Meccamind & The Birth Of Swaggaboi MUZIK
Throughout my journey as a writer for VERVE, I’ve encountered so many brilliant talents within the Mother City. This particular interview was somehow different from the rest. I had finally met an artist who had crafted a sound and genre of his own.
Introducing Meccamind, a musician who has been making waves within the Southern hemisphere, capturing the attention of thousands with his distinct sound, titling it ‘Swaggaboi MUZIK”.
I was able to have an in-depth conversation with Meccamind, with the aim of fully understanding how the sound was birthed, the influences behind the sound, and how his journey as a dynamic virtuoso from Bloem to Cape Town has been.
Can you tell us about the early background of Meccamind?
“So my mom is from Kroonstad and my dad is from the Vaal, so they came from pretty small towns, and I lived in Bloem. It was very interesting bro. But my dad is also Malawian.”
“And there were a lot of influences growing up. My dad loved Jazz, he was a big Jazz collector. And my mom loved Reggae back in the day. So it was growing up with Jazz and a lot of alternative Indie music, my dad was into bands and that. That kind of shaped me into moving more towards the left, in terms of what I do.”
“Growing up, I was a very shy kid. But like, in that era of Bloem, I was very observant, and I was always taking notes. That’s why my music sounds the way that it does. Bloem is a very expressive place. The people are very expressive there and it’s because it’s a small town bro. There’s not much to do so you have to entertain yourself. We only have small malls, but there’s not much else. You have to do something. You have to build your swag.”
“So growing up, it was a real ‘swag’ era for me. Bright skinny jeans, Vans Authentic, and that whole wave was the peak of the culture and niggas started rapping around that. And at that time I was part of a skate crew. And they’d be listening to music and you know how it is…we’d end up freestyling and at school, we were freestyling.”
“Eventually I had a whole book of just raps, poems, and ideas. A really close friend of mine found it and read through it and he found it to be really good and told me I should do something with it. I didn’t even know where to start. But yeah, I met the right people at school, I went to the studio, did my first song, and it went crazy. Like really crazy in the city, especially around the Indie scene with all the skaters.”
“Eventually I started doing my own shows in high school at 16. Me and my little sister actually. We started doing our own shows every time it was the holidays. And I was still very shy. I was hiding it from everybody that I rapped. If I had it my way, I would’ve wanted nobody to know, but because it’s such a small town, people found out.”
“And in high school, people surprisingly fucked with the music. I liked that I was doing shit that I wanted to do, and people wanted to listen to it too. I was a very shy and artsy kid, but I was seen as cool. I don’t want to blow my own horn, but I was cool. I was known for being cool and even the older kids loved me because I was cool.”
“So yeah, shit went, I got signed to an independent local brand. I did some shit with them and then I moved to Cape Town.”
So the move from Bloemfontein to Cape Town happened. What was the reasoning behind that location switch?
“I moved to Cape Town for school. But I also needed to get out of Bloem bro. The problem with coming from a small city like that is that it’s easy to hit the ceiling. It’s easy to get comfortable there. And I’m not hating or anything, it just happens and that’s the reality of it.”
“So I wanted to be uncomfortable. And at the same time, I wanted to move to a place where I knew nobody. I was a bit naive, but I also knew that the whole world comes to Cape Town. Anything can happen here. I was hearing things like YoungstaCPT going to Amsterdam and shit like that you know.”
“I wanted to enter that pocket, like the very niche scene. And I felt that niggas here were very open-minded. So that was the reasoning behind me moving here and school of course. And I got to do my first show independently here. It was crazy, and I was helped by the skate community, which were my homies. And people were digging the shows. I was performing and people were liking it.”
“I was working on the mixtape with the label, I dropped it, and it charted bro. It was number 170 on the Hip Hop charts. That was my “Let The Kids Play” mixtape. Yeah, that happened and I ended up doing an independent tour where I went to Bloem and Joburg and came back here. This was only two years ago. I even had a sponsor, so it was all crazy man.“
“But yeah, some shit happened which took a knock out of my confidence…But I started working hard on my next shit. I felt like pushing the boundary. That’s always my thing in everything that I do. We need to push the boundary. Okay you do something and everybody loves it, but go further. I spent two years trying to do that.”
“It’s how we got “Fruit Snax”. That was the first thing I dropped independently without any backing. It was just myself and it went crazy. I’m learning a lot and the shit is going crazy. But I'm still that shy kid.”
I can’t lie…that’s what surprises me about this whole interaction. Over on socials, you seem like a very extroverted character, however I can definitely see how shy and reserved you are. Would you say you have two personas?
“Yeah, I won’t lie. There’s a common misconception about me, but I get it though. And it’s a very big deal about me. It’s the duality. There’s always the opposite of something and once you find the balance, you get powerful.”
“I think that’s also why I’m able to carry myself the way that I do. It’s why I sound the way that I am, which is authentic. I acknowledge and embrace both sides.”
You’re known for crafting your own unique genre called ‘Swagga Boi’ music. What’s the story behind your creation?
“Let me start from the root from where it comes from. It comes from that golden era in Bloem that I mentioned earlier. That era of niggas just showing off. Just being naturally fly, know what I mean?”
“It was from me observing and also trying to put my hand in it. I was trying to form the base of that shit. Now it’s also building on top of that because of other things that I’m listening to like the Jazz, the Rap, and Vybz Kartel. I’m a massive fan of his. That’s one of the influences of Swagga Boi music.”
“The track “Swagga Boi 2k” even has a lot of Dancehall in it. A lot of drums and even the lingo is used for that sound. I built on that, and I swear to God, each year I got more and more comfortable with my skill, and I’d become more comfortable with presenting myself with that. That bled into Swagga Boi…long story short, it’s just me being more and more authentic with myself.”
“My earlier stuff I would rap about things that I was around and things that I would see. I’m still doing that right now but the pen is now more refined and I’m more comfortable. We’re just young players, not gangsters…so I’m gonna rap about what I know: being good-looking, smelling good, and girls. It’s just swag man.”
Cover Art For “Fruit Snax”
So I obviously listened to your more recent work like “Fruit Snax” and “Sb Pack Vol.1”. However, I went back further and listened to your earlier work like your “euphoric expression” and “iridescent Feelings” EP’s that you dropped back in 2017 on Soundcloud. How has your sound evolved from those times?
“Yo shit that’s crazy! That’s terrible man. I hate that shit. Like bro, I’m so embarrassed.”
“You can see the journey but that’s only why I kept it. Like “euphoric expression” was a band that I had in school. That was me, my little sister, another guy who sings, and the producer that I still work with. We were in a band called Soul Blue. Yeah “euphoric expression” was like my first ever project. Like bro I was young, but that shit put me on, and I was 16 at that time.”
“What people don’t know about niggas in Bloem is that there’s real ass hood niggas listening to like Westside Gunn. They be having battle raps. And I feel like if you listen real deep to my music, past the swag rap, you can still hear some of those elements in me. I know how to rap bro. I’m not usually the person who speaks of myself like that, but I know how to rap. That I cannot deny. It feels like the only thing that I’m destined to do.”
“But like yeah, those projects get me so embarrassed. I only kept those out because like you said, it’s really important for people to see the growth. That was a whole different kid though. And I can’t lie, “euphoric expressions” was cool, but I didn’t like it.”
“That’s actually when I vowed to never drop anything that I didn’t like. “Fruit Snax” is my favourite project I’ve released and it’s the proudest I’ve felt with my work.”
One thing I picked up when you mentioned making “Fruit Snax” was being authentic. How important do you believe authenticity is for an artist?
“It’s the BIGGEST thing ever! Whichever artist you look up to and whenever you listen to their interviews, they all use different words…but it all comes down to being authentic.”
“Maybe people will feel some type of way about this, but when you start, you start by wanting to mimic what you’re listening to. That’s when you fall short. And when you fall short, take that thing that you fall short on and do it over and over again. Once you keep doing that, it becomes your style. And that now becomes authenticity.”
“People gravitate towards authenticity. Like my numbers are really good, but they don’t equate to what really happens in the street. That’s because of authenticity. People will come, even the ones you don’t expect will hear your music. Being authentic can open many doors.”
“Especially right now…there’s too many gimmicks. Too many gimmicks, man. So the cheat code is being authentic. And it doesn't take anything from you bro, it takes nothing from you and it’s more rewarding.”
Going back to your own sound ‘Swaggaboi MUZIK” … It’s a whole new sound that I’d think people maybe wouldn’t mess with while others would. Does that worry you at all?
“I honestly concentrate more on the people that fuck with it. I just focus on that.”
“I focus on just that and I try to block out everything else. And not to sound cocky, but I trust it. I trust it so much that I don’t have to worry about that. Like what I’ve heard is people will say they don’t listen to Rap or Hip Hop, but they like it. So that’s why I’m not really worried too much about people’s opinions.”
“I don’t think of the negative things because I don’t even think there will be anything negative about it. Maybe that sounds a bit too cocky, but that’s how it is. If you get it, you get it. I love and I appreciate that more. I gravitate towards that more.”
You speak so passionately about your craft. Can I ask what about it that you’re doing makes you so committed to everything being a creative? Why do you love doing what you’re doing?
“It’s divine man. It doesn’t feel like any kind of mortal feeling. It just feels like I’m supposed to be doing this. It’s my purpose. I’m that delusional right now.”
“I made a promise to myself, and I made a promise to the higher powers. You wouldn’t just put me in this position just for fun. If I didn’t think I could do it, I wouldn’t be doing this. And I love the way it makes me feel when I’m doing it. It’s so rewarding.”
“Most things that make you happy has some sort of come-down, but this doesn't. This is literally the healthiest outlet to me. It's the most divine thing to me ever. That’s why I get mad when people don’t treat it the way it’s supposed to be treated. It doesn’t matter what you do, just respect what you’re doing.”
“So like, I respect it so much because it has given me so much.”
You just got back from your tour. Can you tell us how that whole experience went down?
“Yeah shit man, so the tour actually started last year when “Fruit Snax” dropped. Our first stop was Durban, that was my first time ever performing in Durban. And I won’t lie, that was the first time I ever felt like a celebrity.”
“Niggas were dead-ass wanting me to sign their shit. I was signing posters. So, this was the most proper tour I ever had. The first one was proper, but it was still new. This one was like proper proper. I was making appearances. And my friend Gaps was the one organising the tour and he had me meeting different people, signing posters, making posters, and when it was time for the shows, niggas were actually there.”
“And we had some of the craziest openers there. Names like PEGG from Durban. That nigga is insane. I fuck with him, it was crazy. I even remember Saturday I had a club appearance. I didn’t feel like performing at all and even told them I had forgotten my stick at home. Bro that nigga announced me in the club, they played my song, and people were going crazy.”
“The next day we were at a skate show with a lot of kids and they were telling us how they wanted to come to my show, but their parents wouldn’t allow them to. That was crazy and I ended up chilling at the skatepark telling them about life, taking photos with them, and it was just a crazy experience. And that was only the first stop.”
“The second stop was in Bloem, pulling up back to the hometown. The niggas were excited when we pulled up. It went down at this new cannabis store and the people were singing word for word. I was surprised to realise these guys were actually listening to my tape like that.”
“The next stop was Prime in Joburg. I was scared and nervous as shit bro! I remember because as the day came, the headliner was Marcus Harvey. I had to open for that nigga…I was stressed out of my mind. But that’s when I clocked, I was called here for a reason, so I just did what I was called to do there, and I knew I had to do it well.”
“And when you’re the opener, the crowd are still settling in. But damn bro I killed that shit. The crowd went from sitting down to standing up, singing word for word. I knew I killed that and I lowkey hoped Marcus Harvey saw that. He came on next and I thought Marcus Harvey had a niche following…that guy had the crowd right up to him, cameras in his face, and the crowd was wild. I understood then why he was the headliner.”
“The second show we did by ourselves with our homies. We did it via free RSVP’s. The other event was Prime so we knew the turnout would be a lot. But for this one, we had about 300 RSVP’s that pulled up to the show. I’m not exaggerating, I fucked it up man, cleanly. The show was crazy, and the crowd was again singing my shit word for word…like this tape just dropped bro.”
“The last stop of the tour was in Cape Town. We had to do it at the Skatepark in Paarden Eiland. I just landed the day of the show so I was tired as shit. But we knew we had to do this show though. We got there and I knew I had two choices: not go hard or go hard as fuck…I went hard, bro. I killed it and that was it. The tour was done.”
“But the tour saved my life. I didn’t know people were out there listening. Personally, the social media numbers do not match what I was seeing. I even said it on the intro of “Fruit Snax” when I said, “I’m real life poppin”. In real life, niggas fuck with this shit.”
I guess that leads me into my final question. Originating from the Bloemfontein creative space to now basing yourself in Cape Town, how’s your experience of the Capetonian creative landscape been like?
“Hmmmm…It’s very cliquey bro. Cape Town is too big.”
“The first thing we struggled with was that Cape Town doesn’t have the infrastructure to cultivate these things. Overseas, there are people who are in the same category as me, but it seems bigger that side because they have the infrastructure. They have the venues, they have the magazines, and they’ve got the opportunities.”
“I’d like to think that what’s holding us back is the lack of that. But now the spaces are getting filled. There’s VERVE coming in, and there’s events happening. The consumers in Cape Town are too comfortable with what they know. What’s missing for them is to get out of their comfort zones and explore. You know what I mean?”
“The biggest escape route is Joburg. So instead of just chilling here and maybe try and salvage everything together that’s what creatives think is the next move. So, I think the best change we could do is to strengthen the community. We gotta show up for each other and eventually, we’ll be able to fill these spaces. There’s so much talent in Cape Town so it’s just the infrastructure that needs to improve.”
I was so fascinated with this chat. I recall the second we went our separate ways, I remember reflecting on the whole conversation we had just had and how crazy of a journey Meccamind had been on.
It got me feeling super excited for what else the bright minded musician had prepared for the whole country to witness. Honestly, I’ predicting big things for the young man, and that’s evident throughout his recent releases like “Fruit Snax” and his “Sb Pack Vol.1” alongside the exciting Makwil.
I rate you check out those projects, not only to understand what I’m talking about, but to truly have a better understanding of what ‘Swaggaboi MUZIK’ truly is all about.
