hip hop of the 90’s and early 2000's. He fell in love with the genre through the sounds of Tupac and Biggie as well local heroes such as PRO, HHP, Killer and Bizmakey. And while these artists have made their mark, from his perspective, the 28-year old believes that the best is yet to come.
“I don’t think there has been a peak. Our scene is still young and I believe that our era will be the peak or that the peak is still coming. Anything that has happened before, all of that for me is the beginning. We’ve been doing this thing for a long time but I can’t even say that there’s been a GOAT in South African hip hop. I don’t believe we’ve had that yet. There’s been greats but we can’t necessarily say there has been a GOAT when one of the criterias for that conversation is time and longevity. One of the things we need to judge things by is time and I don't think we've had enough time,” said Saul.