South African singer and rapper, Toya Delazy, forms first South African, all-female rap group, Klutch Kollective.
In early March 2016, Independent Online (IOL) spoke to Delazy about her new route in music. In the interview, Delazy described the group name.
“A clutch is an irreplaceable device in a car or anything that moves with gears. So in a nutshell, for the gears to change for things to move faster or slower you need the clutch, the underlying message there is that we are setting the pace for where hip hop should be headed and switching up the gears,” Delazy explained.
Klutch Kollective is made up of Delazy, DK, Genius and Fiah. DK, Genius and Fiah were contestants on Vuzu’s ‘The Hustle’ in 2015. Genius is even the voice behind SABC’s ‘Encores’ hip hop theme track, as noted in the IOL interview piece.
Delazy has expressed her dissatisfaction with the amount of space for female rappers in the South African music industry, since last year’s South African Hip Hop awards only had two female nominees. This inspired Delazy’s desire to form Klutch Kollective.
In a TimesLive interview, Delazy stated, “I believe Klutch is on par, if not better than, some of our male counterparts.”
Delazy also told TimesLive, “Hip-hop is a worldwide thing and it’s become commercialised and finally, [South African hip-hop] has come into its own.”
This is evident by the 15th annual Metro FM Music Awards’ nominees. The ‘Best Hip Hop Album’ category only included one female nominee, namely Fifi Cooper for her album, 20FIFI. However, the award was lost to fellow nominee, Emtee for his album, Avery.
Additionally, female rappers in South Africa are still up-and-coming. For instance, as highlighted by TimesLive, AKA released a remix of his smash-hit ‘Baddest’ in 2015, which features femcees (female rappers) Nomoozlie, Rouge, Gigi Lamayne and Fifi Cooper. AKA was only heard on the hook of the song. The song ultimately nabbed the ‘Best Collaboration’ award at the 15th annual Metro FM Music Awards. However, on the official Metro FM website, the winner is listed as “AKA ft Burna Boy, Khuli Chana & Yanga with Baddest.”
With regard to female rappers in South Africa, Delazy told TimesLive earlier this month, “It’s not that they haven’t been in the industry, they just haven’t been getting recognised.”
Klutch Kollective has wasted no time and already has a song released on the group’s official SoundCloud account, titled “Back To The Roots”, which talks about taking the Hip Hop genre back to its origins.
In Delazy’s IOL interview in March 2016, she stated, “The song speaks to communities and people told their stories through it. I produced the beat and wrote the chorus. DK, Genius and Fiah wrote their own lyrics telling there journey in a way I haven’t heard in a while. We address a lot of things but what keeps it real is the fact that you can relate with each one yet each story and flow is different.”
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