MAPANAKI, FAKED OR MADE?

One of the profile pictures from the fake accounts named: 

Charley Falimehang

What's the difference between real street love and faked hype? With latter day technology and digital PR, buying facebook likes has been accepted in the hiphop industry as a marketing strategy, so far I have learned that one can't buy comments. So what do you do, you ask your friends secretly to comment and show love, but fake facebook accounts???

Shocking ain't it? Yes, Mapanaki's PR decided to create fake accounts and show love in forms of facebook comments. A few days after their release of LALA Mapanaki released yet another song, "Problems" which I thought was a good song, in fact I was personally impresed by the second verse. I even commented on the official release post of their official facebook page MAPANAKI. It was only a day or two when a close friend asked me,

    "Moddaw are you aware you are the only one who commented on the Mapanaki post? All those accounts are fake and lifeless."

Knowing which post i had commented on, in disbelief I rushed to facebook and checked it out. And with all disappointment I discovered it was true, I followed each of my fellow commentators to their personal accounts and boom!! All the people that showed positive feed back on the comments on the post were all fake accounts. Going to their walls one learns that all of them have no sign of life, yes, fake facebook accounts with one or two profile pictures and no or one post. Now what do you call this? Faked street acceptance, in simple words, fake love. As it remains Mapanaki couldn't get love from the streets so they faked it.

For your own convenience, check those comments on this OFFICIAL RELEASE POST or go directly to those accounts as listed below.
MOSUOE DLAMINI
MOSUOE MPOPO
CHARLEY FALIMEHANG
BICKS TAOLANA
TUMELO LEBAKAE
BRIAN SUPING
And PULE LESHOELA whose fakeness remains unconfirmed but verysuspiciouss, as it remains, Mapanaki could make the streets love 'em so the faked it!!!

Mapanaki or Rhythm Child?

With so much growth in our small hiphop industry, it is not a rare thing to find crews breaking, either from jealousy, misunderstandings, propaganda and basically anything that would make other crew members feel un-easy around others.

Mapanaki with their manager 

Motheea Mpharoane in the centre.

A few years back a small rap crew made it's name in the streets of Maseru, this streetwise rap crew was called Mapanaki, long before the Mapanaki that you know today, though we cannot state for sure, rumour is; Mapanaki was founded by 24 years old rapper and graphic designer Rethabile Kelane aka Brutal Saint, it was quite a large group of more than five and yet less than 10 rappers. They built a name for themselves to some extend it can be said, with songs like "Buka Le pene" and "Chelete" just to mention a few, but it wasn't long before the crew's foundations and were shaken to the core. In 2016 the crew was rewired thereby giving birth to a new hiphop trio Rhythm Child and leaving behind a weakened Mapanaki. For over two months after the split sparks were seen between the patriotic Mapanaki and "the sell outs", it even went to as far as songs being released to address the matter. As we get it from the streets, the problem came with their then manager Motheea Mpharoane (Still manager of the new Mapanaki) who imposed a new way of running which the alleged founder of the rap group did not approve. It boiled down to a harsh split and ever since then the two teams have not seen eye to eye, while Kelane's hands were full with him tryna run and organise the newly found Rhythm child, Motheea was out working day and night with the remaining Mapanaki to create a better group with or without "The Saint" and his disciples. Today Rhythm Child has become one of the best groups in the country musically, that being said however does not mean we should sleep on Mapanaki, truth be told, they are bringing the best project this year when visuals are concerned, with Motheea being creator of the newly launched LNBS soap "Our Times" you know they have a professional on their side when videos are concerned. 

Rhythm Child: 

Brutal Saint on the far Left

Now here is something amazing, this coming weekend, 16th to 18th June 2017, both crews will  release new songs. Mapanaki are finally releasing their long awaited "Lala" and Rhythm Child is bringing in "New Levels" following their most recent release "Do the Wine". Some say Mapanaki will beat Rhythm Child 10/nil because of their organisation and strong held management, yet; others say Mapanaki is no match for Rhythm Child. You find one crew that has become two crews going on a weighing pan a year later and still people are not sure who has the upper hand. I say all we can do now is wait, not for too long though, tomorrow, we will know once and for all who comes in the hardest. Mapanaki or Rhythm Child??? you will decide. 

I am personally a fan of both squads and no matter the reactions of the society on Friday after hearing the two songs, it's nothing but love from me Moddaw oa Mochini and the rest of The DoubleH266 team. We know where hiphop lives

Pusha Nthoena - PENYA PLAY

Without doubt currently running as Lesotho's most followed hiphop family, Penya Play is home of Malome Vector, Mega Hertz, Kopper waleh and Irysh Da princess. It is also confirmed that Ltweety has become the newest member of this hiphop clique. Speak of the most loved local entertainers and you will be amazed how many people are fans of the Penyaplay King MHz who has made a name for himself with hit singles like Mookho, Dineo Mathaba, and his verses on Malome Vector's song called "khosi" meaning "King" .This time around he brings his whole army and he is taking no prisoners, you have the whole four earlier mentioned members of Penya Play in a beautiful afrocentric rhythm which is a song called "Pusha Nthoena".

Who ever made that beat has my respect, that's not something your everyday producers make, a well mastered beat that sets you right in the middle of jungle Africa, a beautiful piece of art right there. The chorus tells you about how long they have been hustling going place to place "pushing this thing" as the name of the song makes evident, you know it's Vector. Then you have these three "maskateers" exchanging verses on the beat without second thought. The verses then bring you to urban ghetto latter day Africa struggles of tryna make money. Koppah Waleh takes the first blow, it's beautiful, you find a better and improved Koppah, then Irysh Da princess, who I have personally just been aware of, comes in and it's bad, she's truly a natural, what do you say? she's got that Penya Play flavour bad. And then she comes back with a twelve bars long bridge just to make way for the King, Mega Stunna himself.

His first line, "Never re hloloa lekhale" translated as "we will never ever loose" truly shows you how Bosses get in.
And he lands so smoothly on the beat as if it was with so much ease, he even goes back to "Khosi" and rebreaths lines like "Tlama thoto e tiie, ke Maseru mona" which means "Bugle up, this is the city", what more can we ask for? Truth is, it's going to be a while before we find another one like Mega Hertz.

You can download PUSHA NTHOEN

A weekend that set new bars

For almost a month the Lesotho hiphop scene went silent, I remember reading tweets and facebook posts about how the industry had gotten boring. Anticipations were however raised when Snurd, formerly retired Axo-Mind, the long disbanded hiphop crew Mechini announced that they were releasing new music soon. In the begining not all the release dates were set, it only got denser when it got clear that all songs were set to be released on one weekend, 21-23 April 2017.

And yes, this has been one of the most fired weekends in our small industry, bars were set, high bars for that matter. We have come to a time when we can now proudly say we produce world class music.

Wave by Snurd feat T-Mech

This passed weekend Snurd sure took his home city by a WAVE with a song called wave, coproduced by him and Slick. Here is what Snurd had to say about the song,

" This Song was co-produced by myself and Slick. Slick sent the original beat but it was too similar to what I was doing for my later projects,so we tossed the beat around between us to make the sound a bit different. It was ambient at first as opposed to the later trappy sound... The post production was tricky cause I was introducing a different vocal range that required some tug and pull on the vocals (mine). So I handled the overall vocal mixing and arrangement cause I don't trust too many people with my voice and Mech was busy with clients. The beat mix was a joint venture 4 ways, between myself, Mech, RMC, and Slick. Mastering was Mech and RMC, it was also tricky because the mix was hollow and needed warmth and saturation in the mids. So yeah, they handled that quite well... The song moved between 3 engineers, 2 producers, and a listening audit who choose to remain anonymous..."

This song is one dime of a song that features, MIP's number T-Mech who as usual did not disappoint.

Turn You On by Mechini

Of many good songs that hit the fans this past weekend was "Turn You On", produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Nejah, "Turn you on" is Mechini's first single since they announced their reunion in mid March. An international sound this song is, Listening to it takes you strake into the world class music realm while at the same time keeps you grounded in Lesotho. It was Moddaw oa Mochini we spoke to about he song since he works with us and as a result is easy to contact, here his say about their new music.

"You understand that Mechini has not been in action for the past 3 years right? Two of these brothers being Palvo and Lemeke were musically inactive for all these years with the other three pushing solo hustles, I was out making rap songs all this time, Nejah was busy with college work and L-tweety was not even a member of the movement then. So here you have a group of musicians who haven't worked together for a long time. So we had come up with something great, and we had to also challenge ourselves, and only a pretty unusual topic would challenge us, so we went for a sex song, and I think it was the greatest choice we ever made, in what better way can an artist express themselves better than in a love or sex song? We nailed it.

Oouu Yeye by Axo-mind ft L-tweety

In the same weekend but on a Sunday, more worm was put out by our stars, Axomind of KOL productions released song called "OOUU YEYE", produced by Skreambeats an mastered by take Beats, this song is one of the game changing songs from last weekend, it is also an uncountable proof that our game has upped a whole lot since last year, asked about OOUU YEYE
" 'ouu yeye' is a complimentary song like "Oh my god" like the chorus as it says, i'm counting up this money like Oouu yeye, so i'm counting this money like oh my God, now they wannna ride with me, oh my God, substitute Oh my God for Oouu yeye, that's what it is, aint nothing more to it, like you get surprised that people been watching me from the start, they ain't even supported me, people that ain't even been around me, now they wanna be around me because i'm with people that are actually helping me elevate people that are motivating me and directing me into some proper positions, now they wanna ride with me, these girls wanna ride with me, oh my God, you know what i'm saying? That's the whole concept of the song, but then at the same time it tutors rappers that you guys are in the wrong lane, this is the right lane, you know what i'm saying? Word"

After hearing these three songs we can now proudly say, we have news bars set, we can sound as any international artist, with songs like this, one can't help it but wonder what the Ultimate Music Awards will be like.

Download all these songs herehere;

Wave by Snurd ft T-mech
Turn You On by Mechini
Oouu Yeye by Axomind

24, Malome Vector's new Album ready for Shelves

The Khosi hit maker has more to say, he is yet to show it wasn't by luck that he made hits these past years, one of our bloggers at DoubleH266 had quite a lengthy chat with Mr Skelekeqe. 

24 years old Malome Vector born Bokang 'Moleli at Mangopoeng Roma has an album coming up, a multi-genre compilation which he says tells the story of his life Journey, named after the number of the years he has lived, 24 is Malome Vector's debut studio album after multiple feature appearances and single releases including Khosi Feat. Mega Hertz and Skelekeqe. A beautiful work of art to say, holding over 12 songs, you have an album that features some of Lesotho's most talented musicians like Mega Hertz , Sadon, Stlofa, Number 35, Feb Mosotho and Arc Flow. But as any music lover or student would tell you, rhythm plays a "Major Key" in the music, and for this super work of art you find Vector having opted for Sir EDI, Stunna ( Mega Hertz) and himself as producers, yes it seems every beat on this upcoming Penya Play offer is the work of these gifted producers. Often you find many local artists just recording a song everyday and then they wake one morning and say "I'm dropping an Album in a month" by just compiling what they call the best songs from all their recordings, but Vector is not the type, he sure took his time to nurture a childhood dream, an album called 24.

From this album Vector tells us he has about 14 songs and six of them are solo singles, I have personally never heard him on a solo so you know I will be looking out for these ones. Out of these 14 songs he keeps drawing our attention to a song called "Hlugana nam" which this Roma muso says it tells the story of his life since he began until now, he says it speaks of the Ups and Downs of the journey. As it stands, 24 is destined to be published and distributed by Penya Play, however Vector is very emphatic on the point that he would appreciate finding another company to partner with Penya Play to help him rich his prime through the release of this work of art. It is for this reason that the "Khosi" (King) says his work is desitined for hard copy market distribution alone now. So when you come across 24 in a music store out there; here is one thing you need to know, the image of this album like the cover and all marketing materials and everything visual was created by the same man, multi-talented star in the making is he not? Multi talented yes, after all he has created an album that's Hiphop, RnB, Kwaito, Housetrap and DanceHall trap, what more could we ask for? Nothing really, so prepare to cop yourself a copy as soon as it's released, I advise you listen to a song called Hlugana Nam before anything else. At the end of his interview Vector sincerely displayed gratitude to DoubleH266 for writing about his album, and we are grateful to Vector and all other artists willing to talk with us and help create a better urban music industry in Lesotho.

Hymphatic Thabs at Back To The City HipHop Fest

Back To The City is known to us as the biggest hiphop festival is the whole of southern Africa, this year over 10K hiphop maniacs will gather in Newtown Johannesburg South Africa on the 27th April 2017, performing at this huge festival is almost every established South African rappers. Amongst many performing me here is our very own Hymphatic Thabs.

And here is to one of our flag hoisters, The Hymphatic Thabs -born Thabiso Mohapeloa- Thabs is a mad Giant on the mic, and a clearly cultured rap veteran whose story begins in the mid nineties. Legend says this gifted young Thabs had to move down to Johannesburg due to his activism for hiphop against the system. As if the raw talent was not enough, the Golden city equiped this then young veteran with so much for his hiphop life. I first learned of Thabs when I was in high school as a hiphop todler, i read about him in a South African hiphop magazine Hype.

Winning some awards that none from of our nation has ever won after him, the Album of the Year Hype Award 2007. It was at this time that I learned we were really getting there as Lesotho hiphop. Only in 2012 I seeked his music out and i came accross The Age Of Horus, an album produced by Kanif for Lapetus Records. Truth is there is a story behind all greatness and today we only tell of his latest honoring. This all time underground defender and lover is once again flying the Blue White Greens, this year he is at South Africa's biggest Hiphop Festival #BTTC Back to the City, Taking Place in Newtown Johannesburg South Africa on the 27th April Along side homelander and Metro Awards Nominee Kommanda Obbs, Apolo Brown and Casper Nyovest just to mention a few. Feauring with Zola 7 in The Heritage Back To The City Festival Special Performance this should tell that Thabs is really a guest of honour in this Huge festival. Thisould serve as an example that even our kind can be the my gifted anywhere we all could work on our craft, we saw Kommanda Obbs and J-Cob there last year, i personally was hoping toee morehis year but sadly that was not the case, however Thabs is like 3 rappers and a half, with him and Obbs on the BTTC stages, Lesotho will be well represented.

Green; New Single by Chocolate Soul

Hiphop has become a curse for many of our young these days, more often you find youngsters quitting school ju to try and make it as rappers. It is very rare that one finds a rapper who is a professional in another field in this time age. Yes hiphop is alive and it has never been this alive in Lesotho before, there's not a day that goes by without one seeing a facebook post about either a new song dropping or a certain rapper being "Lesotho's Dopest rapper". As a lover and student of hiphop however; one has to take each and every of these posts and try to understand the reasoning, because truly so much talent has been neglected over the years and this could be a better way of discovering such talent.

Of many of these rappers however there are O'Gs that have been here for a minute, one of this is a Maseru born Gauteng based rapper Chocolate Soul, 30. A few days ago he made a post about him dropping music. And knowing how hard this Yellow beard rapper can go there was no letting this one pass by. Produced By Taks, recorded at Codeine Cool Studios and mastered by MIP, Green is the name of Chocolate Soul's new single. 

A trap song in it's own right, soaked in nothing but bars and wells arranged rhyme. Where i'm from Green can mean three things, either weed, money or the colour Green, in this song you find Choco making reference to all three. "Bottle green sipping on Heineken/rolling green getting high again" in this lines he speaks of green as a colour and as weed selectively, then as you listen to the song he comes back to say "i got green fingers I make grow" and you're certain he is talking about money here. 

Listening carefully to the lyrics one feels reminded that we have specially gifted rappers in Lesotho and we could be against the best of any country and leave em with deep scars. It is very important mention that in 2013-2014 was in his local television prime, there was not a day when his videos didn't play on our national television. Beautiful music videos for that matter, but then snap, everybody forgot about Chocolate Soul, one can only expect bigger things from this mid aged rapper when he says " I rose and fell like a Sea tide, now i'm back to claim what should be mine". With this being said it is quite evident that the video to this beautiful trappial will be nothing but great. 

Props to Taks Beats also, the producer, There's one sweet melody that runs deep in the beat at the chorus, sounds like string to me. Good lord, it makes me one keep throng playing on the chorus part. And then the well mastered 808's and snares, what does one say about a beat like this? Dope.

Green will be available soon. Be sure to check our facebook page HipHop in Lesotho and get the link once it's been given to us.

To have your Single, EP, LP or Album Reviews by DoubleH266 call +26656647868